Open letter to Jeff Angelo, WHO Radio, and Iowa Governor Kim Reynolds

To Jeff Angelo

You invited listeners, February 8, to talk you out of your belief that satanists have a perfect right under the Constitution to display their idol at the state capitol, to host after-school Satan clubs, and to send their own “pastors” into schools when that bill passes.

My response is in three parts. I can’t decide which to put first, so I’ll list them and you can skip to whichever one interests you: (1) Acknowledging the logic of your position, which is shared by most judges, lawyers, and Christian leaders. Histories showing the very different understanding of “establishment of religion” by the authors of the 1st Amendment leave many questions unanswered. (2) History of how SCOTUS has mangled the original meaning, usurped jurisdiction over the issue never given it, and sown confusion. (3) Solutions. Legal arguments ready for today’s courts, with explanations.

1. Acknowledgement of the logic of your position.

It genuinely confuses not just judges and lawyers, but many Christians, today, how it would be fair to everyone to allow Christians to display a baby Jesus in a manger in the state capitol or in schools, while prohibiting Satanists from displaying next to it a baby on one of their sacrificial altars, Moslems from displaying a baby with its head lopped off by a nearby toy machete, Chinese Communists from displaying a dismembered baby next to forceps and a suction machine, or witch doctors from displaying a voodoo doll of the state governor or the school principal stuck with pins. Today’s Poorly Answered questions (which are addressed in Part 3):

a. Aren’t all “religions” supposed to stand equal before American law? Isn’t that what prohibiting “establishment of religion” means?

b. Historians like David Barton prove that America’s Founders did not equalize all religions. During the same months our Founders debated the First Amendment, they authorized and funded the printing of Bibles for schools in the Northwest Territories. They obviously didn’t consider that an “establishment of religion”. But why wasn’t it? Barton’s explanations did not make that clear, at least not to me. As late as 1947, SCOTUS ruled that spending taxes on bus rides for Catholic students to Catholic schools was not an “establishment of religion”. But that was not at all clear to the four justices who dissented, who thought it was.

c. OK, so they were all Christians back then. A little inconsistency then wasn’t so big a deal maybe. But now? Is favoring the Bible practical, constitutional, and fair, now? Aren’t we more free when all ideas are on a level playing field?”

d. Trinity v. United States (1892) is at times cited as acknowledgment by SCOTUS that the U.S. is, indeed, “a Christian nation”. (The issue of the case was whether to let a Christian pastor from England immigrate with less red tape.) But the evidence weighed in the case is over trivial matters: like Governments are closed on Sundays. But today, with almost everyone else but government open all the time, how is that ruling relevant today? How does our freedom, or rule of law, hang on our acknowledgment of the Bible? (Similarly, United States v. Macintosh, 1931, concluded that Americans are a “Christian people...according to [giving] one another the equal right of religious freedom, and acknowledging with reverence the duty of obedience to the will of God.”)

e. I am a Christian who wants to compare American Freedom with the Bible. Haven’t our Founders, and shouldn’t we, compromise with God for the sake of our freedom? For example, elections. If we pattern our government after the Bible, must we cancel elections? Where are elections in the Bible? How about Freedom of Religion? Doesn’t the Bible call for unbelievers to be stoned? How about slavery? Would we have to legalize slavery again? We have a Democracy (a Republic, technically, though there is little agreement on the difference) in which we approve our own laws and elect our leaders, not a Theocracy in which God writes our laws and is our dictator. How is it practical, sensible, or possible to make law anything other than neutral towards all religions?

f. Thomas Jefferson was the point of the spear for religious liberty in our founding documents. But he warned against the threat from false religions: “Can the liberties of a nation be thought secure when we have removed their only firm basis, a conviction in the minds of the people that these liberties are the gift of God?” (Notes on the State of Virginia, “Query XVIII”, reprinted in Writings, 289.)

Also see: “Liberty of conscience in matters of religion consists in the absolute and unrestrained exercise of our religious opinion, and duties, in that mode which our own reason and conviction dictate, without the control or intervention of any human power or authority whatsoever.” (St. George Tucker, Blackstone’s Commentaries: with Notes of Reference, to the Constitution and Laws, of the Federal Government of the United States; and of the Commonwealth of Virginia (Philadelphia: William Young Birch and Abraham Small: 1803), I:489, “Appendix: Note G. Of the Right of Conscience; and Of the Freedom of Speech and Of The Press”:)

But what about the duty of a Moslem to behead Christians and Jews? Of of a Satanist to offer human sacrifice, including to perform abortions as part of a ritual? (Cases in Texas and Pennsylvania where abortion has become illegal) What about Native Americans smoking Peyote, an illegal drug, and then applying for unemployment compensation when they are fired from their jobs as drug counselors? (Employment Division v. Smith)

I don’t know how much these unanswered questions overlap your own. They are questions that tormented me for decades. Only recently have I glimpsed a “light at the end of the tunnel” of confusion, and I will welcome any help finally reaching it.

2. 2. History of how SCOTUS has mangled the original meaning of the “Establishment Clause”, usurped jurisdiction over the issue never given it, and sown confusion.

Summary: Before 1868 the rights listed in the Constitution and Bill of Rights, like freedom of speech and religion, restrained only Congress, but state legislatures could still force their citizens to attend the state church, and could subject blacks to very unequal rights. In 1868, the 14th Amendment gave Congress, not courts, jurisdiction over states who couldn’t or wouldn’t protect the rights of their citizens. Courts had never reversed Dred Scott v. Sandford (1857) so Congress, which drafted the Amendment, understandably doubted SCOTUS’ capacity for and commitment to understanding and protecting God-given rights.

Only five years later, SCOTUS ruled (Slaughterhouse, 1873) that Congress can’t enforce any of the rights listed in the Constitution that are violated by states. Over the decades SCOTUS decided courts have jurisdiction over states to protect rights of state citizens, though not all constitutional rights, and they can make up rights that are hostile to constitutional rights.

It wasn’t until 1943 that SCOTUS decided to usurp authority over states to enforce the “Establishment Clause” of the First Amendment, which prohibits “establishment” of religion. Everson v. Board of Education. It was a Trojan Horse ruling (disguised as friendly to Christians) because it ruled that taxpayer support of bussing for Catholic students to Catholic schools was OK; that didn’t “establish” religion. But it planted two time bombs under Freedom of Religion.

The first was usurping authority over states, an authority designated by Section 5 of the 14th Amendment only for Congress. It is questionable whether even Congress is given authority to bar “establishment of religion”, because “no establishment of religion” is not directly a “right” of citizens. It is an indirect tool for protecting the “freedom of religion” of citizens. But the Freedom of Religion enjoyed by individuals, free from forcible support of or agreement with a repugnant faith, is the direct measure of whether “no establishment of religion” has been achieved.

Never before 1943 had SCOTUS interfered with state decisions about religion.

The second never-before-committed crime of Everson was equating “favoring” Christianity with “establishing” Christianity. American law had always previously “favored” Christianity without anyone suspecting Christianity was being “established”. America’s Founders understood that “establishing” Christianity was evil, but “favoring” Christianity was essential. Yet how many today grasp the difference? Understanding that difference is a key to solving this great problem.

(This section awaits much more work.)

3. Solutions: Arguments Nearly Ready for Court?

“Favoring” Freedom: a “Compelling Government Interest”. Allowing a manger scene in the state capitol does not create a right for satanists to erect an idol glaring down at the baby Jesus, because it is a “compelling interest” of freedom-guarding government to “favor” the Author of Freedom without enabling the avowed Enemy of Freedom.

It does not “establish” religion to “favor” the Bible, as Everson v. Board of Education falsely alleged for the first time in 1947. The authors of the “Establishment Clause” in 1791 considered it essential to favor the Bible by funding its printing for schools in the Northwest Territories during the same months they debated the Clause. They considered it evil to “establish” Christianity, by which they meant compelling people to endorse, attend, believe, or tithe to any church. For the same reasons that was evil then, it is evil now; and for the same reasons it was essential then to favor the Bible in public schools, it is essential now to favor God as revealed in the Bible on our money, in schools, art and prayers in legislatures, and even in 10 Commandments art in the Supreme Court building which is closed on Sunday.

It is a “compelling government interest” of any government to promote religion(s) which supports its own existence over religions hostile to it. (Though without compelling consent or obedience, which destroys freedom.)

When Moslems, Atheists, or Satanists sue for the same public platform that Christians historically had, they are petitioning courts to favor a Biblical right not found in their religions: freedom of conscience for all. Courts should do as they ask and “favor” the Bible, for the sake of all believers of all faiths: religion that protects conscience merits greater access to free people than religions that crush conscience.

No “establishment of religion” – not even by Courts. Courts threaten Freedom by ordering God to stand equal before American law with religions from Hell. Courts must stop forcing governments to give equal access to public displays of imaginary gods, for the same practical reason – the same “compelling government interest” that the Bible prohibits idols in the land: equal support for the enemies of Freedom with the friends of Freedom normalizes tyranny, which peels confused voters away from supporting details essential to Freedom. (Israel’s leaders were elected, too.)

“Favoring” the principles of Freedom protects Freedom of Conscience for all until it develops into an “establishment”, meaning a human-managed hierarchy with laws and police which force people to believe, endorse, attend, or support anything. An “establishment” makes humans the masters of others’ consciences who cannot master their own. Courts “establish” their own irreligion with their arbitrary rules regulating the expression of governments, businesses, and individuals.

The rights of conscience are, indeed, beyond the just reach of any human power. They are given by God, and cannot be encroached upon by human authority, without a criminal disobedience of the precepts of natural, as well as revealed religion. The real object of the amendment was, not to countenance, much less to advance Mahometanism, or Judaism, or infidelity, by prostrating Christianity; but to exclude all rivalry among Christian sects, and to prevent any national ecclesiastical establishment, which should give to an hierarchy the exclusive patronage of the national government. It thus sought to cut off the means of religious persecution, (the vice and pest of former ages,) and the power of subverting the rights of conscience in matters of religion, which had been trampled upon almost from the days of the Apostles to the present age. (Joseph Story, Commentaries on the Constitution of the United States (Boston: Hilliard, Gray, and Company, 1833), I:701, § 990-991)

The “Establishment Clause” prohibits “Congress” from passing “any law respecting [on the subject of] the establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.” Courts are not more competent than Congress to govern our consciences.

(How Thomas Jefferson explained the “Establishment Clause”:) “[N]o power over the freedom of religion [of states]. . . [is] delegated to the United States by the Constitution.” Kentucky Resolution, 1798

“In matters of religion, I have considered that its free exercise is placed by the Constitution independent of the powers of the general [federal] government.” Second Inaugural Address, 1805

“[O]ur excellent Constitution . . . has not placed our religious rights under the power of any public functionary.” Letter to the Methodist Episcopal Church, 1808

“I consider the government of the United States as interdicted [prohibited] by the Constitution from intermeddling with religious institutions . . . or exercises.” Letter to Samuel Millar, 1808

Reynolds v. United States (1878) “Coming as this does from an acknowledged leader of the advocates of the measure, it [Jefferson’s ‘separation of church and state’ letter] may be accepted almost as an authoritative declaration of the scope and effect of the Amendment thus secured. Congress was deprived of all legislative power over mere [religious] opinion, but was left free to reach actions which were in violation of social duties or subversive of good order. [T]he rightful purposes of civil government are for its officers to interfere when principles break out into overt acts against peace and good order. In th[is] . . . is found the true distinction between what properly belongs to the church and what to the State.”

Wallbuilders President Thomas Jefferson authored the original plan of education for the public schools of Washington, DC. He used the Bible and Watt’s Hymnal (one of the greatest doctrinal hymnals in Christendom) as the primary reading texts.[Records of the Columbia Historical Society (Washington, D. C.: Columbia Historical Society, 1897), Vol. 1, pp. 122-123, 127, from the report by Mr. Henry Ould on February 10, 1813. See also National Intelligencer, March 20, 1817, p. 2. ]

President Jefferson, in 1803, signed a federal act renewing provisions related to propagating the Gospel among the Delaware Indian tribes. [The Debates and Proceedings in the Congress of the United States (Washington: Gales and Seaton, 1851), 7th Cong., 2nd Sess., p. 1602, “An Act to Revive and Continue in Force An Act in Addition to an Act, Entitled, ‘An Act in Addition to an Act Regulating the Grants of Land Appropriated for Military Services, and for the Society of the United Brethren for Propagating the Gospel Among the Heathen,’ and for Other Purposes,” March 3, 1803]

President Jefferson approved a treaty with the Kaskaskia tribe to provide them Christian ministry and teaching. [American State Papers: Documents, Legislative and Executive of the Congress of the United States, Walter Lowrie and Matthew St. Claire Clarke, editors (Washington, D. C.: Gales and Seaton, 1832), Vol. IV, p. 687, “The Kaskaskia and Other Tribes,” October 31, 1803.]

President Jefferson in1804 signed a federal act related to the propagation of the Gospel among Indians on federal land trusts. [The Public Statutes at Large of the United States of America, Richard Peters, editor (Boston: Charles C. Little and James Brown, 1845), Vol. II, pp. 271-272, “An Act Granting Further Time for Locating Military Land Warrants, and for Other Purposes,” March 19, 1804.]

President Jefferson praised others who, like himself, used federal resources to spread Christianity among natives. [See, for example, Thomas Jefferson, The Writings of Thomas Jefferson, Andrew A. Lipscomb, editor (Washington, D. C.: The Thomas Jefferson Memorial Association, 1904), Vol. XVI, p. 289, to Thomas, Ellicot, and Others on November 13, 1807.]

The 14th Amendment is the only vehicle of federal power over states, and its Section 5 gives enforcement authority to Congress, not courts. The only authority federal courts have from the Constitution is to enforce federal laws.

Neither courts nor Congress have any constitutional authority to dictate terms of religious expression to anybody.

“[N]o purpose of action against religion [particulary Christianity] can be imputed to any legislation, state or national because this is a religious people….[T]his is a Christian nation.” Church of the Holy Trinity v. U. S., 143 U. S. 457, 465, 471 (1892) [a unanimous ruling].

Courts have usurped this authority without even any fact finding to determine which religions are consonant with reality, thereby “establishing” idiocy. Neither has there been fact finding to determine which religions support free government and virtues in citizens necessary to make freedom function. Straying so far from reality, so far outside their lawful jurisdiction, courts thereby “establish” the seeds of destruction of their own existence.

Elements of Freedom in Religions. Religious expression is freest in nations where Biblical influence is greatest and least free in nations where Biblical influence is weakest because the “swordpoint conversions” common to other religions are absent from the Bible.

Deuteronomy 13:1-7 is the closest the Bible comes to endorsing any human-enforced penalty for sincerely held disagreement with God. The passage draws the line the same place as did Employment Division v. Smith; you can believe you should commit a crime, but if you do it you will be prosecuted. “Serving” the surrounding gods at the time meant human sacrifice, temple orgies, drugs, drinking blood. Persuading others to “serve” other gods was what we call “incitement to crime”.

Biblical Christianity: The Origin of the Rights of Conscience, Wallbuilders.com, May 29, 2023 “...only nations who respect Biblical teachings and traditions offer protection for the rights of religious conscience. Secular and non-Biblical nations, and those with state-established churches (such as those that predominated in England and Europe at the time of the American Founding), do not allow rights of conscience but instead demand conformity, which often requires governmental punishment coercion concerning religious beliefs, which violates the Scriptures.

“Christ Himself established religious non-coercion as the standard. His approach was so voluntary that He even directed His disciples that when they presented the Gospel to others, if someone was interested, then they could stay and share the message with them; but if someone did not want to hear, then they were to leave the area and not force the issue (Luke 10:8-12). There was absolutely no coercion. It was also this way with Paul and the other Apostles: in every case; hearers then chose whether or not to follow Christianity; there was never any penalty, pressure, or force levied against them.

“As John Quincy Adams noted, Jesus Christ ‘came to teach and not to compel. His law was a Law of Liberty. He left the human mind and human action free.’ (John Quincy Adams, A Discourse on Education Delivered at Braintree, Thursday, October 24th, 1839 (Boston: Perkins & Marvin, 1840), 18.)

“Two generations later, legal writer Stephen Cowell (1800-1872) similarly avowed: ‘Nonconformity, dissent, free inquiry, individual conviction, mental independence, are forever consecrated by the religion of the New Testament as the breath of its own life – the conditions of its own existence on the earth. The book is a direct transfer of human allegiance in things spiritual from the civil and ecclesiastical powers to the judgment and conscience of the individual.’ (Stephen Colwell, Politics for American Christians: A Word upon our Example as a Nation, our Labour, our Trade, Elections, Education, and Congressional Legislation (Philadelphia: Lippincott, Grambo & Co. 1852), 82, Tait’s Edinburgh Magazine, for 1844 (Edinburgh: William Tait, 1844), 752, “The Politics of the New Testament,” December 1844.)

“And several generations after that, President Franklin D. Roosevelt continued to affirm the same truth, noting: ‘We want to do it the voluntary way – and most human beings in all the world want to do it the voluntary way. We do not want to have the way imposed. . . . That would not follow in the footsteps of Christ.’ ” (“Franklin D. Roosevelt, “Christmas Greeting to the Nation,” The American Presidency Project, December 24, 1940.)

A judge imagining he can rule without “favoring” the Bible, in an American court enforcing American law, is like a fish denying the value of water. The most fundamental principles of American law are taken from the Bible while competing religions and philosophies are, to varying degrees, hostile to Freedom. A judge enforcing the law, following the Constitution, favors the Bible and suppresses the dehumanization, unequal rights, and tyranny of other religions. For example:

Equal Rights. A judge who upholds “equal protection of the laws” (14th Amendment) and “all men are created equal, and endowed by their creator with certain unalienable rights...” (Declaration of Independence) thus favors equal justice for the poor with the rich (Exodus 23:3), women with men (Deuteronomy 24:17), immigrants with citizens (Exodus 12:49, Leviticus 24:22, Numbers 15:15), employees with employers (Leviticus 24:17, 21:20), those without a bribe with those with (Deuteronomy 16:19), and all races, nationalities, and religions (Galatians 3:28, Colossians 3:11). He rules against Islam’s dehumanization of Christians and Jews as “apes and pigs” deserving of the jizra tax, if not slavery, mutilation, and execution, against Hinduism’s “caste system”, and against the utter lack of any rights or law of Satanism.

Elections. Courts favor the Bible over other religions when they enforce laws requiring honest elections for all citizens, which are demanded by no other religion or philosophy, but were first introduced in 1462 BC with elections of over 70,000 local and national leaders (Deuteronomy 1:13), were equated in 1065 BC with the rule of God (1 Samuel 8:7), and after 35 AD with elections of elders (Acts 14:23 & 2 Corinthians 8:19 - the “ordaining” of elders after 35AD was done by χειρτονεω, voting by raising hands)). God equated abandoning elections in with abandoning God, ,

Freedom of Speech. Courts which enforce Freedom of Speech favor the laws of nations influenced by the Bible, whose heroes are those who told the truth even when truth was against the law. Such courts ignore the laws of nations dominated by other religions or philosophies whose heroes are the “strongest”, who most successfully dominate others, whose approved methods include deception and torture.

Freedom of Religion. Even Freedom of Religion is a uniquely Biblical value. The Bible respects no “swordpoint conversions”. Deuteronomy 13:1-7 is the closest the Bible comes to endorsing any human-enforced penalty for sincerely held disagreement with God. The passage draws the line the same place as did Employment Division v. Smith; you can believe you should commit a crime, but if you do it you will be prosecuted. “Serving” the surrounding gods at the time meant human sacrifice, temple orgies, drugs, drinking blood. Persuading others to “serve” other gods was what we call “incitement to crime”. God “reasons” with people. (Isaiah 1:18). His people persuade by reason, not force. (Acts 17:2, 1 Peter 3:15. We address wrongs with reason, evidence, and law, and jail those who start physical fights; we do not go to war to gain territory, slaves, or booty, but only to defend ourselves and others).

Lower Crime. The 10 Commandments is an outline of the laws God offers for the benefit of all mankind. They doubly serve as an outline of American law. The fact that they are universally recognized as principles of God’s laws secures voluntary obedience to them of all who love God, without the need of hiring police to compel their compliance. We are taught not only to fear the consequences of, but to hate murder, stealing, perversion, and lying – especially false accusations. Children are placed under the jurisdiction of those most likely to love them most, and are urged to obey voluntarily for their own benefit. Hard, slave-grade labor is outlawed by requiring periods of rest. And not only is obedience secured voluntarily, but disobedience is prevented by the final command to not even want any of the goals of these crimes. And the first command is to love and obey the Author of all these rules upon which freedom and prosperity hangs. This positive incentive for obeying laws is supplemented by the negative incentive implied in the first Commandment: the fear of God’s judgments, added to human-enforced penalties, for disobeying.

All of which makes it insane that the Supreme Court’s reason for not allowing posts of the 10 Commandments in schools was: “ If the posted copies of the Ten Commandments are to have any effect at all, it will be to induce the schoolchildren to read, meditate upon, perhaps to venerate and obey, the Commandments. However desirable this might be as a matter of private devotion, it is not a permissible state objective under the Establishment Clause.” Stone v. Graham, 449 U.S. 39 (1980) https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/449/39/

It is also a “legitimate government interest” to “favor” any religion to the extent it inspires in voters and citizens character qualities essential to the success of freedom. Therefore evidence is relevant, in any case concerning government involvement in free expression, of a religion’s promotion of personal virtues that enable freedom to function, such as:

service to others (Luke 22:25-27; American society honors most who serve most),

respect for all humans (Genesis 1:27),

honesty (Proverbs 6:16-17, Matthew 19:18; fraud and bribery are crimes and scandals in America),

tolerance (Americans value freedom of speech and religion, rejecting “swordpoint conversions” and prosecution of dissent; we oppose discrimination over morally neutral differences. Tolerance for those who look or think different is not found in other religions or practiced by their followers),

impartiality (Proverbs 17:23 We demand equal rights and opportunities for all in which people are judged by and rewarded for their service and the content of their character),

peacemakers (Matthew 5:9; We address wrongs with reason, evidence, and law, and jail those who start physical fights; we do not go to war to gain territory, slaves, or booty, but only to defend ourselves and others), and

religious obedience to legitimate law (Romans 13:1-5, 1 Peter 2:13, Matthew 22:21).

It is a “compelling government interest” to support those foundational virtues over religions which are relatively hostile to Freedom, though without physically or financially coercing anyone’s conscience, which destroys Freedom.

Relevant evidence in court includes results of scrutiny of the scriptures of any religion whose accommodation or promotion is being reviewed, to establish any consonance with reality beyond any reasonable possibility of human understanding at the time of its authorship, and therefore the likelihood that taking seriously its advice, promises and warnings comport with reality and are in the national interest.

It does not “establish religion” to publicly, officially establish facts. Religions make claims about God or the absence thereof. The Bible uniquely claims that God “turns the hearts of kings”, (Proverbs 21:1) and brings judgments upon whole nations for violating laws given, again uniquely, for the benefit of all mankind. The Bible thus claims God is the “highest authority”, a “king of kings”. (Psalm 2:1 ...Why are the people making such foolish plans? 2 Their kings and leaders join together to fight against the LORD and his chosen king....4 But the one who rules in heaven laughs at them. The Lord makes fun of them.... 10 So, kings and rulers, be smart and learn this lesson. 11 Serve the LORD with fear and trembling. 12 Show that you are loyal to his son, or the Lord will be angry and destroy you. He is almost angry enough to do that now, but those who go to him for protection will be blessed.)

It is a “compelling government interest” to investigate such claims, and if they survive scrutiny, to adjust national policy to conform to reality – to not be “foolish”. This makes relevant in legislatures and in courts a review of the scrutiny of the Bible, compared with a review of results of any scrutiny of other sacred writings (if any such scrutiny can be found) to determine which is the more reliable guide to what will most benefit citizens and their government.

Blindness about the differences between religions in these areas, leading to equal treatment of them in courts and politics, threaten our freedoms, is not in the national interest, and is the definition of willful ignorance.

The fact that all human fact-finding is imperfect and subject to the possibility of evidence available in the future is not a reason to throw up America’s hands and rule reality irrelevant.

Reality is not irrelevant. It is self-enforcing.