Degrading religion

[marty.lederman at comcast.net]

It is, of course, perhaps the central theme of the Memorial and Remonstrance, especially in the warning that "to employ Religion as an engine of civil policy" would be "an unhallowed perversion of the means of salvation."

If there's a thorough treatment of the M&R out there, perhaps that would be a place to start.


 -------------- Original message ----------------------
From: Douglas Laycock <laycockd at umich.edu>
> 
> 
>   It's a frequent theme in the work of many separationists, but I
> don't know of a piece devoted to it.  I have made the argument on
> occasion, and believe it to be true, but I haven't explore its
> history.
> 
>   Quoting Andrew Koppelman <akoppelman at law.northwestern.edu>:
> 
> >
> >> The Supreme Court has sometimes held that the reason for enforcing
> 
> >> the establishment clause is to protect religion from degradation
> by
> >> contact with the state.  Justice Black's formulation in Engel v. 
> >> Vitale is typical:
> >
> > When the power, prestige and financial support of government is 
> > placed behind a particular religious belief, the indirect coercive 
> > pressure upon religious minorities to conform to the prevailing 
> > officially approved religion is plain. But the purposes underlying 
> > the Establishment Clause go much further than that. Its first and 
> > most immediate purpose rested on the belief that a union of 
> > government and religion tends to destroy government and to degrade 
> > religion. The history of governmentally established religion, both
> in
> > England and in this country, showed that whenever government had 
> > allied itself with one particular form of religion, the inevitable 
> > result had been that it had incurred the hatred, disrespect and
> even
> > contempt of those who held contrary beliefs. That same history
> showed
> > that many people had lost their respect for any religion that had 
> > relied upon the support for government to spread its faith. The 
> > Establishment Clause thus stands as an expression of principle on
> the
> > part of the Founders of our Constitution that religion is too 
> > personal, too sacred, too holy, to permit its 'unhallowed
> perversion'
> > by a civil magistrate.
> >
> > Engel v. Vitale, 370 U.S. 421, 431-32 (1962).
> >
> > Has anyone written a history of this idea?  I'm quite sure that 
> > "degradation" means something different to Roger Williams than it 
> > does to James Madison, and that Hugo Black has a different
> conception
> > still, if only because the three men had such different ideas about
> 
> > what religion is affirmatively supposed to be.  I haven't found any
> 
> > source that engages this question.  If anyone knows of such a
> source
> > (absolutely including if you've written such a work yourself), I'd
> be
> > very grateful for a reference.
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > ________________________________________
> >
> > Andrew Koppelman
> > John Paul Stevens Professor of Law
> > and Professor of Political Science
> > Northwestern University School of Law
> > 357 East Chicago Avenue
> > Chicago, IL  60611-3069
> >
> > (312) 503-8431
> > mailto:akoppelman at northwestern.edu
> > ________________________________________
> 
> Douglas Laycock
> Yale Kamisar Collegiate Professor of Law
> University of Michigan Law School
> 625 S. State St.
> Ann Arbor, MI  48109-1215
>   734-647-9713
> 


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