Legacy of freedom: Jefferson, Madison and the nation's founders left us church-state separation. Can we keep it? (Special Book Excerpt).

Thomas Jefferson excelled as a political leader and architect of religious liberty, but he was a lousy prophet.

Jefferson once predicted that Unitarianism would become the dominant religion in the United States. He also believed the country would remain a largely agrarian society; he never foresaw the rise of sprawling urban metropolises.

What if Jefferson could see America today--a nation of 270 million people, the world's sole remaining superpower? What would he think?

Jefferson might have a lot to say about American foreign policy, economic strategy and even American popular culture. He would probably also have strong opinions about the state of religious liberty in America. I can't say what he would think about the other issues, but if Jefferson were to look at religious freedom in America today, I believe he would be pleased.

During his lifetime, Jefferson spoke eloquently about the need for religious liberty for all people--not just Christians. He would be delighted to see an America that has welcomed Jews, Muslims, Hindus, Buddhists, Wiccans, non-believers and others. He would be pleased by the diversity among the Christian denominations as well. The Sage of Monticello would be happy to see these groups living side by side in peace.

Jefferson was a strong advocate of the idea that there must never be force or coercion in matters of religion. If you visit the Jefferson Memorial in Washington today, you will see chiseled on the wall a famous quote from Jefferson: "I have sworn upon the altar of God eternal hostility against every form of tyranny over the mind of man."

Jefferson made that statement in reaction against ultra-conservative religious leaders in New England who opposed him politically and opposed his views on church-state separation. Any assertion that Jefferson would find common cause with today's Religious Right is laughable. Not only would Jefferson disagree with Religious Right theology, he would adamantly oppose its political views and agenda. Jefferson would recognize today's Religious Right as the spiritual descendants of the narrow-minded clergy he swore "eternal hostility" against so long ago. He would treat the Religious Right with similar disdain.

Unfortunately, too many American political leaders today, while pretending to honor Jefferson's legacy in speeches, labor to tear it down through their actions. Jefferson's wall of separation is under assault--and not just from the Religious Right. Political leaders and judges have joined the attack.

Jefferson was the author of the Declaration of Independence, one of the greatest testaments to human liberty ever penned. More than 220 years after it was written, the Declaration still inspires oppressed people today. If that was all Jefferson had ever done, his name would still ring down through the ages--but of course he did much more: Jefferson served as ambassador to France, governor of Virginia and president of the United States. He founded the University of Virginia and authored Virginia's Statute for Religious Liberty.

Jefferson was a prodigious thinker with an innate curiosity about the world around him. He was a man of keen intellect. Religious freedom undergirded by the separation of church and state is just one of his legacies to the American people.

Attacks on separation of church and state assail the legacy of James Madison as well. Madison is one of the most important founders, but his contributions are often overlooked and tend to be overshadowed by his less-than successful presidency.

Jefferson could write quite eloquently about religious freedom and the need for church-state separation, but in many ways it was Madison who perfected the concept. Madison's prose in the Memorial and Remonstrance--his famous attack on church taxes in Virginia--is workmanlike and to the point. It's less flowery than what Jefferson would have penned. But Madison's words did the trick and turned back a dangerous bill. In this and other instances, we see with Jefferson and Madison evidence of a powerful partnership--the intellectual prowess of Jefferson paired with the parliamentary skills of Madison. Jefferson drafted the Virginia Statute for Religious Liberty, but it was Madison who pushed it through the legislature and made it law.

As president, Madison put church-state separation into action. He vetoed bills that would have allocated federal aid (in the form of surplus land) and even symbolic support for houses of worship. Madison made his thinking clear: Such government assistance to religion, he believed, violated the First Amendment. In the early days of the republic, with the separation doctrine essentially untested, Madison's actions went a long way toward defining the type of relationship between religion and government that would exist in the new nation.

Given their accomplishments, it is difficult to accept the fact that many in the nation have never fully embraced the wisdom of Jefferson and Madison. Public opinion polls often show majorities of people backing things like state-sponsored school prayer, the teaching of creationism in public schools and government display of religious symbols.

Perhaps most discouragingly, surveys have unveiled an uncomfortably high degree of ignorance about the Constitution and the First Amendment. In the fall of 2002, the First Amendment Center, an arm of the Freedom Forum, polled Americans on their attitude toward and knowledge about the First Amendment.

Religious liberty is the first freedom listed in the First Amendment, but this poll found that only 18 percent were aware that religious freedom is even in that amendment. Few people can list all of the freedoms in the First Amendment; fewer still can actually recite its language. Other polls have shown that people do not understand what the Bill of Rights--the first 10 amendments to the Constitution--even is.

When asked about their support for separation of church and state specifically, most people back the concept. However, many seem to have difficulty accepting application of the concept in specific cases.

Also alarming is the fact that some opinion polls have shown that as many as 25 percent--a full quarter of our people--don't agree with the concept of separation of church and state at all. Obviously this is a minority view, but it means that a full quarter of our population, tens of millions of people, don't believe we should separate church and state.

What system, it is fair to ask, are these people prepared to substitute instead? A merger of church and state? Which church? By what mechanism? Unfortunately, public opinion polls are not the proper venue to pose questions like this. Therefore, except for the rantings of extremists like Christian Reconstructionists, who propose a state based on Old Testament law, the questions remain unanswered and we don't know what this 25 percent would do.

Widespread ignorance about the Bill of Rights helps the Religious Right. For example, the Religious Right exploits the low level of knowledge among Americans when it argues that the United States was founded as a "Christian nation." Religious Right groups point to documents like the Northwest Ordinance or even more obscure proclamations that contain religious references. "See!" they say. "This proves America was meant to be Christian!"

What the Religious Right doesn't tell people, and what, tragically, many Americans apparently don't know, is that when it comes to determining what the laws of the United States mean, the only document that matters is the Constitution. The Constitution, a completely secular document, contains no references to God, Jesus or Christianity. It says absolutely nothing about the United States being officially Christian. The Religious Right's constant appeals to documents like the Declaration of Independence, which contains a deistic reference to "the Creator," cloud the issue and make some people believe their rights spring from these other documents. They don't. As important as those other documents are to history, the rights of all Americans are ultimately traced to the Constitution and its amendments, specifically the Bill of Rights. When we talk about separation of church and state and religious freedom, therefore, only one document matters--the Constitution.

In light of this situation--growing hostility to Jefferson's wall and ignorance about the development and meaning of the concept of separation of church and state--it's fair to ask if the idea can survive in the United States.

The short answer is that it is highly likely that the United States will always at least claim to operate under a system of separation of church and state. Assuming that we can continue to fend off school prayer amendments, the First Amendment's religion clauses will not be altered outright or done away with. No official church will be established. Government will never have the power to directly order someone to take part in religion.

The much harder question is determining whether or not the United States will ever adopt a system whereby separation of church and state exists more or less in name only. Under such a system, religion would receive government support for its projects, and government would promote religious belief at every turn. Separation of church and state would be merely a slogan held over from days gone by.

How likely is this to happen? The disturbing answer is that we may be well on the way to it. And, if certain Supreme Court justices had their way, we would already have such a system.

A few examples may be helpful to understand what type of system may be evolving in the United States. Remember, overt forms of church-state union are never likely to prosper in the United States. In Germany, the government deducts money from each worker's wages and turns it over to the religious group of the worker's choosing. Anyone seeking to opt out of the system must appear before a government official and sign a form stating that, for example, he or she is an atheist. A system like this will probably never develop in America. But what's more likely is no better and may in fact be worse.

The Supreme Court has already upheld vouchers for private religious schools. If these plans catch on and spread nationwide, tax money collected from all citizens will be turned over to a select few religious groups. There will be no opt-out mechanism, and the individual taxpayer will be able to do nothing to keep his or her hard-earned dollars from flowing into church coffers. Under such a system, all Americans would pay the equivalent of church taxes.

In Germany, the government is at least up front about what it is doing and offers an out--albeit an inconvenient one--for those who absolutely refuse to participate. In the United States right now, no such out exists to save conscientious objectors from religious taxes in some states. Everyone has to participate.

So-called "faith-based initiatives" will only compound this problem. Some political leaders have proposed spending billions of tax dollars on aid to houses of worship so they can provide a variety of social services--everything from drug and alcohol abuse counseling to job-training programs.

The problem is, many of these church-run programs contain, not surprisingly, large amounts of religion. Participants may be forced to pray, attend religious services or read religious material as a condition of receiving help. In the past, programs like this were funded with money raised through voluntary contributions from people who believed in the religion being taught. With private funds, these programs could be as religious as they wanted to be.

Now some political leaders want to provide tax aid to these programs--even though the church officials who run the programs may require vulnerable people to participate in religion, even though they may refuse to hire people unless they hold certain religious beliefs and even though the programs may be little more than a Bible study posing as a drug-treatment program.

(Of course, some religiously based treatment programs are effective. But the assumption, common among many politicians today, that religious programs are always more effective and always cheaper to run, is simplistic and not backed by objective research data.)

Not only may Americans now be taxed to support religion, but if the Religious Right and some Supreme Court justices have their way, American children may be coerced to take part in religious exercises in public schools. Prayers read daily over the loudspeaker or during school events are considered "voluntary" by some church-state separation foes, even though all students have to listen. There is nothing "voluntary" about a scheme like this. It is nothing less than forced participation in religion, and it is wrong.

At this writing, at least three justices on the Supreme Court would also like to revisit the high court's rulings barring government display of religious symbols and religious codes like the Ten Commandments.

The judicial attack on separation of church and state is always surreptitious, never direct. Even as they are tearing down Jefferson's wall, judges try to pretend that what they are doing comports with the Constitution.

The tragedy is that even as these types of events unfold, Americans will continue to insist that they have all the protections listed in their Constitution--long after they stop following them. The concept of separation of church and state will remain enshrined in our Constitution and praised by our politicians long after it has been drained of all meaning by the courts.

Is this bleak scenario inevitable? Not at all. But it can only be blocked if the Religious Right is stopped and politicians who parrot the Religious Right's view on church-state issues are not permitted to stack our courts with men and women hostile to real religious liberty.

Strategies for saving separation are important, but in the end the concept will not survive unless the American people decide they want it. Right now, we as a nation are failing to make a positive assertion that we do.

Church-state separation has faced difficult tests before. In the early 1960s, when public hysteria over the Supreme Court's school prayer rulings was running high, misguided lawmakers tried to whip up enough outrage to convince Americans that altering the First Amendment was a smart thing to do. Thankfully, enough Americans looked at the situation without the color of fanaticism and brought that misguided drive to a halt. Cooler heads and calmer minds prevailed.

Separation's current test--its prolonged assault by the various forces of ignorance and extremism that constitute the Religious Right--may be its toughest. Certainly, it has been its longest test. But the fight is by no means over, and the fact that the concept has held up under such sustained and relentless attack is cause for optimism.

Americans are a people in transition, constantly working to improve their society and the way it treats all of its members. Any effort at progress will always face stiff opposition from those who would drag our country back to false images of prior times of perfection. Although these times exist only in the minds of those who conjure them up, their hold on the public mind can be powerful. The belief that vexing social problems can be solved through the imposition of a rigid code of morality and state-enforced orthodoxy seduces many Americans.

More enlightened Americans pierce through the haze of distortion and remind us of the hard truths. They tell us it's not that easy and say the difficulties we face in society today cannot be washed away with quick fixes like school prayer or a swift injection of church into state. Rather, these problems must be confronted, at the roots, one by one with a lot of hard work and a spirit of cooperation from a people determined to make things right.

But the latter is not easy to conjure up, and despite our best efforts often exceeds our grasp. So unfortunately, the quest for the quick fix goes on. Separation of church and state continues to receive the blame for somehow creating a society that seems at times to be falling apart instead of what it rightly deserves: praise for holding together a diverse collection of immigrants, people of many different religious faiths, and helping to sculpt them into the most successful society the world has ever known.

Will we lose separation of church and state? Not if we as a people wake up and understand all that's at stake in the current battle. For more than two decades, aggressive, well-funded Religious Right organizations have assailed the church-state wall. As part of their strategy, they have backed politicians at the local, state and national level who have disdain for the separation concept. The Religious Right's ultimate goal is to reshape the federal judiciary and overturn a whole host of church-state rulings that protect religious freedom. This effort is taking a toll. The wall has been weakened and needs defenders.

The legacy of Jefferson and Madison is under threat today as never before. Americans who value this legacy and understand all that it has given our nation need to stand up now and respond to the misinformation and propaganda of the Religious Right. Start today. Nothing less than the future of religious freedom is at stake.

Church & State Assistant Editor Rob Boston's 1993 book, Why the Religious Right Is Wrong About Separation of Church & State, will soon be issued in an expanded and updated second edition.

Designed for the general reader, the book is a history of church-state separation in America. It refutes common Religious Right claims about church-state separation and gives the reader the facts about how the separation principle developed in America and how the courts have applied it. This excerpt from the book examines the future of church-state separation in America.

The second edition of Why the Religious Right Is Wrong will soon be available in bookstores, through online booksellers and from Americans United. See future issues of Church & State for more information.