Providence Journal staff writer John Hill reviewed John M. Barry's Roger Williams and the Creation of the American Soul in a piece entitled "Roger Williams with us yet". Hill's point is interesting, as he compares the controversies of Williams' day with those afflicting our state now:
If Roger Williams were somehow able to return to the city he founded 375 years ago, he would be astounded by Providence Place Mall and confounded by smart phones. But if he took 10 minutes to read the papers, he’d think, “Man, it’s like I never left.”
Just this past month, talk radio was abuzz over whether the Blue Spruce in the Capitol was a “Holiday Tree.” In the fall, the Cranston School Committee refused to take down the Cranston West school prayer. They were the same kind of debates Williams provoked, questioning how much God should be in mankind’s government, and how much earthly government should be in God.
We can't in fact ask what Williams would think of the current controversies, but I'm pretty sure he would, in his wise, intelligent way, quickly perceive that the two examples Hill gives, the "Holiday Tree" controversy and the prayer on the wall at Cranston West High School, were already decided three and a half centuries earlier.
Williams would say both examples clearly violated his vision of the separation of church and state. Far from seeing this as a vigorous and ongoing debate, Williams might be disheartened to see the same tired arguments being put forth to bolster religion's influence on the secular world through the exercise of political power.
Hill, in his review, understands this:
He was one of the first in America to argue that each individual had the freedom to choose how he wanted to worship God, not the government, and everyone had to tolerate those who disagreed. That right to choose extended to the secular, political world as well, where he said it was the people who had the right to decide for themselves the type of government they wished; authority flowed from the people up to their leaders, not the other way around.He came up with the idea of the wall between church and state, but his wall was meant to protect Eden, the church, from what he called the wilderness, the world of man, on the other side. Breach the wall, he warned, and the wilderness would spoil the garden. In other words, when you mixed politics and religion, you don’t get loftier politics, you get polluted religion.
The prayer on the wall of Cranston West High School is a breach of this ideal. The insistence of Christians to use the term "Christmas Tree" for a secular tree lighting ceremony is an attempt to forfeit Williams' lofty idea. The fact that we have not yet legalized LGBT marriage in this state, is an encroachment on our liberties.
We shouldn't have to argue this issue any more. The First Amendment enshrined the ideals of Roger Williams into law, and they have become part of the very DNA of our country. Everything great about our country flows from this, and forgetting that, or letting others push their ideas about the supernatural into our politics, robs us of our future.
If I recall correctly, wasn't a court order involved in the Cranston controversy? If so and the administration violated it, I say throw every member of the administration in that school and that city in prison for contempt of court.
ReplyDeleteHell even if there wasn't a court order I say do it anyhow.