Wall or hedge? / LJWorld.com

Archive for Friday, March 9, 2012

Wall or hedge?

By Don Conrad, Lawrence

March 9, 2012

I strongly protest politicians advocating an “absolute wall of separation between church and state.” Probably I do not know — nor has it been explicit — what an “absolute wall” means.

The phrase “wall of separation” was in a letter by Thomas Jefferson to the Danbury (Conn.) Baptists in 1802. Roger Williams in 1644 had advocated a “hedge or wall of separation.” There is a difference between a wall and a hedge — penetrability and visibility. (Once I heard that Jefferson spoke of “a line of separation between church and state,” but I could not find the citation.)

One cannot bifurcate one’s civic self from religious self — and I hope no one tries. As a voter, I value knowing what the candidate is and believes. Such data informs my choices. Candidate John F. Kennedy provided significant understanding, which I expect (almost) all candidates to affirm publicly and personally.

A “line of separation between church and state” for me means there is an institutional separation and a functional interaction between church and state. A “wall” is impossible and prohibitive. And an “absolute wall”?

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Informed 1 year, 3 months ago

Excellent letter. Good point, too!

overplayedhistory 1 year, 3 months ago

Not Really! you are tax exempt what more do you effing want?

Ragingbear 1 year, 3 months ago

True peace will never be achieved until the last king is strangled using the entrails of the last priest.

snap_pop_no_crackle 1 year, 3 months ago

Whatever happened to the New Civility?

Ragingbear 1 year, 3 months ago

The priest said that it was "Not of God" and then pooped in the holy water.

beatrice 1 year, 3 months ago

Did you even try with the old civility?

jafs 1 year, 3 months ago

Mr. Conrad seems to misunderstand JFK's comments on this issue.

In a speech to Baptist ministers, JFK discussed the issue of church and state, and made it quite clear that he expected presidents and legislators to follow the Constitution, not their religious beliefs, when engaged in political decisions.

That means that regardless of one's religious belief, one uses the Constitution, not the Bible and one's understanding of it.

jafs 1 year, 3 months ago

Nope.

Read the letter again, he specifically quotes JFK, and does so incorrectly.

If politicians can't separate the two, and want to use their religious belief, rather than the Constitution, to inform their actions in office, they should resign.

The oath they take is to support the Constitution, not the Bible.

oxymoron 1 year, 3 months ago

This comment was removed by the site staff for violation of the usage agreement.

Ron Holzwarth 1 year, 3 months ago

We used bifurcated terminals all the time at King Radio. But, you would have considered that usage of the term to be quite boring. The only thing it meant was that the terminal split into two parts, and therefore the leads of two or sometimes more electrical components could be very securely soldered into it, and thus withstand the vibration from the engine that the device would be subjected to without failure while the aircraft that used the device was in flight.

parrothead8 1 year, 3 months ago

You don't deal in facts much, do you? Just hyperbole, feel-good terms like "doer" and "leader", and archaic words like "lunatical."

It's not the left that's having a problem keeping their religion out of their politics.

TomPaine 1 year, 3 months ago

Yeah, and why shouldn't a vegetarian who takes a job a McDonald's refuse to serve burgers? Because promoting vegetarianism isn't any part of the job, and giving people meat is. Promoting religion and enacting dogma is no part of the job in secular government. Politicians have no authority to impose their supernatural speculations in the performance of the public business. In fact they are specifically warned not to do so in the Constitution.

http://www.infidels.org/library/modern/ed_buckner/quotations.html

John F. Kennedy - "I believe in an America where the separation of church and state is absolute."

John Adams- “The United States of America have exhibited, perhaps, the first example of governments erected on the simple principles of nature; and if men are now sufficiently enlightened to disabuse themselves of artifice, imposture, hypocrisy, and superstition, they will consider this event as an era in their history. Although the detail of the formation of the American governments is at present little known or regarded either in Europe or in America, it may hereafter become an object of curiosity. It will never be pretended that any persons employed in that service had interviews with the gods, or were in any degree under the influence of Heaven, more than those at work upon ships or houses, or laboring in merchandise or agriculture; it will forever be acknowledged that these governments were contrived merely by the use of reason and the senses. . . Thirteen governments [of the original states] thus founded on the natural authority of the people alone, without a pretence of miracle or mystery, and which are destined to spread over the northern part of that whole quarter of the globe, are a great point gained in favor of the rights of mankind.”