Bad things happen when church and state mix
By J. Brent Walker

Two recent columns in major n a t i o n a l publications have reinforced truths that the Baptist Joint Committee has long articulated. We have often said that, when church and state get mixed up together, one of two things always happens — and both are bad. At worst, consciences are violated initially and persecution results ultimately. At best (if it can be called “best”), state-controlled religion — even in the hands of a benevolent government — waters down religion and strips it of its vitality.

In an Op-Ed piece titled, “A Theocracy Won’t Forgive Our Trespasses,” published on November 18 in the Atlanta Journal- Constitution, Jay Bookman highlights the first of these consequences. Bookman observes: “We used to understand that government and religion function best when they function independently, when the only link between them is the indirect link of human beings acting out their private faiths through public service. We used to understand that if religion takes a direct role in government, government must inevitably take a direct role in religion, and that the long-standing wall between them was built for the protection of both institutions.”

Bookman then continues: “There is no case in recorded human history in which religion and government have been intertwined without eventually Bad things happen when church and state mix compromising basic human freedoms. Inevitably that relationship gets out of control and people get hurt.” Examples abound. A quick survey of history — the Crusades, the Spanish Inquisition, religious wars in 17th century Europe, the jailing of Baptist preachers in colonial Virginia —— and contemporary events — the September 11 tragedy, the atrocities of the Taliban and repressive theocracies around the world — provides overwhelming evidence of what happens when religious zeal is combined with coercive power.

But that’s not the whole story. Something else sometimes happens. Even where persecution is held in check, religion itself can be the casualty. This is the focus of Eduardo Porter’s November 21 Op-Ed in the New York Times, titled “Give Them Some of That Free-Market Religion.” Porter observes that America is an anomaly among progressive 21st century industrialized democracies, such as in Western Europe. All of these countries have grown inexorably more secular. Although these nations may not engage in religious persecution, they have all experienced a marked diminution in religious devotion. If, in Porter’s words, religion and modernity don’t mix, then how do you explain the fact that America — the wealthiest and perhaps most modern of them all — is, by in large, fervently religious?

The answer he offers is a variation on the theme of supply-side economics. America’s religious landscape is vibrant precisely because there are so many groups vying for the allegiance of Americans. That is to say, “Americans are more churchgoing and pious than Germans or Canadians because the United States has the most open religious market, with dozens of religious denominations competing vigorously to offer their flavor of salvation, becoming extremely responsive to the needs of their parishes.” And, quoting Baylor University scholar Rodney Stark, Porter writes, “Wherever you’ve got a state church, you have empty churches.” How true.

Porter rightly concludes that this freemarket model depends for its effectiveness on a full-bodied understanding of the separation of church and state. To the degree that government participates in the creation of a religious monopoly, the competitive forces that have caused religion to thrive are undercut.

Yes, as soon as government starts to meddle in religion (for or against) or takes sides in matters of religion (favoring one over others), religious liberty is threatened at that very point. And, in the end, even the religion that government seeks to help is actually hurt and its vitality is vitiated.

John Leland, the Baptist preacher in colonial Virginia, was prophetic when he exclaimed more than 200 years ago that, “the fondness of magistrates to foster Christianity has caused it more harm than all the persecutions ever did.”

Elder Leland had it right. The American experiment in religious liberty demonstrates that the best thing government can do for religion is simply to leave it alone.

J. Brent Walker is executive director of the Washington-based Baptist Joint Committee for Religious Liberty. He is both a member of the Supreme Court Bar and an ordained minister. This column first appeared in the December 2004 issue of Report from the Capital.