Higher Authority

 Article 6 of our Constitution says that “no religious test shall ever be required as a qualification to any office or public trust under the United States.”  Our First Amendment states: “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion,”...  Our Constitution and Bill of Rights prohibits the establishment of a national religion by the Congress or the preference of one religion over another, non-religion over religion, or religion over non-religion.

Originally, these restrictions only applied to the federal government, but in the late twentieth century the Supreme Court began restricting the promotion of religion by state governments.  In the Board of Education of Kiryas Joel Village School District v. Grumet, 512 U.S. 687 (1994), Justice David Souter, writing for the majority, concluded that “government should not prefer one religion to another, or religion to irreligion.”

Recently, in Asheville, North Carolina a city council member was sworn in with a solemn affirmation instead of a “so help me, God.”  A local conservative newspaper editor and a southern heritage activist are threatening to remove him from office because he’s an atheist.  They point to the North Carolina State Constitution Article 6, Section 8,which states: “The following persons shall be disqualified from office.  First, any person who shall deny the being of Almighty God.”  Arkansas, Maryland, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, and Mississippi have similar laws on their books.

In the 1961, the Supreme Court stressed that it’s not just nonreligious people who ought to be concerned with this sort of attack, because having a government that is able to compel you to take a religious oath is a violation of a private matter, that applies to religious and nonreligious people alike.  

According to our Constitution and Supreme Court we’re not a Christian nation. Nevertheless, we might want to commit ourselves to helping the least among us, because there might be a higher authority. Merry Christmas.