The establishment clause should be rightly understood

Many who watch political discourse have noticed an alarming trend. Increasingly, pundits and policymakers paint an opposing position as “religious” and then dismiss that position out of hand—as though the position itself violated the so-called “separation of church and state.”

This attitude stifles public discourse. Not only is the “separation of church and state” an extra-constitutional dogma. It misinterprets the legitimate and necessary distinction between church and state. Worse, it disrespects fellow citizens at the very core of their being—their deepest identity.  

This trend was on full display last March when the “trigger bill” (HB 92) was being debated on the floor of the senate. It also appears regularly in anti-religious screeds on the opinion page—often, but not always, in connection with abortion. There are three things seriously wrong with such arguments. 

First, the claim that a child in the womb is a living human being, protected under Article I, Section 2 of the Wyoming Constitution, is not a religious claim. It is a medical claim. You can test it by checking to see if the DNA is human. You can test it by looking for signs of life—like a heartbeat. You can test it by seeing if a separate and unique individual exists.

None of these medical markers requires an act of faith. What requires an act of faith is to believe that a living human being does not merit full protection in law. Usually, this claim is connected to “personhood theory.” This dogma holds that not every human life is equal, but that there is an unseen and uncertain quality that some people have that makes them full persons under the law. 

The Supreme Court recently pointed out, in Dobbs v. Jackson, that it is unacceptable to “impose on the people a particular theory about when the rights of personhood begin” (p. 38). This—and not the demand for equal protection under the law—is tantamount to the establishment of religion.

Second, the U.S. Constitution was written precisely to allow people of all religions to participate in public discourse and to hold public office without discrimination. Since ancient times, governance and religion were joined at the hip. Only adherents of the dominant religion could have any say. Before Constantine, governing privilege required public adherence to the Roman gods. 

After Constantine, sometimes the Christians were in power and sometimes their pagan counterparts. Eventually, governance stabilized around Christendom until the Reformation of the 16th century. That made some governments Catholic, others Reformed, and others Lutheran. 

But America’s founders changed course entirely. They explicitly invited every person to use the power of persuasion to convince fellow citizens of the rightness of their beliefs. Quaker, Episcopalian, Catholic, or Jew—every citizen could enter public office without first passing a religious test (U.S. Constitution, Art. VI).

The assumption was that each citizen would fully represent his or her religion in the public square and build consensus on the basis of commonality. Nobody thought that religious people had to hide their deepest and most meaningful thoughts to be taken seriously in policy debates. The ideology of “Secularism” was not even invented until George Holyoke introduced the term in 1851. 

Third, religious neutrality is a lie. Every assertion is, ultimately, a religious statement. It rests on unspoken assumptions about the nature of the universe. Even the statement, “two plus two is four,” assumes that “is” means “equals,” and not merely “similar.” It assumes immutability—that it will always equal the same amount. It assumes that language has actual, objective meaning. These assumptions are unapologetically religious.

All public discourse is religious. It’s time to stop pretending otherwise. Secularist claims should not be privileged over Christian claims. The only privilege any claim merits is the power of persuasion. 

That was the foundational idea of America. People are not excluded from the debate because they refuse to expunge God from their vocabulary. Claims about the nature of life, marriage, family and citizenship can, and should be, debated in the public square. We owe that courtesy to our fellow citizens.

It is legitimate to question beliefs and challenge fellow citizens to defend their beliefs in the court of public opinion. Faith, after all, is adherence to the truth. It does no one good to outlaw the testing of truth claims. But it is a disservice to public discourse to disallow an otherwise true argument just because it has religious adherents. Let’s talk.

Stand with Päivi Räsänen against censorship

Päivi Räsänen

In recent months, Wyoming’s public discourse has crackled with accusations and counter-accusations of “censorship.” My own name has been invoked in the Letters to the Editor on more than one occasion. While I take no pleasure in being the center of controversy, it is gratifying to see the awakening of a frank and civil discussion about First Amendment principles and the realities of censorship. 

There is legitimate censorship and there is illegitimate censorship. Civil discourse requires that we know the difference. Flinging out the word “censorship” to silence ideological opponents debases public discourse. 

Social taboos, state laws, and institutional rules all have legitimate reasons to exclude certain words and subjects. Public servants—such as teachers, coaches, and elected officials—are rightly called out for using vile invective against students on the field, or colleagues on the floor. This is proper censorship. Children, likewise, should be turned away from the box office of an R-rated, or X-rated movie. This is proper censorship.

Such cases should be distinguished from improper censorship. Examples of this also abound in news media, on social media, in schools, and in the halls of government. Viewpoint discrimination on the editorial page, shadow banning in social media, exclusion of the Bible from the classroom and hate-speech laws are all examples of illegitimate censorship.

Legitimate censorship builds a better society. Illegitimate censorship leads to barbarism. Looking outside of our immediate context can illumine this distinction. Common to the most murderous regimes of the 19th and 20th centuries is the censorship of religious speech. Totalitarians require such censorship because religions tend to teach loyalties that are above the nation (“one nation under God.”) Religions also appeal to unchangeable ethics rooted in principles beyond the current regime.

As prelude to World War II, Europe’s state churches were, one-by-one, censored by the regime. This did not happen without dissent. Nazis first silenced the state church’s opposition to anti-semitism by lavishing favors on clergy. Those who continued to speak the truth, were de-platformed, imprisoned and murdered. Only after the historic doctrine of the state church was replaced by so-called “German Christianity,” did the real evil begin.

The Nazi project, for instance, did not use Lutheranism to murder millions. It silenced Lutheranism in order to weaponize its hollow-out institution. That’s why it should concern the entire world when long-accepted Christian doctrines suddenly become the object of censorship. And this is happening both in America and abroad--in both subtle and overt ways.

Last Monday, Jan. 24, 2022, a diminutive woman, named Päivi Räsänen, stood before a tribunal in Helsinki, Finland to face formal charges. Dr. Räsänen is a family physician who was elected as a Member of Parliament. Later, she rose to be the interior minister of Finland (2011-2015). Her education, public-mindedness, and popularity with the Finnish people cannot be questioned. Now, if convicted, she faces two years in prison and up to €10,000 ($11,300) in fines. 

While several charges were leveled by the Finnish prosecutor general, the most alarming, from a censorship point of view, is the charge that she criticized the leadership of Finland’s state church by tweeting a photograph of the state church’s own Bible opened to Romans 1:24-27. 

The state does not take issue with words that she wrote, but with the words of the Bible itself. This demonstrates, from the outset, that it is not a charge that hinges on “interpretation.” Rather, the state church of Finland admits that the uninterpreted words of the Bible are themselves offensive to the state. 

Räsänen, herself, understands that this blatant censorship is an attempt to outlaw any principle or any god who stands over the Finnish government. Would that there were more people like her who stood for the Christian doctrine that the Nazis wanted to silence! We cannot stand in judgment of societies that were overcome by lies and murder if we are unwilling to stand in support of those willing to stand for life and truth today.

Today, Finland’s prosecutor general is seeking to censor the quiet and kind voice of Dr. Räsänen. She teaches us all how a good citizen should respond: “Now it is time to speak. Because the more we are silent, the narrower the space for freedom of speech and religion grows. If I’m convicted, I think that the worst consequence would not be the fine against me, or even the prison sentence, it would be the censorship.”

While Päivi Räsänen stands against totalitarian tendencies across the pond, let us follow her brave example in opposing illegitimate censorship wherever it may raise its totalitarian head.

* A previous version of this article inaccurately described Päivi as the wife of Bishop Pohjola who has also been charged by the prosecutor general.

Also published in the Wyoming Tribune Eagle, January 28, 2022.

Defend the conscience rights of those on the front lines.

Photo by Brady Rogers on Unsplash

Desmond Doss believed that it was against God’s law to kill another human being. He applied as a conscientious objector in World War II. Exempted from carrying a rifle, he was made an army medic, and became the first man in American History to receive the Medal of Honor without firing a shot. The movie, Hacksaw Ridge, tells his story.

He is not the only one. Thomas Bennett served as an army medic in Vietnam. Killed in action, he became the second conscientious objector to receive the Medal of Honor. That same year (1969) Joseph LaPointe Jr. also posthumously became the third such hero.

These three held doctrinal positions that are not representative of all Christians. But, when recognizing the right of conscientious objectors, civilized societies do not evaluate the rightness or wrongness of the belief. Rather, they uphold the right of every man to be guided by his own conscience and not another’s. 

Desmond Doss

Logic alone teaches that we, who have minds persuadable by words, must be so governed. Coercion to harm others knowingly violates human nature. This principle is also taught in the Christian Scriptures. St. Paul makes clear that, even if an activity is permissible in the eyes of God, no one should be made to participate in action that he believes to be sin. You can read his reasoning in 1 Corinthians 8:4-13.

As Doss, Bennett, LaPointe and thousands of other examples show, those who follow the dictates of their own conscience are superior citizens and braver soldiers than those who violate their own principles. This is why generals should resign their commissions rather than execute orders that violate their sense of justice. It is why just societies accommodate conscientious objectors. It is why healthcare workers must never be forced to fill prescriptions, perform procedures, or participate in treatments that they believe to be harmful to the patient. And it is why patients should never be forced to submit to a procedure without informed consent.

The principle behind conscientious-objector status has also produced laws like the Hyde Amendment and the Mexico City policy that protect taxpayers from supporting the abortion industry. One of the most important conscience laws is the Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA), passed almost unanimously in 1993. It requires that any American who has a sincerely held religious belief be protected from government coercion. 

If a citizen has religious qualms about following any governmental law, policy, or regulation, RFRA gives him his day in court. There the government—not the citizen—has the burden of proof. 

According to the Department of Justice, it must prove, first, that the policy at issue addresses a “compelling government interest.” If it can demonstrate this, it must further show that the policy accomplishes this interest in the way that is least burdensome to those whose conscience is violated. This usually involves some sort of accommodation for those who have religious objections to the “one-size-fits-all” policy of the government.

All these strong conscience protections are currently under assault. Last week the U.S. House of Representatives passed H.R. 3755. This bill, together with H.R. 5, passed by the House in February, would force doctors, nurses, pharmacists, and other entities to participate in harmful medical procedures without recourse to the courts. Specific language strips RFRA protections from anyone who might object to the destruction of healthy babies, the amputation of healthy organs and the prescribing of harmful drugs.

Also last week, whistleblowers leaked a memo from the Department of Defense that instructs chaplains to participate in the persecution of anyone who might seek a religious exemption from military “vaccine mandates.” This violates the First Amendment in two ways. 

Lloyd Austin, Sec. Def.

First, this memo violates the free-exercise clause by requiring the applicant to be grilled by a chaplain and a doctor with theological and medical argumentation. If a soldier even mentions some non-religious consideration in the process of explaining his sincerely held religious belief, the chaplain is required to document the slip and use it against him. Similarly, if a soldier ever once sinned against any sincerely held religious belief, the sincerity of all of his beliefs are to be treated as suspect. These false moral equivalencies make the theological orientation of the interrogator more important than the conscience of the soldier.

Second, the memo violates the First Amendment’s establishment clause by threatening chaplains with discipline and dishonorable discharge if they help conscientious objectors navigate this draconian process. Thus, they are required to be the preachers of a particular version of religion established by the government. Chaplains who follow the dictates of the memo are no longer ministers of the Word of God, but only of the word of the DOD.

These cascading attacks on religious freedom are, of course, harmful for conscientious soldiers, chaplains, and medical professionals. But it is not only they who are harmed by such policies. All of American society is weakened by these attacks. Conscientious service, whether in the military, medicine or in society is a force multiplier. It turns the eyes of soldiers and citizens to see their service as service to God Himself. The mundane becomes divine. And ordinary people become extraordinary heroes.

That is why we should welcome and encourage those who are standing up against the onslaught of attacks on conscience provisions. All Wyomingites should applaud the board of the Campbell County Health that publicly vowed to stand against the “gross federal overreach” of vaccine mandates that the U.S. Department of Labor is threatening against its 1,100 employees. Other hospitals should do the same.

Wyomingites should flood Senators Lummis and Barrasso with calls, letters and emails thanking them for standing against H.R. 5 and H.R. 3755, now under consideration in the U.S. Senate. Ask them, not only to vote against these draconian bills, but also to use whatever influence they have with fellow senators to oppose any bill that would undermine long-standing conscience protections.

TAG, Greg Porter

Finally, while the Department of Defense can only be reined in by the federal government, the Wyoming National Guard remains in the complete control of its Commander and Chief, Governor Gordon. Contacting him and Adjutant General, Greg Porter, can encourage them shield Wyoming’s soldiers and chaplains against many blatant violations of federal law. Together, we can defend the Republic that Doss, Bennett and LaPointe defended with the resolve and ferocity that earned them the Medal of Honor.

Also published in the Wyoming Tribune Eagle, October 1, 2021; and the Cowboy State Daily, October 6, 2021.

What is religion? And what recognition does it deserve?

Independence Hall, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
Photo credit: Dan Hall on unsplash

Two years before the Constitutional Convention, America’s founding fathers were embroiled in a battle over religious liberty in Virginia. Patrick Henry faced off against James Madison over a bill to fund the teaching of morality. Thomas Jefferson, George Mason, and other famous names joined the fray. 

The principles that prevailed became the pillars of the “establishment” and “free-exercise” clauses of the First Amendment. The controversy also produced a document titled, “Memorial and Remonstrance.” It deserves recognition on par with the Declaration of Independence and the U.S. Constitution among our most important documents. 

The Memorial begins with a quote from the Virginia Declaration of Rights, “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.” America’s founders defined religion not as a collectivist project, but as an individual duty that each person owes to the Creator.

Only illegitimate rulers consider religion fundamentally as mindless “group think.” The opposite is true. Human beings do not join some group and subsequently conform their thinking to its precepts. Rather, each person’s individual mind comes to a conviction about reality and, subsequently, finds others who share this same conviction. 

Groups and religious leaders do not create or validate beliefs. Nor are religious beliefs confined to the margins of human existence. Religion encompasses all of life. Therefore, it is deeply antihuman both to treat people only as group-members, and to restrict the subject matter of religion. Nevertheless, many misguided corporations and government officials today are doing just that.

Cheyenne Regional Medical Center

Cheyenne Regional Medical Center (CRMC) is one such example. Its standard application for religious exemptions to vaccinations subjects them to the whims of “the Chief Legal and Human Resource Officer.” It reserves the right to require “documents from your religious leader” and “will not”’ grant exemptions based on “personal” beliefs. 

This policy threatens faithful employees with loss of job in a bid to force compliance without the need to persuade by evidence and reason. CRMC is not alone with its policy. It is following a new and progressive denial of the religious liberty for which America’s founders fought and died.

Denial of “personal” beliefs destroys religious liberty because religion is precisely personal. Madison and company understood that personal convictions can “only be directed by reason and conviction, not by force or violence.” Failure to govern by this principle is the exact opposite of the American ethos. 

Progressives object that this gives too much freedom for people to hold unreasonable opinions. Those who believe this simply do not understand human nature. Examine your own mind and observe that you cannot bring yourself to believe and act upon unreasonable opinions. No sane person can. You will not throw yourself off a cliff. Nor will you willingly ingest poison.

Sane people may do unreasonable things if they are misinformed about the truth. But the solution for this is simply to present evidence and reason that persuades them of the truth. Humans simply cannot thrive in circumstances where reason and persuasion are replaced by force and violence.

So, Madison wrote: “The Religion then of every man must be left to the conviction and conscience of every man; and it is the right of every man to exercise it as these may dictate.” Notice, here, that the “right” stands in service of a prior “duty.” The duty is to the Creator.

For this reason, the “right is in its nature an unalienable right.” That means that it cannot be taken from anybody without denying an individual’s personhood. Even that person, cannot barter away this right. For, properly speaking, it is not a right that belongs to the individual, but to the Creator who gave it. Thus, there are two reasons why religious liberty is an “unalienable right.” 

It is unalienable, first, “because the opinions of men, depending only on the evidence contemplated by their own minds cannot follow the dictates of other men.” Madison knew that human nature—not personal stubbornness—makes it impossible for a person to act against his or her own mind.

Religious liberty is unalienable, second, “because what is here a right towards men, is a duty towards the Creator.” Soldiers know that duty cannot be denied even on pain of injury or death. Every sane person also knows this. Governments that act otherwise deny the very humanity of their citizens.

In its opening four sentences, the Memorial sounds a powerful corrective to the flawed progressivism of our day. The rest of it is equally profound. It should be required reading for every policy maker and thoughtful citizen. Policies from school curriculum to vaccine mandates, would all be truer to human nature if we relearned the truths of Memorial and Remonstrance.

Also published in the Wyoming Tribune Eagle, September 24, 2021.