History joins forces with reason in proving that union of church and state is an intolerable evil. The state religions of antiquity were either the agents of political despotism, or themselves, as in Egypt, formed a special despotism under which both rulers and people were crushed to the earth. Since the advent of Christianity, the rule of the church has never failed to bring disaster. The beginning of the calamity is traceable to the reign of the Roman emperor Constantine, sometimes misnamed "The Great." Of many bad emperors, this man stands out conspicuously among the worst. Usurper, liar, perjurer, thief, murderer, and villain in many other regards, he adopted Christianity as a state religion from motives of an unusually crafty policy. So little did his newly professed faith influence his underlying character, that his crimes of the blackest type continued unabated after his professed conversion. He did not even respect the foundation principles of Christianity sufficiently to become baptized until he lay on his deathbed, when his grossly superstitious mind deluded itself with the fantasy that a few drops of water and a few mumbled incantations would have the magical effect of atoning for a lifetime of infamy, and would carry him straightway into a region of eternal gratification of every desire. During Constantine's reign, organized Christianity began by dividing official honors with the more ancient Roman religion, and ended by usurping the entire authority, and by persecuting those who still clung to the faith of their fathers. Later emperors carried the process still further, ostentatious piety and unbounded corruption going hand in hand, until Rome became a synonym of utter rottenness, and fell an easy prey to the barbarian hordes which poured down from northern Europe.
With the union of church and state under Constantine began a period of mental and moral stagnation, which continued for about ten centuries. It was an anti-millennium, a thousand years of distinctively Christian rule, productive of every conceivable evil, with scarcely a redeeming feature. So black a night settled down on the human race that by common consent the epoch is appropriately known as that of the "Dark Ages." The church was sole master, and independence of thought was visited with torture and death. Persecution, massacre, religious wars without end, and extermination of whole populations and the merciless slaughter of the noblest of the race were its characteristics. Rome, the alleged "holy city," the centre of church power, was a pestilential swamp of vice and crime beyond the ability of words to describe. Not a ray of hope appeared in the blackness until the raising of voices against the extreme control of the church. The human mind refused to remain forever in fetters, and the rising movements of humanism and the renaissance witnessed the beginnings of the great revolt. The Protestant Reformation, an attempt to purify Christianity from within, succeeded in rending the church asunder, but failed to redeem it from the worst of its inherent evils. Its leaders loved religious liberty as little as did their Catholic rivals. Calvinism proved to be as ready to murder in the name of God as ever Romanism has been. Persecution of heretics, witch-hunting and the oppression of the whole people for the profit of ecclesiasticism went merrily on in all lands. The gradual fading out of these horrors has been brought about step by step by no other agency than by the gradual emancipation of the state from the clutches of the church.
RELIGIOUS LIBERTY THE TEST OF PROGRESS.
Looking around the world today, it is easy to measure the progress of the different peoples by the degree in which they have attained religious liberty. The strictly Catholic countries, where least light has penetrated, and where the right of the church to control the lawmaking power and to dominate public education has been longest recognized, are precisely those most backward in all the essentials of civilization; and in each of these lands, any uprising of the people on behalf of liberty and progress is invariably accompanied by an open war against the special privileges of the church. Thus France and Portugal have found it impossible to win and hold their fundamental liberties except by shaking off the ecclesiastical yoke; and in these lands the clerical element is foremost in the evil work of plotting the restoration of the monarchy and the annihilation of the rights of man. In Mexico, the priesthood has been fully recognized as the most deadly enemy of the people. In Spain, the founder of secular education, Francisco Ferrer, was brutally murdered at the behest of the clerics; and their associates in this and every land have not ceased to spread abroad lies that are intended to blacken his memory and to excuse his assassins. The anti-clerical and republican movements in Spain and Italy go hand in hand.
The United States of America started right in theory, although it has not been always firm and loyal to the democratic principle. Observing the evils of a state church, as they had existed in Europe and in the American colonies, our forefathers wisely incorporated into the federal Constitution strong provisions intended to save our land from religious tyranny. By this fundamental document, the right of political organization is expressly derived from the people, and not from any supposed divine sanction. No recognition of any religious doctrine appears anywhere in the instrument. To make perfectly clear the democratic purpose of the Constitution, a bill of rights, consisting of eleven amendments, was added as a condition of the ratification of the instrument by the original states. To the eternal honor of the framers of this bill of rights, the first words of its first article are: "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof." The Constitution itself contains the no less highly significant clause: "No religious test shall ever be required as a qualification to any office or public trust under the United States."
The various state constitutions, while not so thoroughly and consistently secularistic as the fundamental document of the nation, in practically every instance contain a general provision guaranteeing religious liberty. The legislatures and courts have often enough betrayed their trust, and have imposed on the people of the respective states measures of the grossest unconstitutionality and of the most shocking disregard of private right in this regard. Rarely, however, is warrant to be found in a state constitution for legislation looking toward the patronage of any form of religion by the state. The numerous existing encroachments on our liberties are as unlawful as they are immoral.
* For a fuller discussion of the principles of Secularism
(the democratic doctrine of absolute separation of church
and state) and of improper religious legislation in this
country, see "The American Secular Union" (J. F. Morton,
Jr., 5 cents), "Christian Sabbath" (J. E. Remsburg, 3
cents), "Congress and Sunday Laws" (3 cents), "The Fourth
Demand" (Woolsey Teller, 10 cents). All for tale by The
Truth Seeker Co.
THE PEOPLE GREATER THAN ANY CONSTITUTION.
Even were the facts otherwise, democracy is greater than any constitution; and its vital principles would remain valid. From a democratic point of view, the state has no right to impose any religious observance on a single individual, nor to limit any of his actions in accordance with the doctrines of any religion; it has no right to appropriate a single cent of public money for any religious purpose, nor to cast its moral influence for or against any religion or religious sect. Its plain duty toward all forms of opinion concerning religion is to maintain a perfect neutrality, and to treat all citizens on a plane of absolute equality in this respect. The state is officially neither Christian nor anti-Christian. It is simply an organization of individuals for mutual protection and for the more effective forwarding of their strictly collective aims and interests, which are exclusively secular. The moment it passes beyond these boundaries, its actions become ultra vires and tyrannical.
As already shown, nothing can be more completely and essentially a private matter than religion. Where the beliefs, words or acts of an individual do not affect the equal rights of any of his fellows, singly or collectively, the state can under no legitimate pretext interfere with them. Not only may it not interfere with the free exercise of any form of religious worship or the performance of any religious acts not properly prohibited on grounds of public policy independent of their connection with religion, but it is guilty of a flagrant denial of equal justice, if it shows the slightest partiality to any form of religious or anti-religious belief, or practices any discrimination against any such. It has no right to help or encourage any or all forms of religion, any more than to hamper or discourage them. The one thing to which they are all, from Roman Catholicism to Atheism, entitled to receive from the state on precisely equal terms, is protection in the peaceable exercise of their rights, involving full liberty to spread their respective doctrines at their own cost. No honest cult would ask for more, and no self-respecting school of thought would accept less. Whether any particular religion or religion as a whole thrives or decays, is none of the state's business. All it has to do is to give a free field to all, and let them succeed or fail in proportion to their own merits and their ability to convince men and women of their truth and of their claim to support at the hands of individuals.