A Nation Under God?: The ACLU and Religion in American Politics

Dr. Dan Palm, Chair of the History and Political Science Department at Azusa Pacific University, and Dr. Thomas Krannawitter from Hillsdale College in Michigan, write on the history of ideas behind the American Civil Liberties Union, the federal Courts, and the conflicting ways America has come to understand itself in the Twentieth Century. _A Nation Under God?_ argues that, from its founding in the 1900's, the ACLU's primarily motivation has been derived from modern progressivism - a philosophy that denies the possibility human nature for the sake of remaking society in terms of participatory evolution enforced by a powerful administrative state. Though often appearing in the guise of democracy and individual rights, progressivism rejected what the American Founders knew to be the basis of liberty, rooted in self-evident truths of human equality and eternal God-given rights, as stated in the Declaration of Independence. Far from establishing a "Christian nation" - as indeed many Right-wing factions claim - Palm and Krannawitter show how the Founders merely intended to provide a general basis for the cultivation of the virtues needed to maintain a constitutional democracy. The First Amendment's Establishment Clause only forbids a national denomination; it is of course coupled with the protection of Free Exercise. Yet the Supreme Court's reading of the First Amendment has brought these two clauses into collision, giving way to rulings that are no longer based on principle - thus giving the ACLU very arbitrary power in shaping national life. The authors call on us as citizens to realize the contingency of these judge-made laws, and rethink the character of our regime in light of the "laws of nature and nature's God."