The BIG Lie: "Separation of Church and State" (Part 11)

Author: Andy Woods
Date Written: April 4, 2014
From the archive of thewordonpolitics.com

In the last ten posts, we have presented a series on the "separation between church and state" supposedly found in the First Amendment. It is because of this phrase, which was first introduced into the fabric of our culture through errant Supreme Court decisions of the early 1960’s, that city councils are sued for placing manger scenes on the steps of city hall, public schools are prohibited from teaching scientific creationism alongside evolution, copies of the Ten Commandments are stricken from government walls, teacher-led prayer and Bible reading is prohibited in public schools, and Christianity has generally been purged from public life.   We noted that we can trace the origin of the modern understanding and application of separation between church and state to the following two Supreme Court decisions of the early 1960’s: Engle v. Vitale and School District of Abington Township v. Schempp. Yet, an honest appraisal of these decisions shows them to be out of harmony with the vision of the Constitution’s authors. The purpose of this series of posts is to demonstrate how out-of-step these decisions are with the express wishes of America’s founding fathers. This purpose has been accomplished through a consideration of nine historical and legal facts.   First, we observed that the words “separation between church and state” never appear in the actual wording of the First Amendment. The so-called "separation between church and state" terminology was not part of America's foundation and was never even used to limit Christian expression in government until after most of our nation's history had already transpired. Second, we noted that although Thomas Jefferson later used the phrase in a private correspondence, he actually used the phrase “wall of separation of church and state” as a one-way wall preventing the government from interfering with Christianity rather than preventing Christianity from influencing government. Third, the legal test that is used today to completely separate God from government is inconsistent with the beliefs of the founding fathers whose legislative record demonstrates that they contemplated no such separation. Fourth, the Engle and Schempp courts applied the First Amendment’s prohibition of a government-established religion to religious activity taking place at the state level in spite of the fact that the express wording of the religion clauses of the First Amendment are only a limitation on federal power rather than state power. Fifth, for the Engel and Schempp courts to make the First Amendment applicable to the states through the vehicle of the Fourteenth Amendment they not only ignored the Fourteenth Amendment’s historical context, but it also contradicted the intent of those who drafted the Fourteenth Amendment. Sixth, by banning voluntary prayer in public schools, the Engel court made the radical move of overturning a long-standing tradition in American educational history without citing a single precedent. Seventh, the Engle and Schempp courts reached the decisions that they reached regarding prayer and Bible reading in the schools because of their a priori belief that such activity is psychologically harmful. Eighth, the Engel and Schempp courts seemed to have followed more of a legislative philosophy rather than a judicial philosophy. In our last post, we began our ninth point, which is that the court has been highly selective in terms of which religions are to be removed from government based upon the separation of church and state principle. In this post we will continue our examination of this point.

Neutrality is a myth. If Christianity will not reign supreme as the underlying worldview in public life and education, then another religious worldview will inevitably take its place. Those that seem the most intent to purge Christianity from the public schools have no intention of the schools remaining neutral regarding religion and worldview. Rather, they desire to use these same educational institutions to promulgate an alternative religion or worldview. During the 1972 International Education Seminar, Harvard psychiatrist Chester M. Pierce, speaking as an expert in public education, said:

Every child in America entering school at the age of five is mentally ill because he comes to school with certain allegiances to our founding fathers, toward our elected officials, toward his parents, toward a belief in a supernatural being, and toward the sovereignty of this nation as a separate entity. It's up to you as teachers to make all these sick children well by creating the international child of the future.¹

This is an amazing quote. Basically what Pierce is arguing is that the schools are necessary to erase Christian thinking from the minds of the youth. What Pierce here is openly admitting is that kids come into these schools mentally ill. Why, because they believe in nationalism, and not globalism. They also believe in the principles of America's founding fathers. They are loyal to their parents, to God, and to their own country. Because such thinking is out of harmony with the coming new world order of the future, it is deemed a mental illness. Thus, the goal of public education becomes to reverse this mentality or illness and sickness in people so as to make them compatible with tomorrow's globalism. This assertion and agenda hardly sound neutral.   As we saw in our last post, despite the court’s willingness to violate the intent of the Constitution in removing Christianity from public school classrooms, the same court has shown reluctance toward applying the same standard to pagan religious practices. Although Christianity has been banished from the public schools, New Age practices and Islam have not been given the same level of scrutiny.   One also notices a far more aggressive enforcement of the Separation of Church and State principle whenever conservative Christianity is the target as opposed to liberal Christianity. People are quick to cite the "Separation between Church and State" in order to limit the influence of a member of the “religious right,” such as James Dobson, Pat Robertson or the late Jerry Falwell and James Kennedy, while failing to apply the same standard when the religious figure in question happens to be a member of the “religious left,” such as Al Sharpton, Jesse Jackson, Tony Campolo, Jim Wallis, Jeremiah Wright, or Louis Farrakhan. For example, when leftist religious leaders organized to voice their solidarity behind President Barack Obama’s health care plan,² the usual voices opposing political activity involving conservative religious leaders on Separation of Church and State grounds, such as the ACLU or Americans United for Separation of Church and State or People for the American Way, were inconsistently silent. 

There was similar deafening silence when Catholic and former Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi seemingly appealed to John 1:14 to advance leftist ideology of Obamacare and Amnesty. On May 6 of last year, at a Catholic Community Conference on Capitol Hill, Pelosi said:

They ask me all the time, ‘What is your favorite this? What is your favorite that?...’ And one time, ‘What is your favorite word?’ And I said, ‘My favorite word? That is really easy. My favorite word is the Word, is the Word. And that is everything. It says it all for us. And you know the biblical reference, you know the Gospel reference of the Word. And that Word is, we have to give voice to what that means in terms of public policy that would be in keeping with the values of the Word. The Word. Isn’t it a beautiful word when you think of it? It just covers everything. The Word. Fill it in with anything you want. But, of course, we know it means: ‘The Word was made flesh and dwelt amongst us. And that’s the great mystery of our faith. He will come again. He will come again. So, we have to make sure we’re prepared to answer in this life, or otherwise, as to how we have measured up' (italics added).³ 

Why is it that when the right uses the Bible to promote public policy everyone screams "separation of church and state," but no one does so when members of the religious left also use the Bible to promote public policy?   Such selective enforcement of the Separation of Church and State principle is not only true with New Age, Islam, and Christian leftism, the courts have refused to aggressively enforce the Separation of Church and State doctrine against humanism as we will see in our next post.  

(To Be Continued...)