New research by Pew shows that the US public is as conflicted about the relationship of religion to public life as it always has been, writes Ken Craycraft
The Pew Research Center is a U.S.-based non-partisan think tank in Washington, D.C. Pew regularly conducts surveys of the opinions of U.S. residents related to religious faith, practice, and witness in public life. In late October 2022, Pew released the results of its most recent survey, probing whether Americans think the United States is, should be, or should be considered a “Christian nation”. Through no fault of the design of the survey or the skill of the Pew organization, the survey results are confused and confusing. That is because nothing is more confused and confusing in American civic, political, and legal debates than the relationship of religion to public life. This confusion has deep historical roots.
In October 1801, the Danbury Baptists Association of the state of Connecticut sent a fawning letter to then President Thomas Jefferson, extolling the President for his strong witness for radical individualism, especially as it pertains to religious liberty. In language that sounds eerily like what some people use for former President Donald Trump, the Association gushes to Jefferson that “America’s God has raised you up to fill the chair of state out of that goodwill which he bears to the millions which you preside over”. As such, the letter encourages Jefferson to use his position to persuade the nation to make the privatisation of religion even stronger than the Constitution with its Bill of Rights does, at least in the judgment of the Association. The Danbury Baptists implored Jefferson to use his presidency to persuade the American public that religious liberty is among “inalienable rights”, and not merely among “favours granted” by the government.
In response to the letter, on 1st January 1802 Jefferson thanked the Association for its adulatory words, reaffirming his unwavering commitment to the privatisation of religious faith and practice, including insulating public life from the influence of religious believers. He also reminded the Danbury Baptists that he considered the First Amendment already to have accomplished precisely what the Association desired. Jefferson quoted the religion clauses of the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution: Congress shall “make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof”. He then explained that these clauses built “a wall of separation between Church & State”. In doing so, Jefferson introduced one of the most powerful and contentious metaphors in the history of American civic, political, and legal debate.
Jefferson’s letter was used as legal authority in an 1878 U.S. Supreme Court case, Reynolds v. United States, to affirm the conviction of a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints for violation a federal statute against bigamy. After citing the metaphor from Jefferson’s letter, the Court wrote, “Coming as this does from an acknowledged leader of the advocates of the measure, it may be accepted almost as an authoritative declaration of the scope and effect of the amendment thus secured”. The Court then proceeded to elevate the metaphor from “almost” to wholly authoritative, holding that Mr. Reynolds’ religious faith could not insulate him from the reach of the federal anti-bigamy law. Thus, while nothing more than Jefferson’s judgment about what the First Amendment effected, the metaphor became a part of Supreme Court jurisprudence, thus having the force of precedent in American judicial law.
The enduring legal weight of the metaphor was reinforced in the 1946 case of Everson v. Board of Education. At issue in Everson was whether the First Amendment’s establishment clause prohibited using public tax dollars to reimburse parents for their children’s transportation to religious schools. Citing the Jefferson letter, the Everson Court explained that the “First Amendment has erected a wall between church and state. That wall must be kept high and impregnable”. Yet, Everson confusingly held that the transportation reimbursement scheme did not breach this high and impregnable wall, allowing the program to continue. The four dissenters in Everson explained that they agreed with the majority’s account that the wall of separation is “high and impregnable”, but expressed bewilderment at the majority’s conclusion that the wall did not prohibit the use of public money to fund transportation to religious schools.
As the October Pew survey demonstrates, the confusion manifested in Everson is a consistent one in American public life, both officially through laws and court decisions and in American public opinion. For example, 45 per cent of respondents affirmed that the U.S. “should be a Christian nation”. But the more detailed questions about the role of religion in public, political, and legal life are remarkably inconsistent with that response. While 45 per cent think the U.S. should be a Christian nation, only 15 per cent of all respondents believe that Supreme Court justices should “bring their own religious views into how they decide major cases”. 67 per cent of all respondents believe that churches should “keep out of political matters”; and 77 per cent say that churches should not endorse political candidates. This implies that the 45 per cent who affirm that the U.S. should be a Christian nation themselves have divergent (and probably confused) views about what that might entail.
This divergence (or confusion) is manifested in other conclusions in the Pew survey. Of these 45 per cent, for example, only about a quarter (28 per cent) believe that “the federal government should declare the U.S. a Christian nation”. 52 per cent of them say the government should never do that, with 20 per cent expressing no opinion on the question. Similarly, nearly half of this 45 per cent believe that the Bible should have little or no influence on U.S. laws. This is nearly the same percentage as all respondents, including, of course, the 55 per cent who say that the U.S. should not be a Christian nation.
The inconsistency in these beliefs might be explained by how respondents understand the phrase “Christian nation”. Among those who say that the U.S. should be a Christian nation, a mere six per cent thinks that entails “Christian-based laws/governance”. Nearly half of them (48 per cent) answered that a “Christian nation” merely means that the U.S. should be “guided by Christian beliefs/values”. And nearly a full third (30 per cent) say they do not know what the phrase “Christian nation” means or refused to answer the question.
The survey digs deeper and wider than the responses of those who believe that the U.S. should be a “Christian nation”. And perhaps a subsequent column will probe those depths. But this brief analysis itself reveals why religion is such a rancorous issue in American public life. If the forty-five percent who think the U.S. should be a Christian nation have such disparate understandings of what that means, it is no surprise that the broader public is also conflicted. Whether, or to what extent, Jefferson’s wall of separation should be considered law, the metaphor continues to be a proxy for the confusion about the role of religion in America.
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