Founding Faith: Providence, Politics, and the Birth of
Religious Freedom in America
By Steven Waldman
(Random House, 205 pages, $26)
THE PLACE OF RELIGION IN AMERICA is a problem as old as our
republic. It has been a flash point of debate between liberals and
conservatives on a wide range of issues—such as aid to parochial
schools, prayer at civic gatherings, nativity scenes on public
property, government assistance to faith-based organizations, and
many other concerns. The locus of the problem is interpreting the
Establishment Clause of the U.S. Constitution’s First Amendment
(1791), which reads, “Congress shall make no law respecting the
establishment of religion.”
Constitutional originalists hold to a strict interpretation of
this text. They contend that when the First Amendment was ratified
it simply prohibited the federal government from declaring itself
in support of a national religion or acting in favor of a
particular faith. On the other hand, proponents of a dynamic
Constitution contend that what the phrase really means is that a
strict separation must be maintained between the state and all
religion in any form.
In Founding Faith, Steven Waldman, editor in chief of
the popular online religion journal Beliefnet.com, investigates the
genesis of the Establishment Clause. He presents the religious,
philosophical, and political beliefs held by the authors and
promoters of the Bill of Rights when the First Amendment was
drafted. And while this highly readable trip back to the clause’s
roots doesn’t necessarily resolve the conundrum that religion
presents in our civic life, it can help us to discern and more
fully grasp the arguments made by both sides in the ongoing
church-state debate.
Like most writers who delve into the First Amendment, Waldman
explores the thinking of the great figures behind the Constitution,
in particular the “Big Five”—Adams, Franklin, Jefferson, Madison
and Washington—that small circle generally thought of as the key
Founding Fathers. He notes a bottom-line fact: the “Big Five” were
decidedly pro-religion, and not at all the vague, quasi-secular,
hands-off-God deists they are often represented as being. Adams,
Franklin, Jefferson, Madison and Washington all agreed on the
importance of religion to a healthy democracy.
All to some degree believed that God intervened in the lives of
men, and had chosen America for special blessing (the idea often
referred to as American exceptionalism). That included Jefferson,
whom Waldman presents as the least conventional of the five in his
religious sensibilities. The Founders’ real concern was determining
how religion could flourish best in America. Madison, whom Waldman
paints as the most traditionally pious of the group, was the prime
agent behind the First Amendment. He held a strong desire for a
strict separation between church and state, because he believed
that government presented the greatest potential obstacle to its
flourishing. His view reflected his disgust with the European model
of national churches, the history of which ultimately proved
damaging to religion and an impediment to the freedom of conscience
that was sacred to all the Founders.
BUT WALDMAN MAKES THE IMPORTANT POINT that constitutional study
has tended to focus too narrowly on the thinking of the “Big Five.”
As much as Adams, Franklin, Jefferson, Madison and Washington
believed in God and His providential care (both for human beings
and for our country) and agreed on the importance of religion in
buttressing public morality, Waldman insists that their personal
opinions are not the only standard by which the words of the
Establishment Clause are to be understood. Indeed, to grasp fully
the clause and its implications for religious freedom, it is
essential to explore the views of a much wider group, including the
members of the committee that drafted the Bill of Rights, as well
as the congressional ratifiers.
The input and votes of all these men were vital in bringing the
document to its final form and passage. And as Waldman wisely
emphasizes, they all had their personal preferences regarding
church-state relations, and moreover, represented states with
widely divergent approaches to the concept of religious
establishment. Some states, like Virginia, had prohibited funding
of the Anglican Church as early as 1776, while Massachusetts
continued to support the Congregationalist Church until 1833. That
the First Amendment emerged from the framing process as it did
reflects the fact that the Founders were, first and foremost,
politicians willing and able to compromise in order to accomplish
what was doable under the circumstances.
Waldman explores the ways in which the culture and
denominational composition of each state, as well as the
politicians’ personal beliefs, influenced how the Establishment
Clause was understood. Pressure from Jefferson and Madison
certainly provided encouragement to Virginia’s disestablishment
law, while the views of Massachusetts’s John Adams and Fisher Ames,
who considered government support for religion essential, had its
effect in their state. Participation by men of such conflicting
outlooks in the constitutional process argues forcefully that a
narrow reading of the agreed-upon amendment is the only fair
assessment that can be made. In other words, the First Amendment
was intended only to prohibit a federally sponsored religion.
Individual states could make their own laws.
But if that minimalist perspective reflects how the
Constitution’s authors understood the First Amendment, passage of
the 14th Amendment in 1868 opened the door to much broader
interpretation. This post-Civil War amendment sought to guarantee
due process of law in order to secure the rights of former slaves.
It effectively accomplished “incorporation” of the Bill of Rights
(the first 10 amendments to the Constitution) into the
constitutions of all the states, subjecting state governments to
the same restriction under which the federal government had to
operate. State-established churches were now unconstitutional, and
subsequent legal history has seen a seemingly endless series of
church-state disputes.
An example is the 1971 Pennsylvania case Lemon v.
Kurtzman, in which the Supreme Court found that state aid to
parochial schools (most of which were Catholic) for teacher
salaries, textbooks, and educational materials in non-religious
subjects was unconstitutional. That decision introduced what has
been called the “three-pronged test” by which state involvement in
religion-related activities may be deemed permissible: (1) it must
have a secular purpose; (2) the primary effect must neither advance
nor inhibit religion; and (3) it must not result in government
entanglement with religion.
Many conservative jurists believe Lemon went beyond the
original intent of the First Amendment (and even superseded the
14th), but the justices left application of their decision to lower
courts, which has resulted in a farrago of interpretation and
enforcement in the various circuit courts. Interestingly, in
another case, Zelman v. Simmons-Harris, the
Supreme Court upheld a Cleveland program that gave low income,
inner-city parents vouchers they could use to send their children
to non-public schools, including religious schools. Such
contradictions underscore why it matters who sits on the Court.
HOW FAR THIS HISTORY of First Amendment reinterpretation has
brought us is evident in the recent passage by the Michigan state
House of a bill requiring Catholic hospital staffers to inform rape
victims about emergency contraceptives and to make those items
available. Such a demand clearly contravenes Catholic moral
teaching. But because Catholic hospitals are the recipients of
public funds, channeled through various state and federal programs,
they must abide by government conditions. Unless this legislation
is reversed by the courts, all faith-based organizations receiving
government monies run the very real and imminent risk that their
mission and identity will be destroyed.
The Establishment Clause has served religion in America
well—from the time of the Founders, right up to today. According
to a 2008 survey conducted by the Pew Forum on Religion and Public
Life, Americans are overwhelmingly religious. Some 78 percent
identified themselves as Christians (with 4.7 percent belonging to
religions other than Christianity), while 92 percent claimed to
believe in some sort of universal spirit. Other studies, such as
those done by sociologists Rodney Stark and Roger Finke (see
The Churching of America, 1776-1992),
demonstrate unequivocally the extent to which churches in America
have proliferated. History also shows how the nation has profited
from religion. Faith has always played a role in the public square,
with generally positive effect. Many of America’s social justice
concerns were motivated by religious sentiment, for example, the
call for an end to slavery. And the leadership in the civil rights
movement was provided by religious figures.
Waldman sees the ongoing tension regarding the reach of the
First Amendment as a good thing. He believes in the reasonableness
of the American people and in the courts’ ability to compromise
when prudent and necessary. Waldman finds no indication of
government hostility toward religion in America. If anything, he
says, the opposite is true. This book is an invaluable historical
resource, but more so, a tool for enlightened debate on
church-state issues as they continue to confront our nation.
