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Living With Differences
and God & Country
James Madison in Gospel Advocate and Impartial Investigator, Vol. 7 (An Association of Gentlemen: 1829), pp. 61-4.
In 1784, a bill was before the House of Delegates of Virginia for a publick Act, "establishing a provision for the teachers of the Christian religion," which had for its object the compelling of every person to contribute to some religious teacher. The bill was postponed to the next session of the legislature and ordered to be printed, and the people were requested to signify their opinion respecting its adoption. Among the numerous remonstrances against the passage of this bill, the following one drawn by Mr. Madison, stands pre-eminent. It is certainly one of the ablest productions of that great statesman, and deserves to be widely circulated. To use the language of the authour of the work from which it is extracted — Benedict's "General History of the Baptist denomination in America," — its "style is elegant and perspicuous and for strength of reasoning and purity of principle, it has seldom been equalled, certainly never surpassed, by anything on the subject in the English language." It is hardly necessary to say that the bill never passed the House. ~ Hartford Times
John Locke
in Letters Concerning Toleration, Latin orig. 1689 (J. Brook: 1796), pp. 29-66.
John Locke here sets a clear purpose: "to
distinguish exactly the business of civil government from that of
religion, and to settle
the just bounds that lie between the one and the other". Specifically,
the concern of the state is the commonwealth, especially the protection
of property, and the just use of force to that end. The concern of the
church, on the other hand, is the care of souls, to which force is
ill-suited. What is essential is toleration: the state's toleration of
the church, and each sect's toleration of another. Indeed, Locke argues
that the mark of any truly Christian church will be toleration; this,
because of Christ's "Gospel of peace" and of the impossibility of
forced belief. "Whatever profession we make,
to whatever outward worship we conform, if we are not fully satisfied
in our own mind that the one is true, ... such profession and such
practice, far from being any furtherance,
are indeed great obstacles to our salvation." Whenever a church or
minister reaches for powers of the state, the
power to dispossess others of freedom or property, their true ambition
is betrayed, "what they desire is temporal dominion". State authority
is also circumscribed, "The care of souls cannot belong to the civil magistrate,
because his power consists only in outward force: but true
and saving religion consists in the inward persuasion of the mind..."
It is refreshing to see in Locke that the obvious incongruity of
Christian coercion is not a recent realization. For example, Locke
notes Jesus' prediction that Christians will suffer persecution, but
far be it that Christians become persecutors, to "force others by fire
and sword, to embrace her
faith and doctrine". One could object to Locke's claim that "the only
business of the
church is the salvation of souls", if that in effect precludes the
church working towards a just and civil society in the here and now.
Nonetheless, Locke's argument, rooted in Christian ideals and natural
law, is rightly credited for the delineation of church and state
authority that later emerged in America. ~ Nate
The End of Faith: Religion, Terror, and the Future of Reason (W.W. Norton & Co.: 2004), p. 46.
Given the link between belief and action, it is clear that we can no more tolerate a diversity of religious beliefs than a diversity of beliefs about epidemiology and basic hygiene. There are still a number of cultures in which the germ theory of disease has yet to put in an appearance, where people suffer from a debilitating ignorance on most matters relevant to their physical health. Do we "tolerate" these beliefs? Not if they put our own health in jeopardy.
Thomas More (Penguin Group: May 2003), 176 pages.
Sixteenth-century classic by English ecclesiastic and scholar envisioned a tolerant, patriarchal island kingdom free of private property, violence, bloodshed and vice. Forerunner of many later attempts. Since its publication in 1516, Utopia has provoked a hailstorm of debate. The minute details More ascribed to his "perfect world" make Utopia still a work of the future. • "There were utopias before this book that Thomas More wrote in the early 1500s, including Plato's Republic. This, however, is the book that gives us the word 'Utopia.' The book is brief, barely over 100 pages, and only 60-some describe the place itself. That is enough, and makes me nostalgic for the habit of writing briefly and to the point. It's easy to sum up More's heaven-on-earth in a few words. It portrays a communal, democratic society. It is paradoxically unregulated and tightly regulated — overwhelmingly, More's citizens just want to do what is best for their society, and that covers a remarkably narrow range of possibilities. There are, of course, some who break the laws of the land, and More deals with them harshly. "Harsh" is a relative term, though, and his punishments were hardly harsh in a day when it was a hanging offense to steal a loaf of bread for your starving family. It's also a strongly religious society. Religious tolerance is a matter of law, a novelty by the standards of More's day and the standard of his own behavior. 'Tolerance', however, meant tolerance of any monotheism that wasn't too animistic, and certainly didn't tolerate the unreligious. This translation from More's original Latin is modern and smoothly readable. Even so, I wonder how another translator would have handled some of More's neologistic names, like the unpleasant 'Venalians' who are the Utopians' neighbors. No answer is right, but other renderings may convey more and grate less. Those are quibbles, though. It's a good book as well as being a Great Book, and casts an interesting shadow into modern communism, theocracy, and ideas of the good life. I recommend it highly." ~ wiredweird at Amazon.com
"To the Hebrew Congregation of Newport, Rhode Island", August 1790, in Peter Wiernik, History of the Jews in America (New York: 1931), pp. 99-101.
The citizens of the United States of America have a right to applaud
themselves for having given to mankind examples of an enlarged and
liberal policy — a policy worthy of imitation. All possess alike
liberty of conscience and immunities of citizenship. It is now no more
that toleration is spoken of as if it were the indulgence of one class
of people that another enjoyed the exercise of their inherent natural
rights, for, happily, the Government of the United States, which gives
to bigotry no sanction, to persecution no assistance, requires only
that they who live under its protection should demean themselves as
good citizens in giving it on all occasions their effectual support ...
May the children of the stock of Abraham who dwell in this land
continue to merit and enjoy the good will of the other inhabitants,
while every one shall sit in safety under his own vine and fig tree and
there shall be none to make him afraid. May the Father of all mercies scatter light and not darkness in our paths and make us all in our several vocations useful here and, in His own due time and way, everlastingly happy.