By J. Brent Walker, BJC Executive Director
A new and wonderful book has come out that responsibly engages the contentious debate about how the framers understood religion and religious liberty in the formation of our national government. Titled Endowed by Our Creator: The Birth of Religious Freedom in America (Yale University Press, 2012) and penned by Michael I. Meyerson — a constitutional law and American legal history professor at the University of Baltimore School of Law — the book is a comprehensive, thoroughly researched presentation of the development of our framers’ understanding of religious freedom from pre-revolutionary colonial days through the presidency of James Madison. In the book’s introduction, Meyerson writes that he aims to “tell the story of those who participated in the creation and implementation of the Constitution and First Amendment, and to derive from that history as accurate a picture as possible of the American vision for freedom of religion during the framing period … .”
In my judgment, Meyerson succeeds in achieving his goal, telling the story with attention to nuance and in a fair and interesting way. I welcome his contribution to the literature.
Understanding that a search for the Founders’ “original intent” is always illusive and mostly unhelpful, Meyerson speaks instead of the “original wisdom” of the founding generation. Generally speaking, our wise Founders wanted to disestablish religion and separate the institutions of church and state, while appreciating the value and virtue of religious speech, publically expressed. In the main, their religiously formed “civil vocabulary,” however, was broad, inclusive and nonsectarian and intended to unify rather than to divide the citizenry. Meyerson writes:
[G]enuine, devout governmental religious speech was to be permitted. But unlike the unrestricted religious speech of the citizenry, the religious speech of the government was to be strictly limited. The critically important aspect of the framing generation’s compromise was that only the most general, nonsectarian reference to God was deemed appropriate.
Certainly this was the practice of the likes of George Washington, Thomas Jefferson and James Madison, particularly while serving in office and when writing public proclamations and letters to religious groups.
Without diminishing the contributions of Jefferson and Madison, Meyerson focuses more than many historians do on Washington. Washington often does not get enough credit for his mostly orthodox religiosity and his commitment to pluralism and religious liberty. Holding up Washington as an exemplar of toleration, Meyerson observes that, “while much of Washington’s public speech during the [Revolutionary] war was religious in nature, he usually avoided sectarian or Christian language.” Moreover, after becoming president, “when he used religious discourse in his public communication, he carefully, and without exception, chose inclusive, nonsectarian language.”
Although Jefferson and Madison clearly stand in this same tradition, the practice was not uniform. The outspoken John Adams was not bashful about using explicit Christian language.
In a way uncommon among most non-Baptist legal historians, Meyerson acknowledges the profound impact of John Leland on the Founders and the revolutionary ethos. (In fact, references to Leland in the index rival in length that of Benjamin Franklin, Patrick Henry and John Adams.) Meyerson tells the familiar story of John Leland’s historic meeting with Madison, convincing Madison of the need for spelled-out religious liberty protections in the Bill of Rights in exchange for Leland’s political support. Meyerson also lauds Leland’s tireless work to oppose, in Leland’s words, “an ecclesiastico-political power,” as well as state establishments as violations of religious liberty.
Meyerson posits three streams whose confluence formed institutions and constructs that protect religious liberty in the new federal system: religious, philosophical and practical. While he credits Jefferson and Madison for supplying the philosophical argument and Washington for taking care of practical political consequences, he holds up Leland as one who offered a compelling biblical argument in favor of religious liberty and church-state separation.
Yes, it gladdens the heart of Baptists proud of our contributions in history to see John Leland get his due.
Throughout the book, Meyerson chronicles the unfolding of early church-state issues within this interpretive context — always striving for scrupulous accuracy. It is not insignificant that he includes 53 pages of small-type footnotes in a book with 275 pages of text. Indeed, Meyerson even credits Leland in his search for accuracy in evaluating the founding record. In the frontispiece of the book, Meyerson quotes John Leland: “Truth is as essential to history as the soul is to the body.”
Meyerson sets about to explore and explode myths and inaccuracies that are often peddled in contemporary conversation and debate. He marshals persuasive evidence about why the Founders did not intend to establish a Christian nation, legally and constitutionally; why they did not endorse even non-preferential support for religion, particularly in funding religion with taxes; and why the Establishment Clause was intended to ensure religious liberty, not simply to serve as a federalism cleaver to prevent the new national government from interfering with existing state religious establishments as some, including Justice Clarence Thomas, have wrongly contended.
Meyerson concludes his book with a sense of hopeful expectation and a call for both/and thinking:
The nation’s dialogue would substantially improve if we understood the limitations of our false dichotomies. We must recognize that one may be deeply religious, like John Leland, and still believe that a close tie between church and state degrades all religion and threatens the freedom of those not belonging to the majority denominations. We must understand that one may care deeply about religious liberty, like George Washington, and still believe that public acknowledgment of religion does not threaten the rights of others.
Here, and throughout the book, Meyerson is right on target. This is one of those books that would benefit all of us to read.
From the June 2013 Report from the Capital. Click here for the next article.
