Month: June 2026

A Bridge to Far

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We know that our current President is a builder. His most recent project involved knocking down of the East Wing of the White House to make way for 90,000 square foot ballroom. He is also proposing a colossal 250 foot Arc de Trump. In his first term the MAGA chant was “Build the wall.” Now, his commission for Religious Liberty is proposing to build a bridge, maybe a skyway between the hedges, over the conceptual wall that separates Church and State.

According to The Washington Post that “The Trump administration took aim at the separation of church and state Friday, issuing a draft report from the president’s Religious Liberty Commission that says the separation concept is a legal error and that Americans should view religion as an “’essential support” and always remember it is “the Creator who made us and bestows our rights.’”

I am not sure what “essential support means.” I have heard of essential oils as the chemicals from plants that can support health. And I can see where religious beliefs can be supportive in life. But I think, that despite some of our “founding documents” invoking God, the men who collaborated on those documents were not thinking about churches as part of the state. (Case in point: Iran.) But that is me. I don’t know what the committee that wrote the Declaration of Independence was thinking–other than stating the causes to break away from Great Britain.

I am not a religious philosopher or Biblical Scholar but if God is the bestower of our rights, and if God is all knowing, I just even wonder if God cares one way or another about some of man’s doings. God may not be a Micro-Manager. And I am not sure what God’s opinion is on, say, posting the Ten Commandments on a public building or classroom. Isn’t that what churches are for?

I am also befuddled a bit with the idea that the separation of church and state is a “legal error.” It is a unique concept that has been around for 200 plus years. A concept that has been fundamentally important to stability in the United States–and in our churches. And now we find that we have been believing in a fallible “assumption.” Sticking with the Ten Commandments; and using my illogic reasoning, if we can post the Ten Commandments in public places the reverse reasoning should hold true, too. What is keeping somebody from demanding that Thomas Paine’s Common Sense be placed in every church pew next to the hymnal?

It is important to note that the words, God, Jesus and Christianity are not mentioned in the Constitution as evidence that the writers of this basic governing document wanted to put up a strong wall of separation.–Bridgewater State University

GovFacts says “the phrase (separation of church and state) itself appears nowhere in the U.S. Constitution;” but instead comes “from a metaphor used by President Thomas Jefferson in an 1802 letter.” The Supreme Court since then has adopted that metaphor “as the definitive interpretation of the First Amendment’s religious clause.”

Believing with you that religion is a matter which lies solely between man and his god, that he woes account to none other for his faith or his worship, that the legislative powers of government reach actions only, and not opinions, I contemplate with sovereign reverence that act of the whole American people which declare that their legislature should make “no laws respecting and establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof,”thus building a wall of separation between church and State.–Thomas Jefferson in an 1802 letter to the Danbury Baptist Association in the State of Connecticut

And yes, the Declaration of Independence references God the origin of our “unalienable rights.” And yes, we can see, if we look hard enough–maybe–we will see the hands of providence in the destruction of slavery, the women’s suffrage movement and Martin Luther King’s civil rights efforts for racial equality. (Which seems to be a retrograding belief with this ideological crew in charge now.)

Some people have managed to look over the separation of church and state wall to see religious liberty as the “proper allocation of authority between religious–both individual beliefs and communal religious practices–and government power,” this according to the Presidential Religious Commission’s draft report.

I don’t know but when I hear the word “communal” I think of Hippies growing their own vegetables and naked toddlers running freely on the grass. According to the commission, like those hippie kids, “for us to have liberty, we have to allow religion to be utterly free.”

I am utterly confused because I never thought there was any problem with religious freedom. But I guess I am wrong. For instance, according to the report the public schools are rife with religious prejudices. But I am not going to go into that because it really is old hash that just attracts flies.

What I want to look at is the time is right after the publication of the Declaration of Independence. In Emily Sneff’s book When the Declaration of Independence was News she follows the trail of the Declaration from its first printings and its travels to the Thirteen states, the Continental Army, to churches, towns to be read to soldiers, citizens and church goers; and then across the Atlantic to Europe. In fact one copy of the Declaration indented for Silas Deane in France, ended up being thrown overboard to keep it out of British hands. Ironically, British ministers knew about the colonial independence before our representative in France did.

Anyone who has read anything on the our Revolutionary War has to realize that not everybody agreed with breaking ties to Great Britain. In Chapter 7: Embarrassment Clergymen Close Churches and Change Prayers Sneff describes the dilemma of Anglican clergymen who did not necessarily agree with breaking from the King and with their spiritual vows.

Sneff recounts how “The Declaration of Independence caused a moment of reckoning for…clergymen in the United State.” The reckoning had to do with the Anglican Book of Common Prayer. Then, as it is today “His Majesty the King is the Supreme Governor of the Church of England.” He gets to appoint bishops. (Today he does so with the advice of the Prime Minister–maybe not so much in 1776.)

Herein lies the dilemma. Sneff writes, clergymen, “whether they were born in the colonies or in Europe and to be ordained by a bishop in England, because there were no bishops in North America.” In addition, ministers “had to swear an oath to the king’s sovereignty over every earthly power and promise to adhere strictly to the Book of Common Prayer.”

The Book of Common Prayer guides Anglican services to “include prayers for the king to defeat his enemies.” And as Sneff says as the Revolutionary War “raged on the king’s enemies filled the church pews.” Leaving ministers to choose between three uncomfortable paths as newly formed states and parishioners demanded that prayers for the King be omitted.

The first dilemma was ministers “could change the liturgy to eliminate prayers for King George III and the royal family.” Doing this would put them at risk of “betraying their ordination oath and being excommunicated.”

Secondly, they could close their churches for the safety of themselves, their families and their parishioners.” It seemed some hardcore patriots found it counter productive to be fighting the King and then praying for his well-being in defeating his enemies. Many Anglican ministers were forced to change the liturgy to keep their churches open and for their own personal safety.

And finally, they could abandon their congregations, homes and take the first boat out to Nova Scotia.

Often time when it comes to looking at our history we miss the subtle nuances of little Jeffersonian “metaphors” like “separation of church and state.” Or the “rule of law and nobody “is above the law.” By placing a king above the law he can command anything from how people pray to the color of a reflecting pool.

When James Madison cobbled together the First Amendment words, “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion” I don’t think he did it because his cousin, James Madison was the first Bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of Virginia and president of William and Mary College, where according to Wikipedia “he occupied an influential position in the (Virginia) commonwealth, which he used to agitate for an ideology that blended radical Republicanism, Christianity, and the ideals of the Enlightenment.” Little Jemmie was probably more aware of the difficulties of keeping the pulpit out of politics and politics out of prayer.

Spanning the wall between church and state with bridge is one best left unbuilt.

https://www.justice.gov/religious-liberty-commission/media/1449896/dl?inline


“It isn’t what you do, but how you do it”

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I stumbled across a quote from John Wooden the other day that made me stop for a moment and think about what is going on in this country right now. Wooden said, “It isn’t what you do, but how you do it.”

This is not some sort of topsy turvy quote from Soren Kierkegaard like, “It is the duty of the human understanding to understand that there are things which it cannot understand.” Okay. I get it sort of. But try putting that on a T-Shirt or running that thought through a town hall meeting.

Wooden, according to UCLA athletics was “the most successful coach in the history of college basketball, guided his UCLA teams to an unprecedented 10 national championships in his 27 seasons (1949-1975).”

People who watched Ted Lasso on Apple TV saw Jason Sudeikis, as Ted Lasso, pin Wooden’s Pyramid of Success on his office wall. It was a pyramid of success that took Wooden’s teams to the peak of success. His teams “compiled an overall record of 620-147 (a winning percentage of .808) and won 19 conference titles. Under his direction, the Bruins captured a remarkable seven consecutive NCAA titles from 1967-1973.” Whether you are a sports fan or not Wooden’s record is impressive. So maybe we can twist Wooden around a bit and say something like “how you do it, is what you get.”

To me, how we are doing things today militarily, with AI, government, immigration to name a few, has created a lot of confusion, discontent, discord and given us, for the large part, what we don’t want; and creating an existential crisis, within and without.

Britannia says that such a crisis is a “period of inner  conflict during which a person is distraught over questions about identity, meaning, and purpose.” Britannia further says that at the heart of this crisis is a period of anxiety and a conflict “often considered to be related to spirituality.” Can this existential crisis befall an entire country? It looks to me as if we are there or if not hurtling towards it quickly.

Now I may be straying a bit from Wooden’s quote a bit. But, the Socratic-Method.com says at first glance we can see it isn’t what you do, but how you do it. How you do it “emphasizes the importance of the approach or methodology employed in any given task, rather than solely focusing on the outcome. This idea challenges the conventional notion that success is solely determined by the end result.”

This brings to mind the popular idiom: The ends justify the means. This phrase is attributed to Nicolo Machiavelli. Biography.com says he was an “Italian diplomat best known for writing ‘The Prince,’ a handbook for unscrupulous politicians that inspired the term ‘Machiavellian’ and established its author as the ‘father of modern political theory’.” The main theme of the book has been interpreted by many as a “political philosophy that one may resort to any means in order to establish and preserve total authority.”

Machiavelli may not have actually said the ends justify the means, but according to academichelp.net, the phrase “embodies a fundamental principle of consequentialism. This ethical theory suggests that the morality of an action is entirely dependent on its consequences. It’s a perspective that looks at the end result of an action to determine its ethical value, contrasting sharply with deontological ethics. Deontology, on the other hand, posits that certain actions are inherently right or wrong, regardless of their outcomes.” I believe we are living in a time, more than ever before, where we focus solely on the outcomes, particularly besting the other side–as if that is the sole purpose of life.

Wow, slow down. Too many isms, ologies and theories in there. We have now gone from the simple sentence into the compound world of and ethics. As far as I know philosophers theologians are still trying to determine “how many angles can dance on the head of a pin.” The two groups were perfectly confused unit a third group, mathematicians got involved.

In a round about way both Wooden and Machiavelli are talking about the same thing. The “consequences.” And it is here things get tangled up in ethical theory. We started out with two phrases. Wooden’s is ten words with no word longer than four letters. Machiavelli’s is half as much with one word seven letters long. How did we end up with fundamental principles of consequentialism to existential crisis?

To clarify let’s look at ethical theory. Philosophy Terms says, “ethical theories are ideas that help us decide which actions are good and bad by leading us to ethical choices that bring positive outcomes for everyone. These theories go deeper than just following rules; they help us see the bigger picture and understand why certain actions are better than others…(it) show(s) us the way to make decisions, even when it’s hard, and help us think not just about what’s good for us, but what’s best for everyone involved.”

This brings us back to consequentialism, which ebesco.com states “is a normative ethical theory that evaluates the morality of actions based on their outcomes. The central tenet of consequentialism is that an action is deemed morally right or wrong depending on the results it produces, with a focus on maximizing positive outcomes for the greatest number of people.”

I think the normative ethical theory can be dicey because of what is normal, particularly today. Wikipedia defines it as “the standards of what people ought to do, believe, or value. It is a quality of rules, judgments, or concepts that prescribe how things should be or what individuals may, must, or must not do.”

For instance, we have always been a country based on two legal concepts: One, the legal rule of law; and two, nobody is above the law. We have seen the Constitution’s words twisted around like a pretzel to achieve certain outcomes never before imagined. Thus creating a period of conflict and anxiety across, gender, race and religion. Never mind political beliefs. Those beliefs have been trashed long time ago.

Our existential crisis is not one of doing but how we are doing it. We have cast aside the ethical norms that have guided our country for 250 years. And without a doubt those norms have changed, in some case drastically, through our history. But we have always, as a nation had guiding principles that we could look to. We knew what was the right thing to do. It may have taken us awhile to come around but we have. We have been a beacon on a hill that has attracted people from all over to our shores because of those guiding principles.

Frederich Nietzche said “There will always be rocks in the road ahead of us. They will be stumbling blocks or stepping stones; it all depends how you use them.” It seems to me that we are living in a glass house in the mist of a rock fight.