The Prophetic Faith of Our Fathers, vol. 4

VI. America Achieves Separation of Church and State

It has been well said that the two most profound changes, or revolutions, in the entire history of the Christian church have been, “first, the change of the church, in the fourth century, from a voluntary society having in its membership only those who were members by their own choice, to a society conceived as necessarily coextensive with the civil community and endowed with the power to enforce the adherence of all members of the civil community; second, the reversal of this change,” or the return to persuasion—with that second reversal accomplished in America in the eighteenth century. ²² Sidney E. Mead pertinently lists four key factors as bearing upon the accomplishment ²³ of this “reversal”: PFF4 23.3

Picture 2: COLUMBUS REPORTS TO FERDINAND AND ISABELLA
He recounts the providences of his first voyage to the “Indies,” considering himself to be God’s messenger for the opening of the world to the preaching of the gospel before the end of the age
Page 24

First, no one “right-wing” church could be a dominant majority in Colonial America. “By the time of the Constitutional Convention (1787), it had become clear to them that the only way to get freedom nationally for themselves was to grant it to all others”; thus “these groups cancelled each other out.” ²⁴ And the immense geographical spread of the New World made effective persecution impossible. PFF4 24.1

Second, during and following the Great Awakening of the eighteenth century, left-wing membership increased and there was a shift of emphasis from intellectual belief to personal religious experience, from the sovereign reign of God in the total community, to the reign of God as sovereign in the individual human heart. ²⁵ PFF4 25.1

Third, rationalism had by this time permeated the intellectual classes. Civic leaders like Franklin, Jefferson, and Madison-largely deists—advocated religious liberty on the principle— PFF4 25.2

“that Religion, or the duty which we owe to our Creator, and the manner of discharging it, can be directed only by reason and conviction, not by force or violence; and, therefore, all men are equally entitled to the free exercise of religion, according to the dictates of conscience.” ²⁶ PFF4 25.3

Both deists and left-wing Evangelicals looked upon religion as a personal, individual relationship with God, and the church as a “voluntary society.” ²⁷ The positive movement for the separation of church and state, and for equality of all religious groups before the law, therefore, sprang essentially from the joint activities of the large left-wing Protestant groups, particularly the Baptists and Quakers, along with those of the rationalistic leaders. ²⁸ PFF4 25.4

Fourth, for the first time a group of civil states was to be found where the large majority—90 per cent, says Garrison ere without religious affiliations, ²⁹ yet were largely influenced by the prevailing pietistic left-wing and rationalistic views, together with the rather widespread anticlerical sentiments floating about. And although the Federal declaration for religious freedom did not automatically abolish church establishments in the States, complete religious freedom was achieved in all the States through democracy, religious toleration, and the growth of the “sect” groups which, taken together, clearly outnumbered those of the establishments. ³⁰ PFF4 25.5

In the swift transition period from 1775 to 1800, marked by the Declaration of Independence, the successful Revolution, the consolidation under the Articles of Confederation and the new Constitution, long-cherished ties were severed with parent European churches, and national religious freedom was established, with that peculiarly American phenomenon-an array of varied and independent churches, or “denominations,” equally protected and equally free of governmental support and control. Then came the Great Revival at the turn of the century, and many new trends and developments in the new nation that show the significance of this crucial period in American affairs. PFF4 26.1

As Mead sums it up, “during the Colonial Period several religious groups, transplanted from Europe, meant to perpetuate their European religious patterns in America.” ³¹ But these Old World patterns of uniformity ultimately broke down, in successive steps, from religious toleration to real religious freedom, and eventually to complete separation of church and state, with all religious groups on an equal and voluntary basis. The left-wing church groups of the “sect” type grew at the expense of the right-wing churches, and the “pietistic-evangelical-revivalistic” tendencies predominated. Latourette well observes: PFF4 26.2

“The Christianity which developed in the United States was unique. It displayed features which marked it a$ distinct from previous Christianity in any other land.” ³² PFF4 26.3

So the end of the eighteenth century and the beginning of the nineteenth marked the rise of the free American denomination, ³³ the beginning of the Great Revival, and the triumph of left-wing Protestantism in the battle of revealed religion versus “French infidelity.” ³⁴ PFF4 27.1