Top to bottom) Marci Hamilton, Lance Banning, Derek Davis and Jack Rakove spoke at the university's Colloquium on Church and State.

One Nation under God

The nation has strayed from Madison's original intent on the separation of church and state, say four scholars who spoke at JMU about the development of James Madison's political philosophy and the issue that motivated him most - freedom of religion.

"Faith-based initiatives are a bold challenge to the traditional idea of separation of church and state," said Derek Davis, editor of the Journal of Church and State.

Madison was adamant, said Marci Hamilton, a public law professor at Yeshiva University's Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law. "Madison was the most concerned about the transfer of wealth from public entities to [organized] religion. … He demanded that 'Not even three pence be given' to support Christian education."

Stanford University professor and Pulitzer Prize-winning Madison scholar Jack Rakove said, "James Madison espoused the complete separation of church and state."

Current events and JMU's celebration of Madison's 250th birthday converged to offer a deeper understanding of Madison's notion of freedom of conscience as the foundation of Americans' sense of liberty. It also brought warnings that tinkering with the equilibrium of the First Amendment might shift where sovereignty lies.

During introductions and opening remarks, JMU President Linwood H. Rose called the College of Arts and Letters' Colloquium on Church and State "opportune because the relationship between religion and government is in the news a lot lately. It is an apt show of Madison's relevance today in this fourth century of our republic."

Although "deeply moralistic," said James Madison biographer and University of Kentucky history professor Lance Banning, "James Madison had a sincere regard for the purity of faith and for the protection of the state from bigots, insisting on total separation of these.

"If we go ahead with faith-based charities, which do we recognize and which not?" Banning asked. "In the end, the churches might end up being sorrier than anyone that we ever got into this."

Davis said, "I'm concerned that we'll see less support [for religion] from the citizenry, and that we'll begin to see religion as just another government program."

"James Madison stood staunchly at the head of freedom of religion," Banning said. Like Locke, "Madison saw religion as an unalienable right and that opinion, by nature, cannot be coerced."

In James Madison's view, Rakove explained, "Every individual is completely competent to judge religious claims. It's really a matter of private choice." Madison's idea of freedom of conscience, protected in the First Amendment to the Constitution, "is the paradigmatic, essential, quintessential right. It recognizes the moral autonomy of the individual."

Further illustrating the importance of freedom of conscience in Madison's political philosophy, Banning said that Madison had rallied the dissenting religions of Virginia to oppose a request for state funding for Christian teachers in 1784's Memorial and Remonstrance Against Religious Assessment. Banning explained that it was Madison's first glimpse at how competing factions could balance one another in a system of checks and balances to prevent tyranny, the concept he would fully articulate in Federalist 10.

Those factions safeguard freedom of conscience by checking the power of the majority, located in the legislature, over the minority. "This is really Madison's great theoretical breakthrough," Rakove said. "His solution was a flat prohibition. 'Congress shall make no law abridging …' The deeper insight in his thinking was to find a way to say the state had no power to act at all in the religious sphere. It was a way to "privatize religion," Rakove said.

"Why is this so significant?" the Stanford professor asked. "Other rights are not absolute. They're more like procedural norms. But freedom of conscience is a recognition that each of us carries around. What is a better recognition that we are sovereign individuals? Which creates a larger preserve around us? It allows us to understand the rest of our rights."

Despite the flat prohibition, Madison did not rule out religious advocacy in political discourse, however, Davis explained. "Although organizing and lobbying is a modern phenomenon, the right of churches to speak has never been questioned throughout our history.

"We've never had a pure separation of church and state in the United States," Davis said. "We have an institutional separation: Houses of worship are independent; government is independent of religious institutions."

On the other hand, Davis said, religion and society are integrated. People can run for public office no matter what their religion. "Religious institutions can get into the politi-cal fray just as much as you and me."

The nation also accommodates "civil religion," which essentially means putting "a religious face on the nation." This accounts for mottoes like "In God We Trust" printed on currency and "One Nation Under God" in the Pledge of Allegiance. "This means that, in a profound sense, God really is behind everything we do in America," Davis explained. "It is the nexus of political order and divine reality. All countries are essentially religious at their founding."

In fact, said Hamilton, all political institutions owe their existence to theological institutions, and Madison's structure is no different.

She traces Madison's re-formist intellect to the 16th-century Protestant reformer, John Calvin, who, because of his belief "in the inherent fallibility of man," thought it was "necessary to find a structure that encourages good.

Madison learned this at Princeton University from the Rev. John Witherspoon, whose lessons on Calvin and political structures conveyed that "there is no 'one' [correct] structure," Hamilton said. "Because of the plasticity of power, it's not enough to once reform the church. We must continue to reform to meet the new abuses of power that show up."

Later, she said, "What we see at the Constitutional Convention is a feast of distrust. They don't trust a unicameral legislature, so they split it up. They debated whether to pay the president; they don't trust him. There is no direct election; they can't trust the mob either. 'How do we shape the government so it serves the people and not self-interest?' the founding fathers asked. 'Which is the system least likely to lead to tyranny?'

"Madison's answer was a reformed government that's always reforming … to meet new abuses of power," Hamilton said. "Today reform is a fringe discussion, not a mainstream discussion. But this is contrary to what the framers had in mind.

"Madison's failure is that his view has not prevailed, and that is unfortunate," Hamilton said, citing movements for direct democracy and President George W. Bush's faith-based initiatives. "The court has teeter-tottered away from Madison. ... Madison failed in persuading the people that the power of the church could be tyranny."

By Pam Brock