Hold High Liberty's Torch
Samuel 12:1-15; Mark 6:17-28
Gettysburg Presbyterian Church
Harry G. Winsheimer
July 6, 2008

How many of you have had the privilege of ascending the corkscrew stairs to the crown of the Statue of Liberty?

Lady Liberty is impressive.  She is colossal; she is master craftsmanship; she is handsome.  Most of all, she provokes sentiment for what she symbolizes. 

Liberty!  Freedom!  What a beautiful idea!  What a blessing!

A person whom I know from our last church just returned from a year’s assignment to a very poor country with a communist styled government.  One of her employees overseas was a local Christian.  When she left to return to the United States, he was in jail.  What was his crime?  He had met with more than two others for a Bible study!  There, it is against the law to assemble more than two people!  This is not specifically persecution of Christians, but can you imagine being a Christian and not being allowed even to have a Bible study with three others?  According to a web site on the persecuted church in that country, one practice for punishing Christians is to box them in small metal shipping containers.  From such torture, some have gone blind or lost the ability to use their limbs.  If we lived in that country, we would be terrified that the police and soldiers would smash open these doors, snap the cuffs on us, shove us onto trucks, perhaps never again to see the family with whom we came this morning.

What we enjoy many Christians do not.  Many cannot look to a statue and thank God, because they may worship the way they believe.

Thank God, for our freedom of religion!   That freedom must not be taken for granted!  The relationship of church and state is fluid and dynamic.  I have seen many changes.  When in public high school in the early 1950s, every school day began with the teacher reading a passage from the Bible.  We then stood and said the Lord’s Prayer and pledged allegiance to the flag.  We had prayer at graduation.  We had a baccalaureate service in the school.  Do you do any of those now?  The wall separating church and state is not a wall at all.  It is more like one of those red-and-white sawhorse barriers that the police erect to manage traffic at a parade.  It is located where the political pressures of the day place it. 

What issues are raised currently about the separation of church and state? 

Take a moment to think.  Public school prayers, I already mentioned.  But many more issues are before our school leaders: What may be taught?  What groups are permitted?  Who may use the facilities?  

The present IRS code says that I may not urge you to support or boycott a particular candidate, or Gettysburg Presbyterian will lose its tax exempt status.  I may address issues, not campaign for candidates.

Other issues at the barrier: An issue in the news is the role of the personal faith of the presidential candidates.  Homosexual unions or marriage.  Ten Commandments on public property.  Chaplains in prisons and the military.  Taxes of religious property.  Faith-based initiatives.  Stem cell research.  Conscientious objection to war has received no attention lately, because we do not have the draft.  Keeping or removing “under God” from the Pledge of Allegiance.  Keeping or removing, “In God we trust,” from our coins.  These are some issues between church and state.

The separation of church and state is very fluid and dynamic.  While I miss the hand-in-hand relationship of Christianity with the government which I knew as a child, I treasure religious freedom.

People come to these issues from numerous standpoints, each believing that he or she knows God’s will and wants it codified in civil law.  And, secularists want all mention of faith to be removed from public discourse.  They want politicians to be chameleons, and change their colors as they shift from private to public life.  They seem to expect that our faith is like clothes that we put on according to the occasion. They would be happy if God and church were eliminated.  However, faith is integral to who a person is, and I expect a person’s faith to affect behavior. 

Legislators, judges and regulators are in the line of fire from diverse religious groups.  They often are caught between their personal faith and the law or political possibility.

I am not here to take a stand on any of the current roaring church and state issues.  That is not my point on this Independence Sunday. 

My point is that public debate exists!!!  That is good!  If we lived today in many countries, there would be no debate!  

The Past:  It is helpful to know how we came to enjoy the blessing of religious freedom.

By the time Lady Liberty was erected in New York harbor, religious freedom was firmly established.  Separation of church and state had existed for a century in this land.  But, it was a new reality when the founding fathers and mothers hammered against each other until the bigoted Christianity inherited from Europe yielded to tolerance.

In the long-ago world of King David, there was tension.  The saying is that power corrupts.  Well, it sure did David!  The innocent shepherd teen used his royal position to seduce Bathsheba.  Then, after he impregnated her while her soldier husband was off in combat, what did David do?  Do you remember?  He made matters even worse.  As a cover-up, he arranged to have her husband killed in combat.  God was furious!  God sent the prophet Nathan to call David to judgment.  Nathan pulled off one of the most brilliant ploys.  He told a story about a rich man abusing a poor man.  (We just read it.)  David was incensed at the injustice.  David damned the rich man for his selfish, cruel treatment. Then Nathan pronounced the most devastating accusation: “You are the man!”  David had sentenced himself.  See the tension between the religious person and the government official. 

That tension continued through the thousand years of the Old Testament into New Testament time, when John the Baptist loudly and publicly criticized King Herod for marrying his sister-in-law in a very shady way.  What was the outcome?  Herod beheaded John!  And, of course, Pilate crucified Jesus!

In the still long-ago world of Europe in the sixteen hundreds, the church and the government walked as a couple, hand-in-hand.   Each country had a state church.  In England, it was the Church of England.  In Scotland, it was Presbyterian.  In France, Spain and Italy, it was Roman Catholic.  In Scandinavia, it was Lutheran.  If you were a member of the state church, all was fine.  However, should you be so brash as to belong to an unofficial denomination, you faced persecution.  In that climate, loyal Church of Englanders killed separatists, as the folk who separated themselves came to be called.  In France, Catholics slaughtered the Huguenots.  Oh, how our Christian ancestors loved each other!  

Some of the separatists sailed to the New World and settled in Massachusetts.  We call them Puritans.  Commonly and incorrectly, we trace our largest historical root of religious freedom to them.  It is true that they came here in search of a place where they could practice their religion without harassment.  But, here they created a theocracy -- another version of church and government walking hand-in-hand -- the same arrangement from which they fled in Europe.  They wanted freedom to practice their religion.  They did not allow others to practice theirs.

In 1630, a minister came to the Puritan Colonies who made a major contribution to religious freedom.  He was Roger Williams.  He held new views in regard to both civil government and the Church.  He became pastor of the more liberal church in Salem.    Among the charges brought against him was the teaching, quote, "That the civil magistrate's power extends only to the bodies, and goods, and outward state of men." William Warren Sweet, The Story of Religion in America, p. 68.  In other words, the minister and church could not go to the FBI to force anyone's religious belief.  That was a radical new idea in the sixteen hundreds.

For his views, Williams was expelled from Massachusetts.  He settled in what today is Rhode Island.  The charter which he eventually received embodied his beliefs: "separation of church and state -- no church membership qualification required for voters, while every man was to be protected in the `peaceful and quiet enjoyment of lawful right and liberty...not withstanding our different consciences touching the truth as it is in Jesus.'"
Sweet, p. 71

Our ancestors knew that both church and state could be cruel tyrants.  Therefore, after they wrote a Constitution for the newly born nation, the very first amendment -- did you hear me? -- the very first clause -- they wrote into the Bill of Rights was this:
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof….
It is called the Establishment Clause.
 
And, in 1789, when the presbyterians composed our first Book of Order, they included the following principles: 
That "God alone is Lord of the conscience....
Therefore we consider the rights of private judgment, in all matters that respect religion, as universal and unalienable: We do not even wish to see any religious constitution aided by the civil power, further than may be necessary for protection and security, and at the same time, be equal and common to all others.
            The Book of Order, 2007/2009, G-1.0301

Creative colonial politicians formed a government which was to stay out of religious matters.  And our presbyterian saints formed a government based upon individual conscience and without any more government support than was common to all.  This came to be referred to as separation of church and state.  The concept has served our nation and our church well for over two centuries.

On this Independence Sunday, I have reviewed the roots of our religious freedom, because I believe that people should know them.  We should know that what we take for granted had to be hammered out in conflict.  We need to understand how we got to today. 

We need to grasp that religious freedom is fluid and dynamic.  We enjoy it because we work to keep it.

Thank God for religious freedom!

The Present in the U.S.A.

Religious freedom is not static.  Church and state are friends, rivals, foes.  We are friends because church members pray for and participate in the government.  We are rivals because each demands loyalty.  The government insists on loyalty so great that we may be asked to die for our country.  The church demands the same loyalty to Christ, even asserting that God judges all behavior of presidents, congressmen, judges, bureaucrats and nations.  The church claims that there is a higher moral law than the law of any nation.  When Christians refuse to obey the law because they believe that God requires different behavior, church and state become foes. 

The barrier between church and state is pushed around constantly.  People are tense around the barrier.  Always has been.  Always will be.  All issues at the barrier cannot be resolved, just held in tension.  While we disagree with each other, I pray that we will preserve the tolerance which has blessed us.  Life for me and the Presbyterian Church under God and the First Amendment is heavenly compared with that of our Christian cousins in communist, dictatorial and Islamic lands.  I want as much freedom as possible to practice my Christian faith.  If that means that I give equal freedom to people with whom I disagree, then so be it.  If that means that I must assume greater intentionally and financial responsibility for the Christian education and values formation of my children, then so be it.  I treasure freedom so highly that I am willing to pay a stiff price to preserve it.   

After being at the Statue of Liberty, a little girl was impressed by the lady holding up the torch.  She imitated her, lifting her play torch.  Her arm got tired.  Then, she said to her father, "Doesn't her arm get tired?  Someone should help her hold up the torch."

May that someone be you and I!

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