Ray Buursma: Religionists, stay in your lane

Church and state parameters

Remember Venn Diagrams from middle school? Each had two headings and a list of distinguishing attributes associated therewith. A third middle column listed characteristics shared by both categories.

For instance, two headings might be birds and mammals. Only birds have wings and feathers, and only mammals have hair and produce milk. But both have eyes and backbones, and both are warm-blooded.

Imagine a diagram whose headings are church and state (state meaning government). The church offers worship, prayer, and sermons. The state protects life and health, develops infrastructure, and secures liberty. Of course, the two have commonalities. Both need money. Both help the poor. Both have flags, rules, statements of mission, and expectations for behavior.

These two institutions have largely coexisted, mainly because Americans accepted each institution’s roles. Today, not so much. Today, religionists increasingly seek to extend spiritual values, always theirs, into functions designated to the state.

Separation of church and state

Americans’ liberties are defined in the Bill of Rights. The very first is “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion.” There you have it. The first right in the First Amendment declares the State may NOT impose religious beliefs upon, nor require religious practices from, its citizenry. (See Lemon v. Kurtzman for greater interpretation.) It may not do so even when influential religionists desire to legislate their creed upon others.

The founders immediately followed with liberty number two, “... nor prohibiting the free exercise thereof.” There you have it again. The state may NOT enter the realm of roles granted to the church. The state may not interfere with the ways Americans worship and pray.

Together, these clauses yield “separation of church and state.” When religionists claim the Constitution doesn’t declare, identify or prescribe separation of church and state, they have a severe difficulty. Either they do not comprehend the First Amendment’s initial clauses or they do not understand how a summary works.

More likely, they employ convoluted reasoning to wedge their religious values into functions of the state or even ignore the constitutional stipulations altogether. They want their creed to supersede all else, the Constitution included.

Continued encroachment

In past decades, religionists sought to extend church beliefs into state functions. They mandated prayer in schools and at graduation ceremonies. They legislated moments of silence for prayer time and required schools and other government buildings to post the Ten Commandments. When overruled, they blamed society’s ills on the prohibitions, as if society had no ills before.

But their attempts never end. They succeeded in 2022 when a high school football coach was given the green light to pray, midfield and surrounded by players, after public school-sponsored games. (Never mind Jesus instructed his followers to pray in their closets.)

Texas legislators recently revisited the attempt to legislate the display of the Ten Commandments in schools. Legislatures in six states tried to require classrooms and police cars to display the “In God We Trust” motto.

Oklahoma legislator Tom Woods recently commented on his state’s anti-LGBTQ legislation. "We are a religious state, and we are going to fight it to keep that filth out of the state of Oklahoma because we are a Christian state. We are a moral state.”

The attempts do not stop.

Why do religionists choose only the state?

Why do religionists target the state for spiritual behavior? Why not force religion upon businesses and commercial enterprises? Why not mandate factory workers to start their shifts with prayer or stores to display the Ten Commandments?

But how would religionists react if their employer were Muslim, Buddhist or Hindu, and the required prayer corresponded to that religion? What if supermarkets, banks and gas stations displayed tenets differing from a religionist’s own creed?

Many would cry “injustice!” They would never tolerate such mandates in the labor and economic realms. Yet they happily push THEIR religion into the state’s realm. Why?

Religionists are the problem

Reflect. Which institution, state or church, encroaches into the other’s realm? Does the state seek to regulate whom the church may marry, or does the church seek to regulate whom the state may marry?

Does the state seek to inscribe secular documents on church walls, or does the church seek to inscribe spiritual beliefs on government walls?

Does the state require church services to include pledges and national anthems, or does the church push government to open public meetings with prayer?

Does the state seek to censor books in churches, or do religionists seek to censor books in public libraries?

Consider Jesus’s own words. “Render to Caesar what is Caesar’s, but render to God what is God’s.” His words work for behaviors as well as taxes.

Religionists, stay in your lane.

— Community Columnist Ray Buursma is a resident of Holland. Contact him at writetoraybuursma@gmail.com.

This article originally appeared on The Holland Sentinel: Ray Buursma: Religionists, stay in your lane