“One Nation Under God”

The Public Dimension of Private Faith

Pastor Joe Fuiten, June 30, 2002

 

 

 

Scripture Reading:  Isaiah 49:19-26, Page 520

19 "Though you were ruined and made desolate and your land laid waste, now you will be too small for your people, and those who devoured you will be far away. 20 The children born during your bereavement will yet say in your hearing, 'This place is too small for us; give us more space to live in.' 21 Then you will say in your heart, 'Who bore me these? I was bereaved and barren; I was exiled and rejected. Who brought these up? I was left all alone, but these-- where have they come from?'" 22 This is what the Sovereign LORD says: "See, I will beckon to the Gentiles, I will lift up my banner to the peoples; they will bring your sons in their arms and carry your daughters on their shoulders. 23 Kings will be your foster fathers, and their queens your nursing mothers. They will bow down before you with their faces to the ground; they will lick the dust at your feet. Then you will know that I am the LORD; those who hope in me will not be disappointed." 24 Can plunder be taken from warriors, or captives rescued from the fierce? 25 But this is what the LORD says: "Yes, captives will be taken from warriors, and plunder retrieved from the fierce; I will contend with those who contend with you, and your children I will save. 26 I will make your oppressors eat their own flesh; they will be drunk on their own blood, as with wine. Then all mankind will know that I, the LORD, am your Savior, your Redeemer, the Mighty One of Jacob."

 

The above passage is one of many where God promises to Israel that he will restore them to their land.  We are seeing this passage being fulfilled before our eyes.  I even wonder if verse 26 isn’t being fulfilled in the suicide bombers of Islam as they destroy themselves as though they are drunk on their own blood.

            On this day of observance of American Independence, I am particularly interested in the implications of verse 23 “Kings will be your foster fathers, and their queens your nursing mothers.”  The passage suggests that God is not offended when secular government acts in ways that are helpful to his people and his work.  In God’s vision of blessing, government should be a blessing to God’s people in the same way that parents are a blessing to their children.  This has been the Christian vision of government for the past 17 centuries.  (With the “Faith-based” proposals[1] we are seeing a return to some of those original principles.  The Assemblies of God just announced last week that it is setting up an office in Washington DC to work with the government in this area.  Cedar Park has been working to open this aspect of our relationship to the government.)

            When America emerged as a nation some two and a quarter centuries ago, that was how Americans understood the role of government as it related to religion.  This past week when two federal judges ruled that the Pledge of Allegiance is unconstitutional it became quite clear that not everyone shares the historic vision of governmental blessing of religion. 

“Poor Alfred Goodwin! So torrential was the flood of condemnation that followed his opinion—which held that it's unconstitutional for public schools to require students to recite "under God" as part of the Pledge of Allegiance—that the beleaguered appellate-court judge suspended his own ruling until the whole 9th Circuit Court has a chance to review the case.”[2]

            The secularists are arguing that “under God” was inserted into the pledge late in our history, 1954.  However, the phrase is true to the original sentiment of America and is certainly true to the hope of any sensible nation.

            The whole argument is based on a misunderstanding of the First Amendment to the US Constitution which reads:

           

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.

 

What Judge Goodwin doesn’t seem to understand is the phrase “establishment of religion.”  In Webster’s 1828 version of the dictionary, one of the definitions of “establishment” is “5. Fixed or stated allowance for subsistence; income; salary.”  Another notes that “establishment” relates to the Episcopal form of religion in England.  As the term was used in those days, to establish religion meant to provide for the salaries of ministers and to institutionalize religion as the Anglicans were in England.  The reason the federal constitution forbid this was because this was a right to be reserved for the states who had their own established religions.  States like Delaware didn’t want the Feds messing with their state church by setting up a competing national church.  At the time the first amendment to the Constitution was adopted at least three states had their own state establishment churches funded with taxpayer money.  If I had been a Delaware Pastor in those days my paycheck would have come from the State of Delaware, not the local church.

The United States Supreme Court ruled recently that Cleveland’s school vouchers, paid for by the state of Ohio, are legal under the US Constitution even though nearly all the students who got the vouchers went to private religious schools.  Even if the government gave a voucher to every student in America to attend the school of their choice, that would not be the establishment of religion because no religion would be the religion of the state.

Here is Washington State we have a similar lack of understanding of the English Language.  Our state constitution says that schools shall forever be free from sectarian control or influence.

In the 1996 Legislature, I was invited as one of three panelist to address the Senate Education Committee.  My full notes are attached to this message in the web version.  For my purposes here I wanted to quote briefly from that testimony.

 

“The Washington Constitutional Convention was restricted by the Federal Enabling Act which required the convention to include a provision for “the establishment and maintenance of a system of public schools, which shall be open to all children…and free from sectarian control.”[3]

By looking at the Enabling Act, we get some sense of the meaning of this provision.  US Senator William W. Blair, Chairman of the Senate Education Committee saw a precise meaning in the term sectarian.  “This meaning was apparent in the proposed amendment which, while barring sectarian instruction, would have required the free public school to educate children ‘in virtue, morality, and the principles of the Christian religion.’”[4]

 

            At the time of the founding of this state, sectarian meant denomination, a sect or branch of a major religion.  In particular, they didn’t want the Catholics to run the schools.  In my testimony to the Senate Education Committee I suggested we needed some “sect” education in Washington.

 

            We need Christians to get back involved in public life in America.  We have an enemy in radical Islam that has attacked us in our own territory.  We are at war and the war will soon be expanded to Iraq and other countries.  It is time to support America is her war to tame the anti-Christian and anti-democratic forces of radical Islam.  It seems to me that the President is right on target in this regard.

            We need Christians to get involved in Olympia.  Washington Evangelicals for Responsible Government has the only paid voice in Olympia speaking up for our values.  Cedar Park is only one of five churches in the entire state that financially supports that important work.  Most of the churches and Pastors in this state are simply absent from the public debate.  As a result, we end up with the religious harassment that has come to characterize too much of what is coming out of Olympia these days.  You can get involved by supporting WERG financially and by signing up to speak up on important issues.  At the very least, you can register to vote and let your voice be heard.

 

 

 

Dr. Joseph B. Fuiten

Senior Pastor, Cedar Park Assembly of God and

Founder of Cedar Park Christian School. 

 

Testimony regarding the “sectarian” clause of the Washington State Constitution

before the Senate Education Committee, December 5, 1997.

 

I.        The problem that needs to be remedied

 

Our schools have become hostile to Christianity.  The traditional practices of the public schools have been increasingly scrubbed clean of any Christian influence. 

·        The Ten Commandments are gone from the walls of the School.  

·        The prayers that my public school began with each day no longer are allowed. 

·        Baccalaureate services must be conducted off school property, without the school band or choir, without notice at the school, and only with private sponsorship.

 

·        Students from our church have been forbidden to write papers having religious themes at Kenmore Junior High School in the Northshore School District.

·        My oldest daughter, who graduated from Snohomish High School, had a United States History textbook that told the entire story of America without once mentioning God, or Christianity.  The entire history of the nation had been revised.  Christianity was more than marginalized, it disappeared.  Even though eighty percent of the political tracts written during the Revolutionary period were written by Pastors like myself, Christianity was nowhere to be found.

 

II.      The cause of this problem is the “sectarian” clause of the Washington State Constitution

 

III.    The answer is to return to the founder’s intent with regard to this clause.

I could refer you to the excellent article by Justice Robert F. Utter and Professor Edward J. Larson in Hastings Constitutional Law Quarterly, Spring 1988 edition.  Their article, “Church and State on the Frontier:  The History of the Establishment Clauses in the Washington State Constitution” gives a very clear history of how this clause came to be.

The Washington Constitutional Convention was restricted by the Federal Enabling Act which required the convention to include a provision for “the establishment and maintenance of a system of public schools, which shall be open to all children…and free from sectarian control.”[5]

By looking at the Enabling Act, we get some sense of the meaning of this provision.  US Senator William W. Blair, Chairman of the Senate Education Committee saw a precise meaning in the term sectarian.  “This meaning was apparent in the proposed amendment which, while barring sectarian instruction, would have required the free public school to educate children ‘in virtue, morality, and the principles of the Christian religion.’”[6]

Utter summarized the view of Blair:  “Blair clearly did not intend the public school provision of the Enabling Act to prohibit instruction on religious principles.  He believed that this instruction did not constitute promotion of sectarian religion.  Quite to the contrary, he intended that the Act would advance the teaching of Christian principles without advancing sectarianism.”[7]  Blair’s views are even more important than his decisive influence on the Federal Enabling Act. He also had tremendous influence here in Olympia.

A significant majority of delegates to the Washington Constitutional Convention Republicans.  More significantly, they were Blair Republicans.  The Washington territorial delegations to the Republican National conventions in 1876, 1880, and 1884 had backed Blair for President.  Even in 1892 they backed Blair over incumbent Republican Benjamin Harrison.  The delegation “also supported his well-known and long-standing views on religious establishment and common schools.”[8]

Far from opposing generic Christian principles in education, the Enabling Act had a more immediate target.  With the arrival of huge numbers of immigrants, particularly Irish Catholics who were protective of their traditions and objected to the heavily Protestant flavor of the public schools, a contest of wills began.  Blair, and the majority in Congress, did not wish to see Catholic schools to benefit from public funding.  Since Catholic schools were clearly sectarian, they could be prevented with restrictions on sectarian control or influence.

At both the Federal and State Convention level, there was general agreement that prayer and Bible reading in the schools were acceptable, but teaching the particular values of one sect of Christianity was improper.

At the Constitutional Convention, there were attempts to change the word “sectarian” to “religious”.  M. M. Godman commented that he “didn’t see how anything could exclude religious ‘influence’… Control was all that the constitution could prohibit.”[9]

The various votes, including the “sectarian” clause, showed that the convention believed in  “the common school movement, which maintained that public schools should present wholesome, nonsectarian religious influence by teaching about general religious principles.”[10]  This idea permeated the 1889 annual report of the Superintendent of Public Instruction.  SPI supported religious principles taught in the public schools.  In his individual report, San Juan County superintendent E. C. Gillette said “The public school may well be considered…not only the pillar of the state, but the means whereby we are enabled to minister to our spiritual needs.”[11]

The historical record is plain enough that the Constitution does not envision the present disastrous state of hostility to religion values in public education.  The shift has not taken place democratically, either by vote of the people or this Legislature.  Rather, the “robed masters” have done this.  It has been by judicial fiat that the present state of affairs has occurred.  The misunderstanding of the word “sect” has been partially responsible.  It seems to me that the judiciary needs a class in sect education, and I recommend that the Legislature conduct the class.

 

IV.    The strategy must be to redefine the word back to its original meaning in a legally defensible manner.

 

I would recommend that the Legislature can reassert the original Constitutional viewpoint by defining “sectarian” in the bills which come before it in future sessions.  “Sectarian” is a branch of something larger. It is a subgroup.  As an Assemblies of God minister, I represent about 30 million people worldwide.  We are not Christianity.  We are a sect of Christianity. I hold some uniquely sectarian views and many common or universal Christian views. There are many religious and Christian sects, but religion itself is not a sect and need not necessarily be sectarian. 

I agree with the founders that we do not want the Catholics or the Assemblies of God to control or influence public education along sectarian lines.  Want we want are public schools that are under the influence of those common religious values that are shared by all of us in this room. 

In ten minutes we could agree on a substantial list of such values.  These could be taught in the public schools, not just as human values.  We could teach them in the name of the one who is mentioned in the preamble to the Washington State Constitution, “the Supreme Ruler of the Universe.”  We could teach them under the name of the one whose name we invoke when we say the pledge of allegiance, “One Nation, under God.”  We could teach them in the name of the one whose name appears on our money, “In God we Trust.”

If we could make progress in these areas of common values, maybe we could even summon the courage to mention at least once in future history books that America has in it a group of people known as Christians.

 

 

 

 

           

           


[2] David Greenberg

[3] Enabling Act, ch. 180, section 4, 25 Stat.676-77 (1889), cited in the Hastings article mentioned, page 458.  Hereafter, the original source will be cited without reference to the article in Hastings.

[4]Utter and Larson, quoting from S. 86, 50th Cong. 1st Sess (1888).  2.

[5] Enabling Act, ch. 180, section 4, 25 Stat.676-77 (1889), cited in the Hastings article mentioned, page 458.  Hereafter, the original source will be cited without reference to the article in Hastings.

[6]Utter and Larson, quoting from S. 86, 50th Cong. 1st Sess (1888).  2.

[7] Utter and Larson, p. 461-62.

[8] Id. 468-69.

[9] Spokane Falls Review, August 11, 1889, at 2, col 6.

[10] Utter and Larson, p. 477.

[11] Report of the Superintendent of Public Instruction of the Territory of Washington (1889)