An Official State Religion...Are They Serious?

In her current "This Week in God" segment, Rachel Maddow notes that 34% of Americans now favor establishing Christianity as the official religion of the the United States. One wonders whether these individuals have read any of the history of this country at all. If they had, they would understand that the country's founding was very much about establishing a republic that guaranteed freedom of conscience for all citizens.

To accomplish this, the framers of the U.S. Constitution wrote the First Amendment, which comprises both an Establishment Clause and a Free Exercise Clause. The Establishment Clause reads, "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion..." and the Free Exercise Clause, "or prohibiting the free exercise thereof." Thus the government is prohibited from  interfering with anyone's free exercise of the religion of their choice; more to the point at hand, it may not establish an official state religion.

To propose that Congress make Christianity--or any other faith--the state religion of the United States is to negate the nation's founding principles. Those who suggest that we do so would do well to consider what remarkable benefits this experiment in freedom of conscience for all has yielded for so long. The USA is a country in which Christians, Jews, Muslims, atheists and Humanists can live side by side and worship (or not worship) according to the dictates of their individual consciences. The loss of that freedom would be a grievous one.


Copyright 2013 by William K. Ferro
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