[Fred Flash]

The Godless Constitution by Isaac Kramnick and Laurence Moore is a powerful antidote to repeated right wing claims that the United States is a "Christian" nation, or that the Constitution doesn't really intend to separate church and state.

Since Kramnick and Moore wrote the book ten years ago, America has seen a steady encroachment against the concept of a "wall", as Jefferson put it, separating church and state. The vouchers movement has had numerous victories, including one here in Ohio, Zelman (that would be state supt. Susan Tave Zelman) vs. Simmons Harris, in which the court upheld Ohio's Cleveland voucher program. Of course, President Bush has attempted to completely tear down the wall, with his Office of Faith Based programs, which seems as much designed to create a legal precedent as to actually help faith based charities. Roy Moore's crusade to exhibit the Ten Commandments, while overturned by the Supreme Court, gained the support of millions of Americans including conspicuously Antonin Scalia. Of course, the greatest damage to the establishment clause may be the appointments of John Roberts and Samuel Alito to the Supreme Court. In spite of the rightward lurch of the past few years and the rallying cry of many conservatives that "there is no separation of church and state in the constitution," Kramnick and Moore suggest that the separation was real and intentional on the part of the founders.

What I always about this book is Kramnick and Moore's discussion of the God test. In their argument, the fact that no God test was included in the Constitution is evidence itself that the framers intended to keep religious practice and governance as far apart as possible. As they explain, the God test was an oath that office holders would be required to take, an oath of religious orthodoxy which was required in 11 of 13 states at the time. However, when the clause barring religious tests was introduced, "Roger Sherman of Connecticut... held that the prohibition was unnecessary, the prevailing liberality being a sufficient security against such tests." According to Maryland delegate Luther Martin, the proposal was "adopted by a very great majority of the convention and without much debate."

Another simple, but significant point made by the authors: in contrast to other legal documents such as the Delaration of Independence and the Articles of Confederation, there is no mention of God in the Constitution. In this sense, it is "godless." While the Declaration speaks of the "Creator", and the Confederation speaks of the "Governor" of the universe, no such mention is made in the Constitution, but rather it plainly derives its power from the people. This choice, the authors argue, was important, showing that the framers really did intend to keep religion out of the political sphere.

The book goes on to discuss various important figures from Early America, including the complex and controversial Roger Williams, who believed that politicians had no role in God's kingdom, and advocated a severe separation of church and state, in part to protect religious minorities from persecution.

The key point to Williams was always to remember that no society, no government, no nation, played a role in God's redemptive scheme. Religion might influence how people behaved in all areas of their lives. But what they did in the name of God had no claims upon their neighbor's conscience. Elected officials should try iin their own way to be virtuous, but they should never claim that they acted in God's name. Williams thought that if everyone understood these fundamentals, the problems of keeping church and state separate would take care of themselves.

Of course Kramnick and Moore also discuss other major figures of the Constitutional era, especially Thomas Jefferson, the famous "infidel" who inspired polemics like the following, in which the speaker wonders if Jefferson will bring the French excesses to American shores:

Is it that our churches may become temples of reason, our sabbath a decade, and our Psalms of praise Marseillese hymns? Is it that we may change our holy worship into a dance of Jacobian frenzy and that we may behold such a strumpet personating a goddess on the alter of Jehovah? Is it that we may see the Bible cast into a bonfire? Shall our sons become the disciples of Voltaire and the dragoons of Marat?

It's interesting to think of one of the founders so revered by the right for supposedly founding a nation based on Christian principles was in his day decried as an atheist and pagan.

Kramnick and Moore's book is a terrific read, well-researched and rich with detail in spite of its brevity (only 178 pages). Even though it is ten years old (the authors discuss the views of Phil Gramm and Pat Buchanan, for example), the book is as relevant now as when it was published.

http://www.ohdave.net/2007/09/godless-constitution.html