Posted on by Mark Movsesian

Barry on Roger Williams

From Penguin, a new biography of Roger Williams, Roger Williams and The Creation of the American Soul (2012), by John M. Barry. Barry usefully situates Williams in the legal and political struggles of Jacobean and Caroline England — I did not know, for example, that Williams once served as an apprentice to Sir Edward Coke, the famous Chief Justice of the King’s Bench, and thought of Coke as a surrogate father — and follows him to Massachusetts, from which his fellow Puritans banished him when he denied civil government’s authority to punish offenses against God. Barry discusses the evolution of Williams’s ideas about church and state, including his most famous contribution, the metaphor of the “wall of Separation between the Garden of the Church and the Wildernes of the world.”  The publisher’s description follows.

For four hundred years, Americans have wrestled with and fought over two concepts that define the nature of the nation: the proper relation between church and state and between a free individual and the state. These debates began with the extraordinary thought and struggles of Roger Williams, who had an unparalleled understanding of the conflict between a government that justified itself by “reason of state”-i.e. national security-and its perceived “will of God” and the “ancient rights and liberties” of individuals.

This is a story of power, set against Puritan America and the English Civil War. Williams’s interactions with King James, Francis Bacon, Oliver Cromwell, and his mentor Edward Coke set his course, but his fundamental ideas came to fruition in America, as Williams, though a Puritan, collided with John Winthrop’s vision of his “City upon a Hill.”

Acclaimed historian John M. Barry explores the development of these fundamental ideas through the story of the man who was the first to link religious freedom to individual liberty, and who created in America the first government and society on earth informed by those beliefs. The story is essential to the continuing debate over how we define the role of religion and political power in modern American life.

Posted on by Mark Movsesian

“Providence” Will Have To Go, Too

The Christmas Wars are really heating up, and December’s only just started. From Rhode Island, the setting of the Supreme Court’s first Christmas display case, Lynch v. Donnelly (1984), a new controversy over what to call the 17-foot blue spruce that decorates the statehouse. Governor Lincoln Chafee insists on referring to it as the state “Holiday Tree” rather than “Christmas Tree,” a decision that has exposed him to some ridicule, with critics accusing him of triviality and political correctness. The governor argues that “Holiday Tree” is more consistent with Rhode Island’s long tradition of separating religion and government. No word yet whether the governor will also seek to change the name of the state capital, Providence (est. 1636), so that it too conforms to state tradition.

Posted on by Mark Movsesian

Keeping Thanks in Thanksgiving

This Thursday, Americans celebrate Thanksgiving, a national holiday that commemorates a meal the Pilgrims shared with their Native American neighbors in the Plymouth colony almost 400 years ago. It is, at least in origin, a religious holiday; the “thanks” are being “given” to God. Yet Thanksgiving does not cause the dissension that official Christmas commemorations sometimes do in America, probably because it is not clearly tied to a particular faith tradition.

Starting with George Washington, American Presidents customarily have issued Thanksgiving Day proclamations, although the secular-minded Thomas Jefferson famously declined. Traditionally, Presidents call on Americans — to quote one of Bill Clinton’s proclamations — “to express heartfelt thanks to God for our many blessings.” Separationist purists object to this sort of thing, which may violate some versions of the Supreme Court’s endorsement test, but the proclamations really do fall within the American tradition of public religious expression.

Last week, President Barack Obama issued his Thanksgiving Proclamation for 2011. In many respects, including its references to God, it’s quite traditional. In one respect, though, it’s not.  In addition to thanking God, President Obama encourages us to “thank each other” for the blessings we enjoy. A subtle redefinition of the holiday? An example of a new secularism in America? I’m not sure; but I do wonder if this idea of appreciating one another will eventually displace the original, religious meaning of the holiday, much as the celebration of family and friends has displaced, for many, the original meaning of Christmas. Not that I object to expressing appreciation to other people. In fact, in the spirit of the President’s proclamation: Thanks, everyone. You know who you are.

Posted on by Mark Movsesian · 1 Comment

Which Holiday Is That, Festivus?

One of the pleasures of doing a website on law and religion is that the topic of church and state comes up everywhere nowadays, even the most unexpected places. Let me give an example. I’m a fan of early music – go ahead, laugh if you want to – and look forward every other Thursday to an email from an organization called the Gotham Early Music Scene announcing concerts around New York City. Yesterday’s email had a plug for a “fitting event” for the upcoming “Holiday season,” a fundraiser for Americans United for Separation of Church and State. Americans United is producing a concert of music from the time of Thomas Jefferson, complete with readings from letters between him and his “Parisian paramour” – I’m just quoting the announcement, here – Maria Cosway (left). Jefferson, the promoters remind us, was “the primary architect of the Doctrine of Separation of Church and State.” I’m not sure what any of this has to do with the “Holiday season,” but I suppose secularists need something to do around Christmas, too. Considering that Americans United typically spends its “Holiday season” threatening to sue municipalities that might improperly display a shepherd somewhere, its attempt to cash in on Christmas is a bit ironic. I’m pretty sure Jefferson would have found the whole thing embarrassing. He was always discreet about his relationship with Cosway. She was married.

Posted on by Marc O. DeGirolami

Classic Revisited: Cord’s Separation of Church and State

It can sometimes seem as if we in the 21st century are in a state of greater confusion — greater uncertainty and greater disagreement — than prior generations about the nature of our constitutional commitments.  And yet often this is not so at all.  One example involves the perennial academic contestation about the meaning of the Establishment Clause, which has a rich history all its own.

Today’s classic revisited is Robert Cord’s Separation of Church and State: Historical Fact and Current Fiction, first published thirty-odd years ago in 1982 (unfortunately, I cannot find an image for the book cover).  Cord argued that the strict separationism championed by scholars like Leo Pfeffer a generation before (who was himself engaged in a protracted debate with James O’Neill) simply did not represent a sound understanding of the original meaning of the Establishment Clause.  Cord’s was a strike for the “non-preferentialist” interpretation, and it is an account well-worth reading not only for the evidence that Cord marshals, but also for its historiographic importance — as a scholarly moment in the perpetual conflict over the proper relationship between church and state.  Take a look at Cord!  — MOD

Posted on by Marc O. DeGirolami

Classic Revisited: Howe’s “The Garden and the Wilderness”

Today’s classic revisited is Mark DeWolfe Howe’s The Garden and the Wilderness: Religion and Government in American Constitutional History (U. Chicago Press 1965).  Howe — who wrote in an era when separationism was the dominant outlook in both the courts and the academy with respect to constitutional religious liberty — was one of the first to emphasize that the primary motivation for “separation” in early America was to protect church from state rather than the other way round.  Howe frames his book in terms of a dichotomy between the perspectives of Roger Williams and Thomas Jefferson with respect to the meaning of separation, favoring the former’s view and criticizing, in the last few pages of the book, the Supreme Court for overemphasis of Jefferson’s position. 

Later, when the famous wall metaphor began to show cracks, separation gradually ceased to become the exclusive mode in which the Supreme Court understood religious liberty — though the idea of separation as the independence of church and state remains a crucial idea of constitutional religious liberty.  But Howe’s book is an important piece of the puzzle — one which introduced nuance about the meaning of separation and which, in turn and in time, contributed to the development of alternative understandings of the First Amendment.  — MOD