[Congressional Record Volume 169, Number 64 (Tuesday, April 18, 2023)]
[House]
[Page H1767]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                        CELEBRATING FAITH MONTH

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Chair recognizes the gentleman from 
Louisiana (Mr. Johnson) for 5 minutes.
  Mr. JOHNSON of Louisiana. Mr. Speaker, this week, we are observing 
the second annual celebration of Faith Month.
  Concerned Women for America and other sponsors are encouraging 
legislators across our country to give public display of our personal 
faith freely and openly. What a great exercise this is.
  Of course, even though there is a dangerous trend today to discourage 
the display or depiction of the exercise of our faith in the public 
square--certainly, there is a move to keep religion out of politics and 
to rigidly enforce the so-called separation of church and state--the 
Founders of this country would have certainly supported our efforts 
here today.
  Indeed, this common misunderstanding about the separation concept--
and it is an important one--is one that is useful for us to address. I 
think today is a good day to do it. In fact, it is one of my favorite 
subjects. It is a topic that I have debated and written and taught 
university courses on for about 25 years, about a quarter of a century. 
For two of those decades, I was in the courts defending religious 
freedom cases. I learned during that time that I really believe that 
this is among the most misunderstood subjects in our entire culture.

  You see, most people today who insist upon a rigid separation of 
church and state are unaware that that phrase derives not from the 
Constitution itself, of course, but from a personal letter that Thomas 
Jefferson wrote to the Danbury Baptist Association in 1802. He 
explained that because ``religion is a matter which lies solely between 
man and his God,'' the language of the First Amendment is a vital 
safeguard of our ``rights of conscience.''
  Jefferson said he revered ``that act of the whole American people 
which declared that their legislature should `make no law respecting an 
establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof,' 
thus building a wall of separation between church and state.''
  That is what he wrote in his letter to the Danbury Baptists, but 
Jefferson clearly did not mean that metaphorical wall was to keep 
religion from influencing issues of civil government. To the contrary, 
it was meant to keep the Federal Government from impeding the religious 
practice of citizens.
  The Founders wanted to protect the church from an encroaching state, 
not the other way around. The majority of the Founders, having 
personally witnessed the abuses of the Church of England, were 
determined to prevent the official establishment of any single national 
denomination or religion.
  Of course, we know that, but here is the point. They very 
deliberately listed religious liberty, the free exercise of religion, 
as the first freedom protected in the Bill of Rights because--here is 
the key--they wanted everyone to freely live out their faith as that 
would ensure a robust presence of moral virtue in the public square and 
the free marketplace of ideas.
  Volumes written on this topic can be summarized probably best and 
most concisely by reference to the sentiments of our first two 
Presidents.
  In his historic Farewell Address, President George Washington, of 
course, famously said: ``Of all the dispositions and habits which lead 
to political prosperity, religion and morality are indispensable 
supports.''
  Our second President, John Adams, came next, and he said: ``Our 
Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is 
wholly inadequate to the government of any other.''
  What these two Founders and their fellow patriots all understood from 
history was that there are many important rules and practices that can 
help build and sustain a healthy republic, but the key and essential 
foundation of a system of government like ours must be a common 
commitment among the citizenry to the principles of religion and 
morality.
  The Founders acknowledged in the Declaration the self-evident truths 
that all men are created equal and that God gives all men the same 
inalienable rights. However, they knew that in order to maintain a 
``government of the people, by the people, for the people,'' as Lincoln 
later articulated, in ``this nation, under God,'' those inalienable 
rights must be exercised in a responsible manner.
  They thus believed in liberty that is legitimately constrained by a 
common sense of morality and a healthy fear of the creator who granted 
all men our rights.
  The Founders understood that all men are fallen and that power 
corrupts. They also knew that no amount of institutional checks and 
balances and decentralization of power in civil authorities would be 
sufficient to maintain a just government if the men in charge had no 
fear of eternal judgment by a power higher than their temporal 
institutions.
  A free society and a healthy republic depend upon religious and moral 
virtue because those convictions in the minds and hearts of the people 
make it possible to preserve their essential freedoms by emphasizing 
and inspiring individual responsibility and self-sacrifice and the 
dignity of hard work, the rule of law, civility, patriotism, the value 
of family and community, and the sanctity of every single human life.
  They knew that this would be important, and without these virtues 
indispensably supported by religion and morality, every nation would 
ultimately fail.
  Inscribed on the third panel of the Jefferson Memorial here in 
Washington is a sobering reminder to every American. It says: ``God who 
gave us life gave us liberty. Can the liberties of a nation be secure 
when we have removed a conviction that these liberties are the gift of 
God?''
  This a great time to preserve our faith. We can never back down. I 
thank the Concerned Women for America.

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