Church and State: The Current Constitutional Debate in the USA
Church and State: The Current Constitutional Debate in the USA

Summary/Abstract: Wolfe analyses the current understanding of two clauses contained in the 1st Amendment to U.S. Constitution concerning the relations between the church and the state: the clause that sets up the freedom of the creed (Free Exercise Clause) and the one prohibiting the establishment of state religion (Establishment Clause). On the basis of opinions of members of the Supreme Court, the author claims that the far-going interpretation of the latter clause, which provides the grounds for decisions resulting, among others, in bans on hanging the Decalogue in court buildings or performance of Christian nativity plays in schools, as contradictory to civil freedoms guaranteed in the first clause. For how can such prohibitions be reconciled with the freedom of public manifestation of religion? The problem goes beyond constitutional discourse. In their views of religion, the Founding Fathers followed rather Locke and his guarantee for religious freedom to the believing but not to atheists. The modern, liberal concept of constitutional law presented by the Supreme Court reads the notion of ‘religion’ along the lines of the Free Exercise Clause in a broader sense, as “various potential answers to the question of faith”, including the negation in the form of atheism or agnosticism.This far-reaching, ‘separatist’ interpretation of the 1st Amendment is motivated by the mistaken, as Wolfe believes, understanding of intentions of the Constitution’s authors. Most Supreme Court judges believe that any involvement of state structures on the side of religious or denominational institutions must inevitably lead to the establishment of social divides. This belief of the intellectual elites is the result of their specific outlook at religion, which is “not tainted by the acquaintance with numerous believers”. Actually, this separatist model is not only inconsistent with the tradition of the American nation but also a threat for the American democracy, whose power was perceived already by Tocqueville in the common moral foundations of citizens resulting from Christian faith.

• Details
• Contents