On the Freedom of Religion in America

 

Thomas Martin

      Thomas Martin teaches in the Department of Philosophy at the University of Nebraska at Kearney. You may contact Thomas Martin at: martint@unk.edu.

      August was an occasion for two contradictory but historical events in the battle for the separation of church and state in America. On the one hand, Alabama Chief Justice Roy Moore’s 5,200-pound granite monument of the Ten Commandments placed to stress the point that they are the basis for law in America was removed by court order of U. S. District Judge Myron Thompson in response to lawsuits filed by the ACLU; while, on the other hand, the 40th anniversary of Martin Luther King, Jr.’s “I have a Dream Speech” was celebrated as a historical landmark in the struggle for the civil rights of all Americans.

      While the monument of the Ten Commandments was being removed from public display in an Alabama courthouse, King’s “I Have a Dream” speech was being heralded by nightly-news anchormen as one of the greatest speeches about American justice in our history.

      However, King’s speech and the Ten Commandments monument are both equal testimonies to God’s law as the foundation of liberty and justice in America.

      Ironically, while the ACLU is battling to keep any vestige of religion out of government offices and courthouses in America, King is a Christian martyr whose birthday is an American holiday.

      In his speech, given forty years ago on the marble steps of the Lincoln Memorial, King sees the Declaration and the Constitution as a “promissory note” for every American “that all men would be guaranteed the inalienable rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.” He then claims that America had defaulted on this “promissory note insofar as her citizens of color are concerned.” He does not simply demand justice for blacks, but as a Christian he demands justice for all men when he says, “Now is the time to open the doors of opportunity to all of God’s children.”

      In his speech King prophesizes that “the whirlwinds of revolt will continue to shake the foundations of our nation until the bright day of justice emerges.” What better way to characterize the last forty years of the civil rights battle than a whirlwind of changes; however, we are still a long way from King’s dream of the whirlwind subsiding and the truth being revealed,

I have a dream that one day every valley shall be exalted, every hill and mountain shall be made low, the rough places will be made plain, and the crooked places will be made straight, and the glory of the Lord shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together. This is our hope. This is the faith with which I return to the South.

      King’s dream is not only his dream, but originally of the prophet Isaiah whom King quoted verbatim (Isaiah 40, 4-5). Martin Luther King, Jr. does not separate the American dream from the Christian ideal of equality and the moral right, which was determined long before America was discovered or her courts established.

      So, while the members of the ACLU and the judges in courts throughout the land are rapidly prohibiting every mention of God in the public square, King’s vision is of a higher and mightier battle against discrimination and inequality. He sees that all men are “God’s children” and this is the only basis for justice in America.

      Our life is not granted by the government; if it were it could be taken away. Our liberty is not granted by the government; if it were it could be taken from us. Our pursuit of happiness is not granted by government, but they are God’s gifts to all men who one day shall be happy “when the glory of the Lord shall be revealed.”

      It is easier to remove a block of granite from an Alabama courthouse than to remove the cornerstone of justice that Martin Luther King, Jr. acknowledged on the marble steps of the Lincoln Memorial. If you remove the rock on which justice is founded, then you have a courthouse built on sand, so we have learned that our earthly justices are illogical, contradictory, and confused.

      Martin Luther King, Jr. saw beyond his earthly home in remembering it is not earth that judges Heaven, but Heaven that judges earth.   Ω