[Congressional Record Volume 169, Number 64 (Tuesday, April 18, 2023)] [House] [Page H1767] From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
Date: 2023-04-18
Chamber: HOUSE
Mr. JOHNSON : this week, we are observing the second annual celebration of Faith Month. Concerned Women for America and other sponsors are encouraging legislators across our country to give public display of our personal faith freely and openly. What a great exercise this is. Of course, even though there is a dangerous trend today to discourage the display or depiction of the exercise of our faith in the public square--certainly, there is a move to keep religion out of politics and to rigidly enforce the so-called separation of church and state--the Founders of this country would have certainly supported our efforts here today. Indeed, this common misunderstanding about the separation concept-- and it is an important one--is one that is useful for us to address. I think today is a good day to do it. In fact, it is one of my favorite subjects. It is a topic that I have debated and written and taught university courses on for about 25 years, about a quarter of a century. For two of those decades, I was in the courts defending religious freedom cases. I learned during that time that I really believe that this is among the most misunderstood subjects in our entire culture.  You see, most people today who insist upon a rigid separation of church and state are unaware that that phrase derives not from the Constitution itself, of course, but from a personal letter that Thomas Jefferson wrote to the Danbury Baptist Association in 1802. He explained that because ``religion is a matter which lies solely between man and his God,'' the language of the First Amendment is a vital safeguard of our ``rights of conscience.'' Jefferson said he revered ``that act of the whole American people which declared that their legislature should `make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof,' thus building a wall of separation between church and state.'' That is what he wrote in his letter to the Danbury Baptists, but Jefferson clearly did not mean that metaphorical wall was to keep religion from influencing issues of civil government. To the contrary, it was meant to keep the Federal Government from impeding the religious practice of citizens. The Founders wanted to protect the church from an encroaching state, not the other way around. The majority of the Founders, having personally witnessed the abuses of the Church of England, were determined to prevent the official establishment of any single national denomination or religion. Of course, we know that, but here is the point. They very deliberately listed religious liberty, the free exercise of religion, as the first freedom protected in the Bill of Rights because--here is the key--they wanted everyone to freely live out their faith as that would ensure a robust presence of moral virtue in the public square and the free marketplace of ideas. Volumes written on this topic can be summarized probably best and most concisely by reference to the sentiments of our first two Presidents. In his historic Farewell Address, President George Washington, of course, famously said: ``Of all the dispositions and habits which lead to political prosperity, religion and morality are indispensable supports.'' Our second President, John Adams, came next, and he said: ``Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.'' What these two Founders and their fellow patriots all understood from history was that there are many important rules and practices that can help build and sustain a healthy republic, but the key and essential foundation of a system of government like ours must be a common commitment among the citizenry to the principles of religion and morality. The Founders acknowledged in the Declaration the self-evident truths that all men are created equal and that God gives all men the same inalienable rights. However, they knew that in order to maintain a ``government of the people, by the people, for the people,'' as Lincoln later articulated, in ``this nation, under God,'' those inalienable rights must be exercised in a responsible manner. They thus believed in liberty that is legitimately constrained by a common sense of morality and a healthy fear of the creator who granted all men our rights. The Founders understood that all men are fallen and that power corrupts. They also knew that no amount of institutional checks and balances and decentralization of power in civil authorities would be sufficient to maintain a just government if the men in charge had no fear of eternal judgment by a power higher than their temporal institutions. A free society and a healthy republic depend upon religious and moral virtue because those convictions in the minds and hearts of the people make it possible to preserve their essential freedoms by emphasizing and inspiring individual responsibility and self-sacrifice and the dignity of hard work, the rule of law, civility, patriotism, the value of family and community, and the sanctity of every single human life. They knew that this would be important, and without these virtues indispensably supported by religion and morality, every nation would ultimately fail. Inscribed on the third panel of the Jefferson Memorial here in Washington is a sobering reminder to every American. It says: ``God who gave us life gave us liberty. Can the liberties of a nation be secure when we have removed a conviction that these liberties are the gift of God?'' This a great time to preserve our faith. We can never back down. I thank the Concerned Women for America.