Church and State in American History

Key Documents, Decisions, and Commentary from Five Centuries

John Wilson, Donald Drakeman

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2019
• eBook ISBN: 9780429663680
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: World History
• Index: History

Church and State in American History illuminates the complex relationships among the political and religious authority structures of American society, and illustrates why church-state issues have remained controversial since our nation's founding. It has been in classroom use for over 50 years.

John Wilson and Donald Drakeman explore the notion of America as "One Nation Under God" by examining the ongoing debate over the relationship of church and state in the United States. Prayers and religious symbols in schools and other public spaces, school vouchers and tax support for faith-based social initiatives continue to be controversial, as are arguments among advocates of pro-choice and pro-life positions. The updated 4th edition includes selections from colonial charters, Supreme Court decisions, and federal legislation, along with contemporary commentary and incisive interpretations by modern scholars. Figures as divergent as John Winthrop, Anne Hutchinson, James Madison, John F. Kennedy, and Sandra Day O'Connor speak from these pages, as do Robert Bellah, Clarence Thomas, and Ruth Bader Ginsberg.

The continuing public and scholarly interest in this field, as well as a significant evolution in the Supreme Court's church-state jurisprudence, renders this timely re-edition as essential reading for students of law, American History, Religion, and Politics.

1 The Language of Colonial Establishments (–1700)

At one time it was fashionable to weigh the alleged “motives” that contributed to the colonization of America. Accordingly, arguments erupted about the relative significance of commercial and religious impulses, partisans of each position supporting their cases with polemic as well as evidence. Unfortunately such an approach inhibits any study of seventeenth-century America. During that century, especially in the English-speaking world, theology was still a primary language. It was a fundamental mode of thought in which public endeavors were comprehended and advocated. As a matter of course, people of the early seventeenth century—especially Puritan English folk, the prime movers in the Virginia and New England ventures—assumed that religious authority should contribute to the structuring of their experiments. The society they intended to plant was to be a cutting from that English Protestant society they knew under Elizabeth and James. An example may clarify this point. Historians have often indicated the discrepancy between the settlers’ expressed intentions of converting the Native Americans to Christianity and their achievements in this regard. To conclude that, because of their miserable failure in these programs, the colonists were hypocritical in their religious professions is to miss the crucial point. They failed because the Native Americans—apart from the likes of Pocahontas—would not be refashioned after the English pattern, they would not abandon their own society for that offered to them in the name of God and King. In the contemporary idiom, “civilitie of life” and “vertue” were necessarily linked with the “true worship of God.” Thus failure to convert the Native Americans is less indicative of religious hypocrisy than it is of how alien the English Protestant mind was in the new environment—and how stubbornly the colonists clung to their convictions and preconceptions. One of these preconceptions was that church and state should have a correlative relationship.

Accordingly this section on the language of colonial establishments has two purposes. The first is to display the theological mode of thought in the terms in which trade and politics, no less than religious activities, were carried on. It will be most appropriate to illustrate this mentality as it sought to articulate the relationship of church and state as it was implied in that view of the world. The second purpose is to indicate the different patterns of religious establishment, which were developed in the several colonies. It is important to recognize that although these patterns embody significant diversities, the fundamental theological assumptions about society were not disrupted.

There is little doubt that theological literature and discourse is more prominent in the remains of Massachusetts Bay, for instance, than in the legacies from other colonial endeavors. This is largely to be explained, however, in the circumstances of the various settlements. For instance, the Virginia Company and its primary officers resided in London, and delegated officials managed the plantation, while the Massachusetts Bay Company transported itself and its charter across the Atlantic. Again, after achieving successful settlement the Virginia enterprise was involved in a decade-long struggle for subsistence as a garrison state while the attention of the London investors was given to their Bermuda project. By contrast, Massachusetts Bay rapidly developed during a decade of intensive immigration once the plan for a significant colony had been decided on. It is evident that a fully developed religious establishment could not have been introduced into Virginia under these circumstances. Yet that colony relied on the mutual reinforcement of spiritual and temporal authorities as much as the New England experiments did. On the principle of intelligibility, then, special attention will be given to the literature from New England.

Thomas Hooker, clerical leader of the exodus from Newton (now Cambridge) in Massachusetts Bay to the Connecticut River settlements around Hartford, expressed the conventional presuppositions about “Church and State” in a sentence: “Men sustain a double relation.”¹ They were, first, “members of the commonwealth,” which was a civil relationship touching the outer man—or men’s bodies. Secondly, they were “members of a Church,” which was a spiritual relationship involving the souls and consciences of men. Both of these “relations” were among men and between men and God. Thus the civil life, or the life of the commonwealth, had its relationship to God that was not exclusively mediated through the institution of the Church. Hooker’s was a particular version of a Calvinistic scheme, which itself was a variant of a traditional Christian position. For him, state and church were coordinated and mutually dependent since both were ordained by God to support each other. Temporal life required spiritual orientation no less than spiritual life presupposed temporal order.

The point to be emphasized is that civil and religious life remained distinguished in the assumptions undergirding the various seventeenth-century efforts to colonize America. There were variations within the pattern, but the dual ends of human life were never denied. Certainly a hierocracy was not established; civil polity was not subordinated to ecclesiastical direction. “Church and State” were explicitly coordinated with the exception of Rhode Island, and that exception—as will be evident in the readings—was articulated in the language of the day. Otherwise the means and degrees of correlation between civil and religious life varied among the colonies. The variety was certainly a major factor in the eventual disestablishment of the colonial churches. But that development cannot be comprehended without appreciating the terms in which differentiation occurred. The language of establishment was the language of the day.

1 Thomas Hooker, A Survey of the Summe of Church Discipline (London, 1648), part I, pp. 4f.

John Cotton, A Discourse about Civil Government

The leaders of Massachusetts Bay lavishly expounded their theory of society and their understanding of the relationship between church and state. Enough of this literature is still available to discredit facile pronouncements that the colony was a potential democracy corrupted by clerical tyranny. One of the classic texts about the relationship between civil and religious life has not been readily available, perhaps because of a longstanding confusion over its authorship. A New Haven Colony was early projected as an improvement upon the Massachusetts experiment, and its founders hoped to clarify some of the “problems” that were becoming apparent here. Apparently the Rev. John Davenport sought out the advice of his friend and mentor, the Rev. John Cotton of Boston. At issue was whether the franchise for civil government ought to be restricted to church members. In answering this question John Cotton, a dominant figure in the Bay, displayed the chief marks of Puritan scholasticism and effectively rehearsed the major assumptions about “Church and State.” The “double relation” men sustained to church and commonwealth will be evident in Cotton’s exposition. On the confused question of authorship of this tract refer to “The Authorship of ‘A Discourse,’” by I. M. Calder in the American Historical Review (Volume XXXVII, pp. 267 ff.)

Reverend Sir,

I have reviewed [your writing] and find, as I formerly expressed to yourself, that the question is mis-stated by you.² The arguments which you produce to prove that which is not denied are (in reference to this question) spent in vain, as arrows are when they fall wide of the marks they should hit though they strike in a white which the archer is not called to shoot at.

The terms wherein you state the question are these: “Whether the right and power of choosing civil magistrates belongs to the Church of Christ?”

To omit all critical inquiries, in your stating [of] the question I utterly dislike two things.

1. You speak of the civil magistrates indefinitely and without limitation—under which notion all magistrates … are included, Turks and Indians and idolaters as well as Christian. Now no man, I think, holdeth or imagineth that the Church of Christ hath power and right to choose all civil magistrates throughout the world. For:
   1. In some countries there is no Church of Christ, all the inhabitants being heathen men and idolaters, and among those who are called Christian, the number of Churches of Christ will be found to be so small, and the members of them so few and mean, that it is impossible that the right and power of choosing civil magistrates in all places should belong to the Churches of Christ.
   2. Nor have the churches countenance of state in all countries, but [they] are under restraint and persecution in some. …
   3. In some countries the churches are indeed under the protection of magistrates, as foreigners, permitted quietly to sit down under their wings. But neither are the members capable of magistracy there, nor have they the power of voting in the choice of magistrates. …
   4. In some countries sundry nations are so mingled that they have severally an equal right unto several parts of the country. … Now he that should affirm that the Churches of Christ as such have right and power of choosing civil magistrates in such places seemeth to me more to need physick than arguments to recover him from his error.
2. The second thing that I dislike in your stating [of] the question is that you make the Churches of Christ to be the subject of this right and power of choosing civil magistrates. For:
   1. The church so considered is a spiritual political body consisting of diverse members male and female, bond and free—sundry of which are not capable of magistracy, nor of voting in the choice of magistrates inasmuch as none have that right and power but free burgesses, among whom women and servants are not reckoned although they may be and are church members.
   2. The members of the Churches of Christ are [to be considered] under a twofold respect answerable to the twofold man which is in all the members of the Church while they are in this world: the inward and the outward man (II Corinthians 4:16). Whereunto the only wise God hath fitted and appointed two sorts of administrators, ecclesiastical and civil. Hence they are capable of a twofold relation, and of action and power suitable to them both, viz., civil and spiritual, and accordingly [they] must be exercised about both in their seasons without confounding those two different states or destroying either of them. What they transact in civil affairs is done by virtue of their civil relation, their church-state only fitting them to do it according to God.

Now that the state of the question may appear I think it seasonable and necessary to premise a few distinctions to prevent all mistakes if it may be.

2 Abridged and edited to conform more nearly to current usage [Ed.].

First let us distinguish between the two administrations or polities, ecclesiastical and civil, which men commonly call the church and commonwealth. I incline rather to those who speak of a Christian communion, [and] make the communion to be the genus and the states ecclesiastical and civil to be species of it. For in a Christian Communion there are … different administrations or polities or states, ecclesiastical and civil: ecclesiastical administrators are a divine order appointed to believers for holy communing of holy things, civil administrators are a human order appointed by God to men for civil fellowship of human things. …

1. Though both agree in this—that there is order in their administrations—yet with this difference: the guides in the Church have not a despotical but economical power only [since they are] not lords over Christ’s heritage but stewards and ministers of Christ and of the Church, the dominion and law-giving power being reserved to Christ alone as the only Head of the Church. But in the other state he hath given lordly power, authority, and dominion unto men.
2. Though both agree in this—that man is the common subject of both—yet with this difference: Man by nature being a reasonable and social creature, capable of civil order, is or may be the subject of civil power and state. But man by Grace called out of the world to fellowship with Jesus Christ and with His people is the only subject of church power. Yet [even] so the outward man of church members is subject to the civil power in common with other men while their inward man is the subject of spiritual order and administrations.
3. Though they both agree in this—that God is the efficient [cause] and author of both, and that by Christ—yet not [identically]. For God as the creator and governor of the world is the author of civil order and administrations, but God as in covenant with his people in Christ is the author of church-administrations. So likewise Christ, as the efficient Word and Wisdom of God creating and governing the world, is the efficient [cause] and fountain of civil order and administrations. But as mediator of the new covenant and Head of the Church he establishes ecclesiastical order.
4. Though they both agree in this—that they have the same last end, viz., the glory of God—yet they differ in their next ends. For the next end of civil order and administration is the preservation of human societies in outward honor, justice, and peace. But the next ends of church order and administrations are the conversions, edification, and salvation of souls, pardon of sin, power against sin, peace with God, &c.
5. Hence arises another difference about the objects of these different states. For though they both agree in this—that they have the common welfare for their aim and scope—yet the things about which the civil power is primarily conversant are bodies … I Corinthians 6:4, or … the things of this life [such] as goods, lands, honor, the liberties and peace of the outward man. The things whereabout the church power is exercised are … the things of God [such] as the souls and consciences of men, the doctrine and worship of God, the communion of saints. Hence also they have: (a) different laws, (b) different officers, (c) different power whereby to reduce men to order according to their different objects and ends.

Now [in order] that a just harmony may be kept between these two different orders and administrations two extremes must be avoided:

1. That they be not confounded either by giving the spiritual power—which is proper to the church—into the hand of the civil magistrate (as Erastus would have done in the matter of excommunication) … or [in the other case] by giving civil power to church-officers who are called to attend only to spiritual matters and the things of God, and therefore may not be distracted from them by secular entanglements. (I say church-officers, not church-members, for they—not being limited as the officers are by God—are capable of two different employments [according to the] two different men in them in different respects, as has been said. As they may be lawfully employed about things of this life so they are of all men fittest, being sanctified and dedicated to God to carry on all worldly and civil business to God’s ends, as we shall declare in due time.) …
2. The second extreme to be avoided is that these two different orders and states—ecclesiastical and civil—be not set in opposition as contraries [so] that one should destroy the other, but as coordinate states in the same place reaching forth help mutually each to [the] other for the welfare of both according to God. Both officers and members of Churches [should] be subject, in respect of the outward man, to the civil power of those who bear rule in the civil state according to God. … Civil magistrates and officers in regard to the outward man [ought to] subject themselves spiritually to the power of Christ in church-ordinances, and by their civil power preserve the same in outward peace and purity. This will best be attained when the pastor may say to the magistrate …, “Thou rulest with Christ and administerest to Christ. Thou hast the sword for him. Let this gift which thou hast received from him be kept pure for him.” The civil magistrate in his church-state [should fit] Ambrose [’s] description of a good emperor: “A good magistrate is within the church, not above it.” … So much shall serve to have been spoken concerning the first distinction.

The second distinction to be premised for clearing the true state of the question is … between a commonwealth already settled and a commonwealth yet to be settled wherein men are free to choose what form they shall judge best. … Men that profess the fear of God, if ...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Table of Contents
• Preface
• Acknowledgements
• Introduction
• 1. The Language of Colonial Establishments (–1700)
• 2. Ethnic Diversity and Evangelical Differentiation (1700–1760)
• 3. The Struggle for Independence and the Terms of Settlement (1760–1820)
• 4. The Era of Republican Protestantism (1820–1860)
• 5. The Recognition of American Pluralism (1860–1920)
• 6. Mainstream Pluralism (1920–1960)
• 7. Dimensions of Inclusive Pluralism (1960– ): Church-State Issues
• 8. Dimensions of Inclusive Pluralism (1960– ): Religious Liberty Issues
• Chronology
• Suggestions for Further Reading
• Index