PROTESTANTISM THE BULWARK OF AMERICAN DEMOCRACY 45
We can understand the spirit of defeatism which seems
to haunt many noble men in these churches though we do
not share their pessimism. God lives, and He will send mes-
sages and trials to save and care for His own. Yet worldliness
in the church is an alarming thing. Dead churches were always
the bitter enemies of freedom. This leads us to the third
great principle of American Protestantism.
A Total Separation of Church and State
Today there is danger in America that we render lip
service to an ideal as a formula while we deny it in practice.
We cannot tell in detail the alarming manner in which
churches in America now turn to the civil power for help.
Through religious legislation, such as Sunday laws, they seek
the help of the law to get people to attend church. By many
other means they desire money for their colleges and similar
projects. We wish all would read that enlightening book
American State Papers on Freedom in Religion just off the
press. In reading this, every honest American patriot will feel
surprised to learn what is really happening in our country
to rob us of our liberties. What the future will bring is not
for us to say, but from a human viewpoint many danger
signals are seen.
The beginning of religious liberty in America should often
be told—and retold. For long, dark centuries mankind, espe-
cially in Europe, had been scourged by religious persecution.
Even in the American colonies it was at first a terrible blight.
Then came a strong effort for real freedom. Before the thir-
teen colonies broke away from England in a political way,
noble, far-seeing, and godly men had broken with the religious
oppression of the past. It was not, as many say, the French
Revolution that gave the world liberty. It was America, led
by men like Washington, Jefferson, and others. And just as
our country was the birthplace of real liberty for mankind, so
it must ever remain its defender. If this land should ever give
in to the constant clamor for religious legislation and sanction
laws that will make persecution possible, then world-wide
intolerance will once more be the sad lot of man. Many
thoughtful Bible students look for an “image” of the former