The Founders included the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution partly to protect religious rights. It was intended to keep the Federal government from interfering in religious practices and to keep it from establishing a national religion. Today, the 1st Amendment is turned on its head due to lack of historic perspective. For more insights, check the reading list: The First Amendment and The U.S. Consitution
Martin Van Buren was our 8th President. In his Inaugural address of 1837, he said:
"But to me, my fellow-citizens, look ing forward to the far-distant future with ardent prayers and confiding hopes, this retrospect presents a ground for still deeper delight."
2 comments:
I've been watching your blog for a while now. It seems like you're collecting religious references in government. That's fine if you want to do that; I'd disagree that most of these statements are really calling upon any particular God, or really any God at all.
This quote, for example--not religious. A "prayer" is not just a call to a religious deity. You can "pray" to a court for relief, or "pray" to the sovereign, or even to a king. Mr. Van Buren was not invoking any religious deity, but rather was encouraging the country to contemplate.
Kyle,
Thanks for your comment. I agree that not all the quotes I post are devout. However, I am trying to counter some of the attitude that says government and its officials at all levels should not make any reference to religion. So in some cases I am pointing out overtly religious acts; in others I am pointing to mentions of God or worship or prayer in public.
There was a bit of flap this year about what might be said by our new President or some of his guests. That's when I decided to see how many inaugural speeches have a reference to God. The series is not meant to portray inaugural speeches as some kind of sermon.
I am also doing a series of posts showing mentions to God/religion/etc. in ALL 50 of our state constitutions. This latter is not to show that our states are establishing religion.
If you look at this post: http://churchvstate.blogspot.com/2007/10/background.html and at the introductory text at the top of every page, it might explain my reasoning a bit.
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