Church And State Quotes

“People cited violation of the First Amendment when a New Jersey schoolteacher asserted that evolution and the Big Bang are not scientific and that Noah's ark carried dinosaurs. This case is not about the need to separate church and state; it's about the need to separate ignorant, scientifically illiterate people from the ranks of teachers.”
― Neil deGrasse Tyson

“I cannot understand why we idle discussing religion. If we are honest—and scientists have to be—we must admit that religion is a jumble of false assertions, with no basis in reality. The very idea of God is a product of the human imagination. It is quite understandable why primitive people, who were so much more exposed to the overpowering forces of nature than we are today, should have personified these forces in fear and trembling. But nowadays, when we understand so many natural processes, we have no need for such solutions. I can't for the life of me see how the postulate of an Almighty God helps us in any way. What I do see is that this assumption leads to such unproductive questions as why God allows so much misery and injustice, the exploitation of the poor by the rich and all the other horrors He might have prevented. If religion is still being taught, it is by no means because its ideas still convince us, but simply because some of us want to keep the lower classes quiet. Quiet people are much easier to govern than clamorous and dissatisfied ones. They are also much easier to exploit. Religion is a kind of opium that allows a nation to lull itself into wishful dreams and so forget the injustices that are being perpetrated against the people. Hence the close alliance between those two great political forces, the State and the Church. Both need the illusion that a kindly God rewards—in heaven if not on earth—all those who have not risen up against injustice, who have done their duty quietly and uncomplainingly. That is precisely why the honest assertion that God is a mere product of the human imagination is branded as the worst of all mortal sins.”
― Paul A.M. Dirac

“Following religious principles because you fear the consequences isn't faith…. It’s superstition.”
― T. Rafael Cimino, A Battle of Angels

“There is no New Testament basis for a linking of church and state until Christ, the King returns. The whole "Constantine mentality" from the fourth century up to our day was a mistake. Constantine, as the Roman Emperor, in 313 ended the persecution of Christians. Unfortunately, the support he gave to the church led by 381 to the enforcing of Christianity, by Theodosius I, as the official state religion. Making Christianity the official state religion opened the way for confusion up till our own day. There have been times of very good government when this interrelationship of church and state has been present. But through the centuries it has caused great confusion between loyalty to the state and loyalty to Christ, between patriotism and being a Christian.
We must not confuse the Kingdom of God with our country. To say it another way: "We should not wrap our Christianity in our national flag.”
― Francis A. Schaeffer, A Christian Manifesto

“The Founding Faith, then, was not Christianity, and it was not secularism. It was religious liberty—a revolutionary formula for promoting faith by leaving it alone.”
― Steven Waldman, Founding Faith: Providence, Politics, and the Birth of Religious Freedom in America

“In England, the struggle between church and kings would take centuries to resolve. Interestingly, in the end, neither institution came out on top. Today, each is as powerless as the other. As people power emerged, we invented politicians. We're not bright.”
― Jodi Taylor, A Symphony of Echoes

“Our present system is unique in world history, because over and above its physical and economic constraints, it demands of us total surrender of our souls, continuous and active participation in the general, conscious lie. To this putrefaction of the soul, this spiritual enslavement, human beings who wish to be human cannot consent. When Caesar, having exacted what is Caesar's, demands still more insistently that we render him what is God's — that is a sacrifice we dare not make!”
― Alexander Solzhenitsyn, From Under the Rubble

“the country is almost ruined with pious white people: such pious politicians as we have just before elections, such pious goings on in all departments of church and state, that a fellow does not know who'll cheat him next.”
― Harriet Beecher Stowe, Uncle Tom’s Cabin

“Modern ecumenism rightly began in mission, but then lapsed into a merger mentality, then defensive bureaucracy, and finally into unrepresentative forms of extreme politicization.”
― Thomas C. Oden, Turning Around the Mainline: How Renewal Movements Are Changing the Church

“The obvious definition of a monarchy seems to be that of a state, in which a single person, by whatsoever name he may be distinguished, is entrusted with the execution of the laws, the management of the revenue, and the command of the army. But, unless public liberty is protected by intrepid and vigilant guardians, the authority of so formidable a magistrate will soon degenerate into despotism. The influence of the clergy, in an age of superstition, might be usefully employed to assert the rights of mankind; but so intimate is the connection between the throne and the altar, that the banner of the church has very seldom been seen on the side of the people. A martial nobility and stubborn commons, possessed of arms, tenacious of property, and collected into constitutional assemblies, form the only balance capable of preserving a free constitution against enterprises of an aspiring prince.”
― Edward Gibbon, The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire Volume I

“Do you know, where does this phrase "separation of Church and State" come from? It was not in Jefferson's letter to the Danbury Baptists...The exact phrase "separation of Church and State" came out of Adolf Hilter's mouth, that's where it comes from. So the next time your liberal friends talk about the separation of Church and State - ask them why they're Nazis.”
― Glen Urquhart

“Some people claim we have a Christian heritage in America that needs restoring, but such a claim is debatable and is not well supported by the evidence. We have no biblical warrant to deify the past. Consequently, I find it difficult and possibly wasteful to try to identify just what part of our heritage was Christian in hopes that we can somehow get back to it.”
― Donovan L. Graham, Teaching Redemptively: Bringing Grace and Truth Into Your Classroom

“Prosecution is not an original feature in any religion; but it is always the strongly-marked feature of all law-religious, or religions established by law. Take away the law-establishment, and every religion re-assumes its original benignity.”
― Thomas Paine, Rights of Man

“In light of the unbroken record of invoking God's name in foundational documents throughout the world, throughout the colonies, and throughout history, the stubborn refusal of the US Constitution to invoke the Almighty is abnormal, historic, radical, and not accidental. But liberals miss a basic point, too: The framers of the Constitution were not contemplating the role of "government" in religion. They were debating the role of the national government in religion.”
― Steven Waldman, Founding Faith: Providence, Politics, and the Birth of Religious Freedom in America

“According to John 6:15, He [Christ] fled and would not let Himself be made king; before Pilate He confessed, “My kingdom is not of this world”; and He bade Peter, in the garden, put up his sword, and said, “He that taketh the sword shall perish by the sword.”
― Martin Luther, On War Against the Turk

“The church must be reminded that it is not the master or the servant of the state, but rather the conscience of the state. It must be the guide and the critic of the state, and never its tool.”
― Martin Luther King Jr.

“In either case, there was very much the same solemnity of demeanor on the part of the spectators; as befitted a people amongst whom religion and law were almost identical, and in whose character both were so thoroughly interfused, that the mildest and the severest acts of public discipline were alike made venerable and awful. Meagre, indeed, and cold was the sympathy that a transgressor might look for, from such bystanders, at the scaffold.”
― Nathaniel Hawthorne, The Scarlet Letter

“Calvi was sobbing. This couldn't be! A moment ago the Pope was healthy, smiling. How could His Holiness be no longer? Only a month into his papacy!”
― Peter J. Tanous, The Secret of Fatima

“In the position of tension in which we are, between churchmanship and citizenship, our churchmanship is much freer than if we had better harmony between Church and State.”
― Anthony Bloom, Beginning to Pray

“The mind, as Jefferson reminded us, is the only oracle God gave us. Jefferson wanted people less dependent on the Bible; I would extend the idea, and urge us to be less dependent on Jefferson. Many modern church-state questions fall into a constitutional gray zone, and squinting at the founding documents with greater intensity will not change that.”
― Steven Waldman, Founding Faith: Providence, Politics, and the Birth of Religious Freedom in America

“If the pope, the bishops, and the priests were not subject to the worldly and coercive power of the prince, the authority of the prince would be challenged, and thus, with it, an order would be challenged that, as had been demonstrated previously, had been decreed by God.”
― Umberto Eco, The Name of the Rose

“And 'poor’ does not so much mean owning a palace or not; it means, rather, keeping or renouncing the right to legislate on earthly matters.”
― Umberto Eco, The Name of the Rose

“Will you tell me, William, you who know so much about heretics that you seem one of them, where the truth lies?
"Nowhere, at times," William said, sadly.
"You see? You yourself can no longer distinguish between one heretic and another. I at least have a rule. I know that heretics are those who endanger the order that sustains the people of God. And I defend the empire because it guarantees this order for me.”
― Umberto Eco

“You could believe you were living virtuously and also murder people if you were a fanatic. Fanatics thought that murdering people was virtuous, or murdering certain people.”
― Margaret Atwood

“But what if what the working class—white, black, Hispanic, etc.— needs most isn’t a check from the government but inclusion in community? And what if the most accessible form of community—the church—is under constant assault by both culture and the government? And finally, what if the elites frowning upon the deplorable poor won’t include them in their community, citing their deplorability?”
― Timothy P. Carney, Alienated America: Why Some Places Thrive While Others Collapse

“Faith by its specific nature
is an encounter with the living God—an encounter opening up new horizons extending beyond the sphere of reason. But it is also a purifying force for reason itself. From God's standpoint, faith liberates reason from its blind spots and therefore helps it to be ever more fully itself. Faith enables reason to do its work more effectively and to see its proper object more clearly. This is where Catholic social doctrine has its place: it has no intention of giving the Church power over the State. Even less is it an attempt to impose on those who do not share the faith ways of thinking and modes of conduct proper to faith. Its aim is simply to help purity
reason and to contribute, here and now, to the acknowledgment and attainment of what is just.”
― Pope Benedict XVI, Deus caritas est: Of Christian Love

“The Church's social teaching argues on the basis of reason and natural law, namely, on the basis of what is in word with the nature of every human being. It recognizes that it is not the Church's responsibility to make this teaching prevail in political life. Rather, the Church wishes to help form consciences in political life and to stimulate greater insight into the authentic requirements of justice as well as greater readiness to act accordingly, even when this might involve conflict with situations of personal interest. Building a just social and civil order, wherein each person receives what is his or her due, is an essential task which every generation must take up anew. As a political task, this cannot be the Church's immediate responsibility. Yet, since it is also a most important human responsibility, the Church is duty-bound to offer, through the purification of reason and through ethical formation, her own specific contribution towards understanding the requirements of justice and achieving them politically.”
― Pope Benedict XVI, Deus caritas est: Of Christian Love

“No one claiming to be a Christian would, one hopes, dispute the fact that as individuals we must submit ourselves to the rule of Christ the King, but very few Christians, Catholics included, understand, let alone uphold, the Social Kingship of Our Lord Jesus Christ. His social kingship can be implemented fully only when Church and state are united. The separation of Church and State was condemned unequivocally by the Roman Pontiffs until the Second Vatican Council. The Church's teaching is that the State has an obligation to render public worship to God in accord with the liturgy of the true Church, the Catholic Church, to uphold its teachings, and to aid the Church in the carrying out of her functions. The State does not have the right to remain neutral regarding religion, much less to pursue a secular approach in its policies. A secular approach is by that very fact an anti-God and an anti-Christ apprach.”
― Michael Treharne Davies, Vatican II and the Rein of Christ the King

“Leave the matter of religion to the family altar, the church, and the private school supported entirely by private contributions. Keep the church and state forever separate.”
― Ulysses S. Grant

“For indeed, the Church is divinely constituted and lives by her own right, not by privilege. Who ever would have granted her such a privilege had it not belonged to her by nature? The State? So civil society is then superior to religious society and can legitimately take back what it generously bestowed? History - along with Christian common sense - condemns the false conception behind such a way of talking. The Church was not created by the State; on the contrary, it was she who created the State and society; and neither the State nor society bestowed any privileges on the Church; they recognized her mode of existence as prior to their own, as endowed with rights in no way deriving from them and which they can only modify by some abuse of power, against which the public interest is bound to protest.”
― Louis Veuillot, The Liberal Illusion