Op-Ed Columns

In addition to being a great excuse to eat some barbecue, our annual Fourth of July celebration also is a good time to reflect on our freedoms. This year, I am focusing on religious freedom.

From the beginning, religious freedom was one of the most difficult freedoms to attain and maintain. Representatives from colonies with state-funded churches were anxious to have those arrangements written into the new Constitution. If they had their way, Christianity, or at least one version of it, would be the official religion of the United States.

But a coalition of folks from the Free Church tradition, including Baptists such as John Leland, along with some deists and other enlightenment devotees, argued for a separation of church and state, but with a strong provision for religious freedom.

The compromise they achieved is enshrined now in the famous words of the First Amendment: "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof."

The compromise seeks to allay two fears that existed among the founders. The first fear is that religion would have a destructive role in public life. Centuries of religious wars in Europe convinced many of the founders that religion and power were a dangerous mix. Leading this group was Thomas Jefferson.

In a letter to Horatio Spafford in 1814, Jefferson wrote, "In every country and in every age, the priest has been hostile to liberty. He is always in alliance with the despot."

Ironically, while not caring much for organized religion, Jefferson was an admirer of Jesus. In a letter to Benjamin Waterhouse in 1822, Jefferson noted, "Had the doctrines of Jesus been preached always as pure as they came from his lips, the whole civilized world would now have been Christian."

But before anyone gets too excited and tries to baptize Jefferson, consider what he wrote to John Adams in 1823. "And the day will come, when the mystical generation of Jesus, by the Supreme Being as His Father, in the womb of a virgin, will be classed with the fable of the generation of Minerva, in the brain of Jupiter."

So for Jefferson, and others who followed him, the First Amendment is a great hedge that protects us from religion.

But the genius of the amendment is that while simultaneously protecting us from religion, it also protects the free exercise of faith. In other words, there is a guarantee of freedom for religious practices.

Both sides of the compromise have been severely tested over the years. For instance, the courts have ruled that teacher-led prayer in public schools represents a breach of the establishment clause. However, prohibiting children from praying during the school day violates the free-exercise clause.

Other tests include questioning whether or not parents can refuse medical treatment for their sick or injured children and rely instead on prayer and faith. In 31 states, the law says they can.

This past week, the Texas Supreme Court overturned a lower-court ruling that had awarded damages to a 17-year-old girl who had been cut and beaten during an exorcism ritual. The high court ruled that awarding damages constituted an unnecessary entanglement of the state in church matters — in other words, prohibited the free exercise thereof.

So we live with this compromise — freedom from and freedom for religious practices. The tricky part is knowing when to seek one or the other.