There really is no compulsion in this religion
Political, Theology ·Sunday May 3, 2009 @ 23:28 EDT (link)
The reason there is no compulsion in worship in the United States Constitution is because Christianity is about free will. This is well stated in this post (not mine) to the Christians at Microsoft list:
People who read the constitution and view the absence of God as a reflection of the "secularness" of our founders miss the point. The reason our constitution is absent from any hint of compulsion to worship in any specified manner is a direct result of the religious beliefs of the founders and those they represented. They believed in an almighty God, but that the only acceptable worship of Him must be of free will. To try and force a man to worship God against his will would be a violation of God's own law.
This nation was indeed founded on Christian principles. Let me ask, when was this nation founded? When the constitution was signed in 1787? Or rather when we declared ourselves free on Independence Day: July 4, 1776? This declaration of independence does not attempt to define all the laws by which we should govern ourselves but it certainly outlines the reasons for the founding of our nation. These reasons are largely based on the Christian beliefs of the founders and those whom they represented:
When in the Course of human events it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands… the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them.
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness….
With a firm reliance on the protection of Divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes, and our sacred Honor.
Their sense of this "God of nature", "equality", the one who gives all men "unalienable Rights" which no government can take away, and their "reliance on the protection of Divine Providence" came from nowhere else but their religious beliefs, which happened to be Christian. Even their sense of justice was immensely influenced by this. Our laws are based on this sense of justice which came from their Christian beliefs.
Don't get me wrong, they wanted nothing to do with a church/state theocracy as that was the type of system they had just freed themselves of, but they had no qualms about religious expression even in government. I think it was D. Prager who said "this country was founded to be free, not secular."
Re: Jefferson as a Deist. I never understood this claim, but I am admittedly not an expert. A Deist is one who believes in an impersonal God, like a watchmaker who wound up creation and left it to operate on its own. They do not believe in the personal interaction of God in the affairs of men. With this in mind, I am unable to fathom how a Deist could make comments such as this:
"God who gave us life gave us liberty. And can the liberties of a nation be thought secure when we have removed their only firm basis, a conviction in the minds of the people that these liberties are of the Gift of God? That they are not to be violated but with His wrath? Indeed, I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just; that His justice cannot sleep forever; That a revolution of the wheel of fortune, a change of situation, is among possible events; that it may become probable by Supernatural influence! The Almighty has no attribute which can take side with us in that event." (Notes on the State of Virginia, Query XVIII, p. 237.)
Perhaps he changed his opinion during some other time in his life, but it seems impossible for a deist to make such a statement unless he does so without belief in his own words. He also said this:
"I am a real Christian - that is to say, a disciple of the doctrines of Jesus Christ." (The Writings of Thomas Jefferson, p. 385.)
