Religion and Good Government

Myths About the Separation of Church and State

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Myth:
Religion is necessary for good government.

Response: One thing which we encounter rather often is the belief that the promotion of "general" religious principles or specifically Christian principles is necessary in order to promote morality, civility and good citizenship. It is not uncommon for people to believe the religion is necessary for society to survive and flourish. It may be that, for some people, religion is necessary for them to be good, but there is no reason to think that religion is necessary for government to be good.

Indeed, not a few Christians have themselves argued that Christianity is not necessary for government to do its job. Roger Williams, for example, wrote that:

All lawful magistrates in the world ...have, and can have not more power, than fundamentally lies in the bodies of fountains themselves, which power, might, or authority, is not religious, Christian, etc., but natural, human and civil. And hence, it is true, that Christian captain, Christian merchant, physician, lawyer, pilot, father, master, and (so, consequently,) magistrate, etc., is no more a captain, merchant, physician, lawyer, pilot, father, master, magistrate, etc., than a captain, merchant, etc., of any other conscience or religion... A pagan or anti-Christian pilot may be as skillful to carry the ship to its desired port as any Christian mariner or pilot in the world, and may perform that work with as much safety and speed... (The Bloudy Tenent of Persecution, for cause of Conscience, discussed, in A Conference between Truth and Peace (1644) pp. 398-399)

Williams believed that the qualities which made a person a good ruler were not the same which made a person a good Christian - indeed, those qualities might at times be in conflict with one another. Expecting leaders to necessarily be good Christians was, in his eyes, a grave mistake which would lead to the ruin of good government and the trivialization of Christian beliefs. Whereas the Puritans believed that the founding of America was a key event in God's plan of salvation for humanity, Williams believed that government had no role in God's redepmtive plans.

The former tradition has been preserved through things like Manifest Destiny, civil religion, and popular notions of the special role America plays in world and sacred history. The latter tradition has been preserved in the constitutional provision for separating church and state - and this tradition is regularly under attack by the former. We can see that in a statement made by Senator Louis Wyman in the 1960s:

To leave prayer exercises solely in the home or in the church is to mean that for many children there will be no prayers at all and no exposure to prayer, for, unfortunately, too many parents are too busy, too disinterested, or outright disinclined. It is important in this world that we in the United States should be on God's side.

A good historical example of this conflict can be seen in the early 19th century debates over whether or not mail should be delivered and post offices open on Sundays. On the one hand where those who argued that this is a "Christian Nation" and that Sunday mail mocked a holy day. On the other hand, government officials argued that a suspension of such delivery would create scheduling problems, increased costs, unnecessary delays, and might even aid foreign agents who could move on Sundays and outpace government delivery of sensitive information. Thus, the needs of a "good Christian" were in conflict with the needs of "good government" - and the former won.

James Madison argued that religion mixed with government can be a force for social problems because people argue about it so much and because it divides people along passionate lines. In his famous Federalist No. 10 he wrote:

A zeal for different opinions concerning religion ...have, in turn, divided mankind into parties, inflamed them with mutual animosity, and rendered them much more disposed to vex and oppress each other than to co-operate for their common good.

Thus, there is no universal consensus even among religious believers or Christians that particular religious beliefs are necessary for good government or to be a good elected official. It certainly was not a universal belief among those responsible for the development of the Constitution, which means that it cannot be argued that they intended government and religion to mix together because of that. After all, if they really believed that particular religious beliefs made a person a better official, why did they specifically prohibit religious tests for public office?