Upon my arrival in the United States, the religious aspect of the country was the first thing that struck my attention, and the longer I stayed there, the more I did perceive the great political consquences resulting from this state of things, to which I was unaccustomed. In France I had almost always seen the spirit of religion and the spirit of freedom pursuing courses diametrically opposed to each other, but in America I found that they were intimately united and that they reigned in common over the same country. I questioned the members of all the different sects, and I more especially sought the society of the clergy, who are the depositories of the different persuasions, and who are more especially interested in their duration. As a member of the Roman Catholic Church, I was more particularly brought into contact with several of its priests, with whom I became intimately acquainted. To each of these men I expressed my astonishment and I explained my doubts--I found that they differed upon matters of detail alone and that they mainly attributed to the peaceable dominion of religion in their country to the separation of church and state. I do not hesitate to affirm that during my stay in America, I did not meet with a single individual of the clergy or of the laity who was not of the same opinion on this point.
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Man alone of all created being displays a natural contempt of existence and yet a boundless desire to exist; he scorns life, but he dreads annihilation. These different feelings incessently urge his soul to the contemplation of a future state, and religion directs his musings thither. Religion, then, is simply another form of hope, and it is no less natural to the human heart than hope itself. Men cannot abandon their religious faith without a kind of aberration of intellect and a sort of violent distortion of their true natures, but they are invincibly brought back more pious sentiments--for unbelief is an accident, and faith is the only permanent state of mankind. If we only consider religious institutions in a purely human point of view, they may be said to derive an inexhaustible element of strength from man himself, since they belong to one of the constituent principles of human nature.
I am aware that at certain times religion may strengthen this influence which originates in itself by the artificial power of the laws and by the support of those temporal institutions which direct society. Religions, intimately united to the governments of the earth, have been known to exercise a sovereign authority derived from the twofold source of terror and of faith, but when a religion contracts an alliance of this nature, I do not hesitate to affirm that it commits the same error as a man who should sacrifice his future to his present welfare. And in obtaining a power to which it has no claim, it risks that authority which is rightfully its own.* When a religion founds its empire upon the desire of immortality which lives in every human heart, it may aspire to universal dominion, but when it connects itself with a government, it must necessarily adopt maxims which are only applicable to certain nations. Thus, in forming an alliance with a political power, religion augments its authority over a few and forfeits the ope of reigning over all.
As long as a religion rests upon these sentiments which are the consolation of all affliction, it may attract the affections of mankind. But if it is mixed up with the bitter passions of the world, it may be constrained to defend allies whom its interests, and not the principle of love, have given to it; or to repel as antagonists men who are still attached to its own spirit, however opposed they may be to the powers to which is ia allied.**
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As long as religion is sustained by those feelings, propensities, and passions, which are found to occur under the same forms at all the different periods of history, it may defy the efforts of time--or at least it can only be destroyed by another religion. The alliance which religion contracts with political powers must needs be onerous to itself, since it does not require their assistance to live,a nd by giving them its assitance it may be exposed to decay.
If the Americans, who change the head of their government once in every four years, who elect new legislators every two years, and renew the provincial officers every year; if the Americans, who have abandoned the political world to the attempts of innovators, had not placed religion beyond their reach, where could it abide in the ebb and flow of human opinions? Where would that respect which belongs to it be paid, amid the struggles of faction? And what would become of its immortality in the midst of perpetual decay? The American clergy were the first to perceive this truth and to act in conformity with it. They saw that they must renounce their religious influence, if they were to strive for political power, and they chose to give up the support of the state rather than to share in its vicissitudes.
In America, religion is perhaps less powerful than it has been at certain periods in the history of certain peoples, but its influence is more lasting.
--Alexis de Tocqueville, 1835
Lessons applicable to the current concerns of fundamentalists and evangelical Christian churches who chased after temporal political power and are now paying the inevitable price can be drawn at the reader's leisure.
*Known to Christians as "Give Caesar what is Caesar's, and God what is God's."
*The irony here is that, as I type, I keep wanting to "correct" words like "man" and "Mankind" and pronouns like "he." But that's an argument from the world, one I learned to be keen to in seminary. In contemporary scriptural translations such words were replaced with more generic terms, or "she" was used to be as normative and inclusive in English as "he." My own experience in ministry proved to me there are good reasons for this, but it's also part of the basis for criticism of "liberal" Christian churches by more "conservative" and larger Christian churches. But now that "infection" of the world is their bane, too. Be careful pointing a finger; three more point back at you. And also be careful reading an old text not concerned with contemporary problems, in the light of those problems. It can be instructive; it can also be incisive, if you take it serioiusly enough. All, as the catechism I learned as a child, have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. I no longer accept the doctrine of sin behind that statement; but the state of humility it is meant to induce is still a good lesson.
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