David Barton

Those renewed Biblical teachings on protecting the rights of conscience were eventually carried to America, where they took root and grew to maturity at a rapid rate, having been planted in virgin soil completely uncontaminated by the apostasy of the previous twelve centuries. Hence, Christianity – especially as imported to America – became the world’s single greatest historical force in securing non-coercion and the rights of conscience.

For example, in 1640 when the Rev. Roger Williams established Providence, he penned its governing document declaring:

We agree, as formerly hath been the liberties of the town, so still, to hold forth liberty of conscience. [i]

Similar protections also became part of subsequent early American documents, including the 1649 Maryland “Toleration Act,” [ii] the 1663 charter for Rhode Island, [iii] the 1664 Charter for Jersey, [iv] the 1665 Charter for Carolina, [v] and the 1669 Constitutions of Carolina. [vi] Christian minister William Penn incorporated the same protections into the governing documents he authored, including in 1676 for West Jersey, [vii] in 1682 for Pennsylvania, [viii] and in 1701 for Delaware. [ix] There are many additional examples.

Historically speaking, it was the followers of Biblical Christianity who vigorously pursued and first achieved the protection for the rights of conscience that subsequently became an XXXa crucial???XXX- T indispensable??? characteristic of the American civil fabric. Even Roscoe Pound (1870-1964; a professor at four different law schools and the Dean of the law schools at Harvard and the University of Nebraska) acknowledged that it was the Biblical-minded Puritans who first brought these rights to the forefront of civil protection; [x] and in the words of an 1824 court:

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So thoroughly was American thinking inculcated with protecting conscience that when America separated from Great Britain in 1776, the original state constitutions immediately secured the rights of conscience so long expounded by Christian leaders. (See, for example, the constitutions of Virginia, 1776; [xii] Delaware, 1776; [xiii] North Carolina, 1776; [xiv] Pennsylvania, 1776; [xv] New Jersey, 1776; [xvi] Vermont, 1777; [xvii] New York, 1777; [xviii] South Carolina, 1778; [xix] Massachusetts, 1780; [xx] New Hampshire, 1784; [xxi] etc.)

America’s Framers openly praised those protections. For example, Governor William Livingston (a devout Christian and a signer of the U. S. Constitution) declared:

Consciences of men are not the objects of human legislation. [xxii]

John Jay (an author of the Federalist Papers, original Chief Justice of the U. S. Supreme Court, and President of the American Bible Society) likewise rejoiced that:

Security under our constitution is given to the rights of conscience. [xxiii]

Thomas Jefferson (a signer of the Declaration and a U. S. President) repeatedly praised America’s protections for the rights of conscience:

No provision in our Constitution ought to be dearer to man than that which protects the rights of conscience. [xxiv]

[O]ur rulers can have no authority over such natural rights only as we have submitted to them. The rights of conscience we never submitted. [xxv]

A right to take the side which every man’s conscience approves . . . is too precious a right – and too favorable to the preservation of liberty – not to be protected. [xxvi]

It is inconsistent with the spirit of our laws and Constitution to force tender consciences. [xxvii]

James Madison (a signer of the Constitution, a framer of the Bill of Rights, and a U. S. President) similarly affirmed:

Government is instituted to protect property of every sort. . . . [and] conscience is the most sacred of all property. [xxviii]

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Some of the first acts of the new presidential administration make it clear that there has been a dramatic change in the way that traditional religious faith is going to be handled at the White House. For example, when the new White House website went public immediately following the inauguration, it dropped the previously prominent section on the faith-based office.

A second visible change was related to hiring protections for faith-based activities and organizations. On February 5, President Obama announced that he would no longer extend the same unqualified level of hiring protections observed by the previous administration but instead would extend those traditional religious protections to faith-based operations only on a “case-by-case” basis. [i]

Significantly, hiring protections allow religious organizations to hire those employees who hold the same religious convictions as the organization. As a result, groups such as Catholic Relief Services can hire just Catholics; and the same is true with Protestant, Jewish, and other religious groups. With hiring protections, religious groups cannot be forced to hire those who disagree with their beliefs and values – for example, Evangelical organizations cannot be required to hire homosexuals, Pro-life groups don’t have to hire pro-choice advocates, etc.

Hiring protections are inherent within the First Amendment’s guarantee for religious liberty and right of association, and were additionally statutorily established in Title VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act. Congress subsequently strengthened those protections, declaring that any “religious corporation, association, education institution, or society” could consider the applicants’ religious faith during the hiring process. [ii] The Supreme Court upheld hiring protections in 1987, [iii] and Congress has included those protections in numerous federal laws. [iv] But when Democrats regained Congress in 2007, on a party-line vote they began removing hiring protections for faith-based organizations. [v]

The current concern about the weakening of traditional faith-based hiring protections is heightened by the White House’s announcement of President Obama’s commitment to “pass the Employment Non-Discrimination Act, to prohibit discrimination based on sexual orientation” – the second attack on traditional religious practices. [vi] This act would fully repeal faith-based hiring protections related to Biblical standards of morality and behavior, thus directly attacking the theological autonomy of churches, synagogues, and every other type of religious organization by not allowing them to choose whether or not they want to hire homosexuals onto their ministry staffs.

The administration’s third attack on religion occurred in the President’s stimulus bill, which included a provision specifically denying stimulus funds to renovate higher educational facilities “(i) used for sectarian instruction or religious worship; or (ii) in which a substantial portion of the functions of the facilities are subsumed in a religious mission.” [vii] As Republican Senator Jim DeMint (SC) explained, “any university or college that takes any of the money in this bill to renovate an auditorium, a dorm, or student center could not hold a National Prayer Breakfast.” [viii] Sen. DeMint therefore introduced an amendment to “allow the free exercise of religion at institutions of higher education that receive funding,” [ix] but his amendment was defeated along a party-line vote.

The fourth attack on traditional religious faith is the White House’s announcement that it will seek the repeal of conscience protection for health care workers who refuse to participate in abortions or other health activities that violate their consciences. [x]

In order to fully understand the far-reaching ramifications of this announcement, it will be helpful to review the history of conscience protection in the United States.

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[W]hilst we are using the means in our power, let us humbly commit our righteous cause to the great Lord of the universe, Who loveth righteousness and hateth iniquity. And having secured the approbation of our hearts by a faithful and unwearied discharge of our duty to our country, let us joyfully leave our concerns in the hands of Him Who raiseth up and pulleth down the empires and kingdoms of the world as He pleases.

The man who is conscientiously doing his duty will ever be protected by that righteous and all powerful Being, and when he has finished his work he will receive an ample reward.

The sum of the whole is that the blessing of God is only to be looked for by those who are not wanting in the discharge of their own duty.

Biblical voters can find a particularly excellent model of this virtue in John Quincy Adams. Historians who later studied and wrote about his life and numerous accomplishments (including his lifelong and relentless but largely unsuccessful fight to abolish slavery) observed that Adams’ life was guided by one simple principle:

Duty is ours; results are God’s.

It is vital that Biblical voters develop an attitude of resolute steadfastness and unswervable duty. In recent years, too many believers have manifested a short-term mentality toward the civic arena – they get involved in an election or two and if they don’t see a complete turnaround, they throw up their hands, declare that they tried and that it didn’t make any difference, and then scurry off to their next inspiration. Biblical voters must realize that it took almost three quarters-of-a-century to arrive at the situation in which we find ourselves today, and that situation will not be reversed in just one election or two. And even if the recovery turns out to be just as lengthy as was the illness, a recovery will come – if we faithfully persist (Galatians 6:9).

The principle of retaking lost ground slowly, one election at a time, is neither appealing nor gratifying to our natural impatience but it is a well-articulated Biblical principle; therefore, arm yourself with the mentality of a marathon runner, not a sprinter: be willing to stay and compete until you win. This attitude is much easier to adopt once we accept the truth that voting is an obligatory duty we owe not only to our country but also to God. As Samuel Adams explained:

Let each citizen remember at the moment he is offering his vote that he is not making a present or a compliment to please an individual – or at least that he ought not so to do; but that he is executing one of the most solemn trusts in human society for which he is accountable to God and his country. He may then reflect, each one on his own integrity, and appeal to the Monitor within his breast that he has not trifled with the sacred trust reposed in him by God and his country.

Founder Peter Muhlenberg articulated the same conviction. (Peter was a minister of the Gospel who left his pulpit during the American Revolution to defend the liberties he enjoyed and to which he had become accustomed; three hundred men from his congregation followed him into military service. He became a Major General and then a Member of Congress, where he helped frame the Bill of Rights.) Once, when criticized for being a minister involved in the civic arena,  he pointedly responded:

I am convinced it is my duty so to do – and duty I owe to God and my Country.
The viewpoint expressed by these and other early leaders simply reflected their understanding of Jesus’ command in Matthew 22:21 (a command frequently turned on its head today). In that verse, Jesus told His followers:

Render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and unto God the things that are God’s.
Today, too many mistakenly think that the conjunction in Jesus’ command is “or” – that is, “render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, or unto God the things that are God’s,” but that is not what the verse says. To the contrary, it deliberately uses the conjunction “and” – that is, “render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and unto God the things that are God’s.” People of faith are clearly commanded to do their duty in both the spiritual and the civil arenas.

The Founders believed that this dual responsibility was so self-evident we would never neglect it. As George Washington explained:

No country upon earth ever had it more in its power to attain these blessings than United America. Wondrously strange, then, and much to be regretted indeed would it be, were we to neglect the means and to depart from the road which Providence has pointed us to so plainly; I cannot believe it will ever come to pass.

Yet in recent years, far too many God-fearing individuals have neglected their responsibilities as national voting stewards, and the impact of that neglect is now measureable. Consider the area of abortion.
Over the four elections from 1992-2002, Christian voter turnout declined by almost forty percent,  but in 2002, that trend reversed and there was a 2 percent increase above the 2000 turnout numbers (which was actually a sizeable increase since 2002 was a non-presidential year when voter turnout is traditionally much lower). Exit polling in 2002 showed that 41 percent of voters in that election identified abortion as an important issue affecting their vote: 23 percent said they voted a pro-life ticket, and 16 percent voted a pro-abortion ticket,  thus giving a 7 percent advantage to those running as a pro-life candidate. The result was evident: of the 54 freshmen elected to the U. S. House in 2002, 36 were pro-life  (67 percent), and of the 10 freshmen elected to the U. S. Senate, eight (80 percent) were pro-life.

In 2004, Christian voter turnout increased 93 percent over the 2002 numbers (part of this surge was due to the fact that it was a presidential year when turnout typically rises and part to the fact that the percentage of Christian voters actually increased). In that election, 42 percent of voters identified abortion as an important issue: 25 percent voted pro-life, and 13 percent pro-abortion, resulting in a 12 percent advantage for pro-life candidates. The 2004 elections sent 40 new freshmen to the U. S. House, of whom 25 were pro-life (63 percent), and nine new freshmen to the U. S. Senate, of whom seven (77 percent) were pro-life.

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