Necessary Roughness

After all the recent hubbub about the role of morals and religion in government, it struck me as funny (funny like Kurt Vonnegut’s Hocus Pocus, as opposed to funny like Blue Collar Comedy Tour) that the next book in my stack should relate to this topic.

David Limbaugh’s book, Persecution: How Liberals are Waging War Against Christianity is divided into three parts: “The War in Our Public Schools”, “The War for the Public Square”, and “The War in Perspective”. Part I details the removal of Christian reference from school textbooks and school-related activities, replacing them with secularism and advancing other religions. “Public Square” discusses the purging of Christianity from government and government property, state endorsement of non-Christian values, and attacks by Hollywood and the mainstream media. The last part rebuts views currently advanced in our culture as to the influence of Christianity in the shaping of our distinct government.

Mr. Limbaugh’s thesis is that while organizations like the ACLU has used the Establishment clause of our Constitution (”Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion”), to remove Christianity from our history and generally accepted moral values, too often the phrase that follows, the Free Exercise clause (”or prohibiting the free exercise thereof”), is not used enough to curb the state’s prohibition of Christianity from the public sector. Secondly, not only is Christianity being removed, but that government resources are being used to advance religious principles, despite the Establishment clause, that are counter to Christian values.

The book is well-referenced and informative, and it also answered some questions that I had regarding the First Amendment. I had wondered in so many words, “if the First Amendment says, Congress shall make no law, pertaining to the federal government, why are the individual states so compelled to purge religion?” Mr. Limbaugh answers:

But in 1940 in Cantwell v. Connecticut, the Supreme Court held that these prohibitions apply to the state governments as well, through a legal fiction called “incorporation.” In a massive, unconstitutional shift of power, the federal Establishment Clause and Free Exercise Clause were made applicable to the states through incorporation into the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. This meant that the federal government could now prevent the states from “establishing” religion or interfering with its free exercise.

The news is not all bad for Christians: there have been cases where the Free Exercise clause has been used to protect people from contributing NEA dues to causes that don’t agree with the individual donor’s religious values. Schools that have gay clubs have been prevented from banning Christian ones. Companies that have had a Diversity Day have been successfully sued for the wrongful termination of people who don’t participate.

I was not surprised by the preponderance of evidence given in the first two parts; most people have heard about the cases involving school prayer, the Texas case that forbid students leading prayer before school football games, the government funding of Planned Parenthood, and so forth. The third part, though, covers the Christian history of our government, from the Separatists and Puritans and their Mayflower Compact, to the Biblical beliefs espoused in the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution (no surprise given the 29 Anglicans, 16-18 Calvinists, 2 Methodists, 2 Lutherans, 2 Roman Catholics, a Quaker and a Deist), to the Biblical law as foundational to American law, and of course the two religious clauses in the First Amendment. The Northwest Ordinances of 1785 and 1787 specifically provide for the teaching of “religion, morality, and knowledge” to new states such as Ohio. This was information already distilled from American history when I went through high school.

I recommend this book to anyone concerned with religious influences in our government, Christian or otherwise. I especially recommend Part III to those of us under 40 who went through public school’s version of early American history.