America and the Soft Establishment of Christianity
America and the Soft Establishment of Christianity

Summary/Abstract: The First Amendment to the Constitution of the United States forbids only the federal establishment of Christianity, not its establishment at the state level. “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof….” It was only in the mid-20th century that the First Amendment was applied to the individual states. This paper explores the establishment of Christianity de facto and de jure in the United States as originally intended by the First Amendment, in particular as this establishment was realized in the first half of the 20th century. It is argued that this approach to the place of religion in the public space and even in the public forum is to be preferred by evangelical Protestants, Orthodox Jews, and traditional Moslems to the current hard laicist establishment of secularism. All major religions, Buddhist, Confucian, Hindu, Jewish, and Moslem, should find the soft establishment of Christianity to be preferable to the current hard establishment of secularism. This approach also allows for local diversity (i.e., at the state level). If engaged as a paradigm for Europe, this original American approach would at the local level allow a laicist France, a Roman Catholic and Protestant Germany, and an Orthodox Greece and Russia. This paper begins with a brief overview of these background issues. It then explores the notion of a religious federalism. It concludes with an argument that the federalist approach in the American union should be that of the early 20th-century United States and should be supported generally by contemporary Christians in the United States and in Europe.

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