The Poisoned Pulpit

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By Don Varyu

July 2022

 
 

Editor’s note: We recently published a long piece titled America Is Over, laying out what we believe is the dangerous state of our democracy. You can find it here. The following story, the third installment in the series, stands alone but may be best appreciated as a sidebar to that piece.

bortion rights, school shootings and Trump sedition have sucked almost all of the oxygen out of the newsroom. But at the door, quietly demanding attention, is an issue that may wind up dwarfing all of the rest: the separation of church and state. This battle has existed since the Constitution was written, and now it’s back with a force. The religious right (fresh from its Roe v. Wade high five) is pressing religion on multiple fronts.

The best place to start is with a Tennessee tent preacher named Greg Locke. He’s not yet a household name, but he sure aims to be. In order to put him and this whole crusade in context, I can’t urge you strongly enough to take the time to click this video below… 

So, it seems safe to conclude that Locke has rather pointed political views…that he knows Jesus shares those views…and that if January 6th-type terror attacks occur across the country, maybe that wouldn’t be the worst thing that could happen. This from a “man of God.” 

So, you may be asking, “wait, isn’t this some kind of violation? Didn’t the founding fathers want to ban this kind alchemy between pulpit and politics? Isn’t there a law against this?” Well, the answer to all three is the same: “yes and no.”

Here’s the short history:

  • In the First Amendment, the Founding Fathers wrote, “Congress should make no law respecting an establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof…”. OK, that seems pretty clear. People get to believe (or not believe) whatever they want. And what about that “establishment” business? That word would appear to smack down all of the idiots who claim America has always been, and should always be, “a Christian nation.” Hmmm. So, how does that work? Can you say people are free to believe what they want…but at the same time one sect will take priority, with the full backing of the government? Right from the start, there seemed to be loose ends on this point.  

  • In 1802, Thomas Jefferson, the man who wrote the Declaration of Independence, tried to clear up the mess. He asserted that the First Amendment erected “a wall of separation between church and state,” which is, “…absolutely essential in a free society.” 

  • Twenty years later, the guy who wrote the Constitution weighed in. James Madison declared, “religion and government will both exist in greater purity the less they are mixed together.” So, both of the “founding drafters” believed they had put the matter to rest. Keep the government away from the pastors, and the pastors away from government. Got it.

  • But the Bible-beaters never gave up. In the late 1940’s and early 1950’s, the nation was gripped by the “red scare”—the highly inflated fear that Communism was about to topple democracy. It was the Big Lie of the day. Into that chasm of fear parachuted the religious right. The only way to repel the Reds, they said, was to re-ignite old time religion. The results of that campaign are still with us today. In 1954, for the first time, the words “…under God” were added to the Pledge of Allegiance. A year later, the motto “in God we trust” was imprinted for the first time on U.S. currency. You might believe the word “God” was intended to be inclusive—incorporating Allah and Buddha and Krishna and all the rest. But it’s sure never felt that way. The Christian right had a foothold in the public consciousness…and almost every politician was happy to leverage it for vote harvesting purposes. 

  • However, amid the red scare, a U.S. Senator from Texas named Lyndon Johnson, looked around and said “enough.” He introduced an amendment to the U.S. tax code that said, in effect, if you want to keep your 501c tax status with the IRS, you can’t use the pulpit to endorse candidates. That status is vital, because it exempts churches and other qualifying organizations from federal taxes, state taxes, property taxes, sales taxes and payroll taxes. That’s a pretty sweet deal. So, preachers tiptoed right up to the line, but were careful not to cross it. 

  • Well, OK, but how does that explain Greg Locke’s spiels? Granted, he didn’t say vote “for” a specific candidate—but he clearly instructed his people to vote against all Democrats. To underscore his point, he repeatedly mocks Joe Biden. Doesn’t that cross the line?

  • You might think so. But in 2017, a devoutly pious President named Donald Trump…apparently ending years of deep study into both his Bible and the tax code…decided the Johnson Amendment had to go. He failed to lead Congress to an outright overturn. But Trump did sign an executive order that ruled, “churches should not be found guilty of implied endorsements where secular organizations would not be.” In other words, he completely ignored the direction of both Jefferson and Madison. He said religious and non-religious entities are exactly the same—except that the churches still get to keep all those cushy tax deductions.

ou could just dismiss this current issue as one whack job prancing around in a tent. But he’s just one small weapon in a much wider arsenal deployed by the radical religious right. Their target is to permanently pump poison into the political bloodstream. The effort was immediately apparent in the wake of the Uvalde school massacre. While the media paid intense attention to the slow police response that day (entirely justified), nary a news word was spoken or printed about the coordinated Constitutional blasphemy spewed by GOP politicians pandering to the call of the religious right (which is entirely shameful). 

  • House minority leader Steve Scalise (himself once shot in the head!) proclaimed, “we had AR-15s in the 1960s. We didn’t have those mass school shootings. Now, I know it’s something that some people don’t want to talk about--we actually had prayer in school during those days.” 

  • Mary Miller, a House member from Illinois, said, “Our children are suffering, and we face a mental health crisis in our country because the radical left has spent decades removing God from our school and our society. Our country must be guided by our Judeo-Christian faith.” 

  • Then the always level-headed Marjorie Taylor-Greene added, "We don't need more gun control. We need to return to God." 

  • Finally, the incoherent Lauren Boebert of Colorado added, “I’m tired of this separation of church and state junk. It was not in the Constitution, it was in a stinking letter and it means nothing like what they say it does.” And to make her point perfectly clear, she concluded, “the church is supposed to direct the government.”

This is not a coincidence. The chips are all in; the campaign is on. You could dismiss this as just politicians talking. But the Supreme Court is already acting. 

n recent weeks, the high court issued two precedent-smashing rulings aimed at fully dismantling Jefferson’s wall. In doing so, they didn’t uphold the law…they ignored it: 

  • In Bremerton, Washington a high school football coach (a self-described ‘devout Christian’) began inviting his players to join him in taking part in prayer sessions, kneeling as a group on the 50-yard-line. The parents of one player sued, saying that their son felt compelled to join in, or the coach might reduce his playing time. Every lower court sided with the parent--but the Supreme Court saw fit to overrule. Neil Gorsuch wrote, in effect, “nah…the kid wasn’t coerced. And even if he felt that way, ‘religious freedom’ overrides all.”  Nonsense—”freedom” does not mean compulsion to demonstrate devotion to one faith at a public school. The return of prayer in the classroom is inevitable. 

  • In Maine, SCOTUS ruled that that state must now (in some cases) begin paying for education at religious schools as well as public ones. This is a full philosophical U-turn. (This could get interesting if public school parents in the deep South are told some of their tax dollars must go to pay for students attending Islamic Mosque schools.)

t was Theodore Roosevelt, a lionized Republican president, who put this whole thing in perspective. He said, “It is the people, and not the judges, who are entitled to say what their constitution means, for the constitution is theirs…”. The GOP in his day would have looked most unkindly at recent rulings and laws that defy the public will.

Yet, that’s what’s happening. A full 73% of us say the wall of separation between church and state should remain firm. The Supreme Court ruling implies, “whatever…go away.” The same kind of clear majorities favor stricter gun control and abortion rights. The court says, “no matter—we know better.”

The high court just doesn’t care. It is now the pinnacle of minority rule. It bends itself into pretzels to find an arcane precedent that will justify its radical remaking of the Constitution. It destroys precedent and established law. It invents its own skewed logic.  

At this point, it looks like old Tom Jefferson and Jimmy Madison are being bounced out of the Founding Fathers Club. But not to worry: Greg Locke stands ready to fill the void.

 
 

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