“Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of
religion, or preventing the free exercise thereof.” Congress. The writers of the First Amendment of the U.S. federal
Constitution were obviously excluding the state governments. Even so, the U.S.
Supreme Court has established that the amendment applies to the states as well
as Congress. From Lemon v. Kurtzman
(1971), the Court gave us what is known as the Lemon test. State funding for
parochial schools (e.g., Catholic schools) must have a secular legislative
purpose (e.g., education), neither advance nor inhibit religion in its
consequences, and not foster “an excessive government entanglement with
religion.” Yet the leap in claiming that the amendment bears on the states must
deal with the explicit language that “Congress
shall make no law.” Even so, it did not seem constitutional to many people in 1913 when the North Carolina legislature tried to make Christianity the republic's official religion. Even so, because the United States is essentially a federal empire of fifty republics, care ought to be taken when applying a one-size-fits-all approach as it does not take into account interstate political, religious, and cultural differences. Much is made of these in the European Union, but not in the United States.
The full essay is at "Christianity as a State Religion in the U.S."
The full essay is at "Christianity as a State Religion in the U.S."
