Freedom of Religion
Although some New England States continued to use tax money to fund local Congregational churches into the 1830s, the United States was the first nation to have no official state-endorsed religion.
Modeling the provisions concerning religion within the Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom, the framers of the Constitution rejected any religious test for office, and the First Amendment specifically denied the federal government any power to enact any law respecting either an establishment of religion or prohibiting its free exercise, thus protecting any religious organization, institution, or denomination from government interference. The decision was mainly influenced by European Rationalist and Protestant ideals, but was also a consequence of the pragmatic concerns of minority religious groups and small states that did not want to be under the power or influence of a national religion that did not represent them.
Read more about this topic: Religion In The United States
Famous quotes containing the words freedom of, freedom and/or religion:
“The reason artists show so little interest
In public freedom is because the freedom
Theyve come to feel the need of is a kind
No one can give them they can scarce attain
The freedom of their own material....”
—Robert Frost (18741963)
“There is but one love of Jesus, as there is but one person in the poorJesus. We take vows of chastity to love Christ with undivided love; to be able to love him with undivided love we take a vow of poverty which frees us from all material possessions, and with that freedom we can love him with undivided love, and from this vow of undivided love we surrender ourselves totally to him in the person who takes his place.”
—Mother Teresa (b. 1910)
“Religion is doing; a man does not merely think his religion or feel it, he lives his religion as much as he is able, otherwise it is not religion but fantasy or philosophy.”
—George Gurdjieff (c. 18771949)