New Concepts

"Separation of church and state" has become a battle cry used by both Protestants and skeptics against Roman Catholic "encroachments." But some U.S. Protestants are beginning to wonder about the reality behind the slogan. Did the Founding Fathers ever envisage a society so secularized or a school system so studiously non-religious as the U.S. has today?

In the current issue of Christendom,

Protestant Minister Willard Johnson wrote: "The whole problem of relationship of religion to government remains to be settled. . . . This is certainly one part of the 'American Way' which is undergoing change. The historic attitudes of all religious groups, developed at a time when church and state were either united or struggling for dominance, cannot solve the problem. New concepts must be developed for modern conditions, and they should be set forth by all creeds together."

Samples of such new concepts in the making appeared this week in the Congregational quarterly, Social Action, from two of U.S. Protestantism's top spokesmen. Wrote Dr. F. Ernest Johnson, head of Research and Education for the Federal Council of Churches:

"It is imperative that some fresh and sober thought be given to the meaning of the separation of church and state. . . . To a very considerable extent, the Protestant mood has come to reflect the modern secularist attitude, which tends progressively to isolate religion from the more significant areas of the common life. Thus, appeal to the separation of church and state readily becomes an argument for silencing the voice of religion in the political sphere. . . ."

Wrote Yale Divinity School's Dean Luther A. Weigle: "The separation of church and state in this country was intended not to restrict but to emancipate the churches, not to impair but to protect religious faith. ... It does not mean that church and state, being mutually free, may not cooperate with one another. And it does not mean that the state acknowledges no God, or that the state is exempt from the moral law wherewith God sets the bounds of justice for nations as well as for individuals. . . .

"The separation of church and state is not in itself enough. Experience has shown that a high degree of religious freedom can be secured without the separation of church and state, as in Great Britain; and, on the other hand, that the separation of church and state does not of itself ensure the full religious freedom of citizens or churches, as in Russia. . . . The problems of ... the enmeshing in human life of power, reason and conscience are too vast and intricate to be solved by the mere separation of church and state. We must go beyond this to a sound, positive statement of their respective functions and proper relations."

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