What the Separation of Church and State Means Today with Rev. Dr. Randall Balmer – Interfaith Alliance

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A coordinated national censorship campaign – with deep ties to the Christian nationalist movement.
The latest episode of The State of Belief features the esteemed historian and author, Rev. Dr. Randall Balmer. We go in-depth with his latest book, America's Best Idea: The Separation of Church and State, and explore the critical importance of this principle in today's America. Here are three key takeaways:
The Historical Roots of Separation: Randall emphasizes that the concept of separation of Church and State is not just a recent source of concern, but a foundational principle rooted in the diverse religious landscape of early America. The Founding Fathers, aware of the religious conflicts in Europe, sought to create a nation where no single religion would dominate.
The Threat of Majoritarianism: One of the most striking points Randall makes is the current Supreme Court's tendency to favor majoritarianism, particularly in matters of religion. He argues that the court's decisions often reflect the beliefs of a Christian majority, sidelining the rights of minority faiths and non-religious individuals.
The Call for Courage and Hope: In a time when religious freedom is under attack, Randall encourages us all to embrace small acts of resistance and to remain hopeful. He reminds us that courage can manifest in various forms, from participating in rallies to engaging in meaningful conversations about faith and democracy.
It’s an enlightening conversation with Dr. Balmer, as we navigate the complexities of faith, politics, and the future of our democracy. Together, we explore how we can uphold the separation of Church and State and ensure that all voices are heard in our society.
More about Randall Balmer
A prize-winning historian and Emmy Award nominee, a New York Times best-selling author, Randall Balmer holds the John Phillips Chair in Religion at Dartmouth, the oldest endowed professorship at Dartmouth College. He's also an Episcopal priest, and as early as 1989, he was publishing books like Mine Eyes Have Seen the Glory: A Journey into Evangelical Subculture in America, and Thy Kingdom Come: How the Religious Right Distorts Faith and Threatens America. Most recently, Dr. Balmer published America's Best Idea: The Separation of Church and State, addressing some of the most foundational and endangered principles of our history and national identity.
REV. PAUL BRANDEIS RAUSHENBUSH, HOST:
A prize-winning historian and Emmy Award nominee, a New York Times best-selling author, Randall Balmer holds the John Phillips Chair in Religion at Dartmouth, the oldest endowed professorship at Dartmouth College. He's also an Episcopal priest, and as early as 1989, he was publishing books like Mine Eyes Have Seen the Glory: A Journey into Evangelical Subculture in America, and Thy Kingdom Come: How the Religious Right Distorts Faith and Threatens America. Most recently, Dr. Balmer published America's Best Idea: The Separation of Church and State, addressing some of the most foundational and endangered principles of our history and national identity.
And so, Randall, welcome back to The State of Belief, and congratulations on this book!
 
RANDALL BALMER:
Thank you, Paul. It's good to be back here, good to talk to you again, and thank you for the good wishes.
 
PAUL RAUSHENBUSH:
So why this book, right now? I mean, I have some ideas of what might've sparked it. But tell us about, okay, I've got to write this book speaking into the moment we are in in America right now.
 
RANDALL BALMER:
Yeah, the deep background – and you would expect a historian to say that – the deep background is that when I was in grad school at Princeton, my advisor asked me to help on a project that he was doing, studying the relationship between Church and State. So I've had a longstanding interest in that topic. And just several years ago, a local editor asked if I would write a short book on the relationship between Church and State, and this allowed me to kind of get back to that earlier interest.
But also, as you said, it is so pertinent today. And I frequently say that I wish the current Supreme Court had half as much deference for the First Amendment and the separation of Church and State as it does for the Second Amendment, which has to do with the right to bear arms. I think if we had even a modicum of balance between those two, we'd be in a whole lot better shape than we are today.
 
PAUL RAUSHENBUSH:
Well, you mentioned the Supreme Court, and I had Rep. Jamie Raskin on this show – and I grew up with Louis Brandeis, who was a great-grandfather of mine, heavily influencing me and thinking like, okay, the court is this vaunted institution that is a safeguard of democracy. And Jamie Raskin stopped me right there and he said, Paul, the court has never saved us. The court has often been very conservative. And certainly right now, I think what we're seeing a certain kind of free rein to the idea of freedom of religion, which has no respect for the, from what I can see, the risk of that for threatening the Non-establishment Clause or other issues.
And so how do you understand the Supreme Court right now? How do you understand how they're interpreting the First Amendment, where we find the religion sections, and what does that mean for the way our country is being kind of operationalized as far as Christian Nationalism?
 
RANDALL BALMER:
I think they have fallen into the trap of majoritarianism, which is to say that because – in their logic – because a majority of Americans identify as Christian, that means everyone in this country should live according to those principles as articulated by certain Christian leaders. Let's think about that.
First of all, I want to make the point that that notion of majoritarianism is utterly inimical to our charter documents. I consider myself a patriot, Paul, and not in the sense of flag-waving or wearing silly red caps. I'm a patriot because I believe in our charter documents, and I believe that over the long course of American history, Americans have always sought to live into those principles.
Now, I hasten to add, we've been far, far too slow to do so in relationship to people of color, women. Let's not even talk about Native Americans – I mean, that's a whole other can of worms, so to speak. But also with people with different sexual identities or non-traditional sexual identities. We've always tried to live into those principles. Now, I don't think there's any question we're stalled right now in that kind of arc of the moral universe, but my overall sense of American history, we've always eschewed majoritarianism. The current Supreme Court, together with the religious right and certainly the Trump administration, wants to negate that, wants to reverse that and fall prey to this heresy, I would say, of majoritarianism.
 
PAUL RAUSHENBUSH:
It's so interesting with the majoritarianism, because if you break it down, actually, if you talk about the ability to not serve gay people or whatever, even if you broke down Christianity and then added all the non-religious and all the other, you actually wouldn't have a majority; but you have almost like this ethos that denies the reality of what these rulings all mean and who benefits – which is actually a minority of religious leaders in America. And, you know, you and I are both Christians and we're both actually clergy. And you won't see us lining up praising these decisions. So I hate to give away the idea that the actual majority agrees with this work, because the actual majority doesn't. But I'm taking your point, and I'm just trying to remind people that it doesn't actually represent the truth of America.
 
RANDALL BALMER:
That's absolutely right. And that's one of the beauties of this country, is that diversity. And let's play out this majoritarianism thing, just kind of hypothetically. Suppose that all of a sudden, a majority of Americans decided to become vegetarians. or Masons or Christadelphians, you know, you choose whatever you want. And according to this majoritarian ethic, everyone in the country should be vegetarian or Masons or whatever might be, you know, just play it out. And that is utterly contrary to the intent of the founders. It's utterly contrary to our own charter documents. And I think that that's a real peril. And you're absolutely right. You know, these are people who are arguing for Christian Nationalism, and I will probably get back to that point as well, more specifically. But it's Christianity defined by a very, very narrow group of people.
 
PAUL RAUSHENBUSH:
Which drives me crazy. So let's go back. The separation of Church and State, can you just walk us through how we started talking in those terms? Where did that originate? Because I do think people on the right try to say, oh, that's not a real thing, or that we got that all wrong. But actually, it was a real thing and that our founders did believe in it. And so tell us a little bit more so that our listeners are really able to understand, oh, this is actually part of what made America work at its beginning.
 
RANDALL BALMER:
Sure. Oh, absolutely. The founders were very well aware of the religious contestation back in Europe. You had the wars of religion in France, you had the English Revolution in Britain, and they wanted to avoid that sort of contestation, that sort of religious conflict, because they feared, I think rightly, that such factionalism would impede the workings of the government.
The other thing they had to contend with was the religious diversity in colonial America. And when I taught my course on religion in North America, I began, early in the course, with a map of the Atlantic seaboard and I asked students to tell me what are the religious groups that settled there. This is, of course, aside from Native Americans who are already here. But it's an extraordinary diversity. You have everything from the Pilgrims and the Puritans, who were two different groups, by the way, in New England. You had the Baptists in Rhode Island, as well as a lot of other religious groups. You had Quakers throughout New England.
But then you go south to New Netherland – becomes New York, of course – you had the Dutch Reformed Church, but you also had French Protestants, known as Huguenots. You had Roman Catholics. You had Jews after 1654. You had various Lutheran groups up in the Hudson Valley, and down in New Jersey you've got Quakers, but you've also got Scots-Irish Presbyterians, you've got the Dutch Reformed, again, and William Penn's holy experiment in Pennsylvania was meant to be a haven of religious liberty. So you had Quakers, and Penn himself was a Quaker, of course, but you had various German groups, Amish, Mennonites, my favorite group, the Schweinfelders. And in Delaware, you had Swedish Lutherans. And then down south in Virginia, in the southern colonies, you had Church of England, but you also had various folk religious practices, and Moravians and other groups. My point in all this is to say that already in the colonial period, you had a great deal of religious diversity.
So as the founders were thinking about how to configure Church and State in this new nation, one of the questions would have been, and was, what are we going to designate as the religion of the nation? Congregationalism or Puritanism? In New England, well, people in Virginia would not be terribly happy about that. Quakers, the Dutch reform, wouldn't like that. And if Thomas Jefferson had his way and everyone became a Unitarian, everybody would have been unhappy with that situation. And so the First Amendment was an attempt to address that, both the religious violence back in the old world, but also the religious diversity that was very evident in the colonies themselves.
And as James Madison was drafting the First Amendment, which, as I say, I think is America's best idea, he was drawing on the metaphor from Roger Williams, the founder of the Baptist tradition in America – and I know you know that tradition very well. Roger Williams – and this is a point I try to make very frequently – Roger Williams, founder of the Baptist tradition in America, wanted to protect the garden of the Church from the wilderness of the world by means of a wall of separation. That's where we get this metaphor.
What we in the 21st century miss about the power of that metaphor, I believe, is that Roger Williams was not a member of the Sierra Club – that is to say he didn't share our romantic ideas about wilderness. So when he talks about shielding the garden of the Church from the wilderness of the world, he wanted to protect the integrity of the faith from too close an association with the state. And that I think is part of the genius of the First Amendment is satisfied. Thomas Jefferson James Madison, who I think it's very clear were concerned about religious factionalism impeding the government of the new nation, but it also has served to protect the integrity of the faith from being commingled with the State.
 
PAUL RAUSHENBUSH:
Yeah, that's really important. And that's one of the founding ideas of it. Why don't you talk a little bit about this book? America's Best Idea: The Separation of Church and State, this is a really good book for you to pick up from one of America's preeminent religious scholars who can really lay it down. And this is a book like On Tyranny by Snyder – who we had on this podcast – which is succinct, really brings the ideas very, very concretely into the moment. And I think it's really important that all of us become aware and conversant in these ideas right now, because they are contested and because there are people who want to create a Christian nation, which they conveniently make in their own image.
By the way, you and I are completely out of the garden as far as their idea of what a Christian nation means, that neither one of us are granted entry. But can you talk about a few of the chapters that you – and writing is always revelation – so my guess is even writing this, you were like, oh, I have to crystallize this. Oh, that's actually a really interesting, I'm glad I'm able to include that. First of all, give us some chapter titles and then, what are some of the ideas that just really pop to you, especially in this moment?
 
RANDALL BALMER:
Some of the chapter topics and titles… Transatlantic Visionaries, that's looking at both Roger Williams and William Penn, who are very important in this. New York is very important in the story as well, because the Director General of the Dutch West India Company, Peter Stuyvesant, wanted to suppress Quaker worship on Long Island. And one of the first really important documents in this whole history of the separation of Church and State in American life was the so-called Flushing Remonstrance, which was drafted by 33 people on Long Island in Flushing, defending the Quakers and arguing that they should have freedom of religion. None of the signers was a Quaker himself, but they rallied to support that. Also, the formation of King's College is a fascinating story. King's College, of course, is now Columbia University. And William Livingston made an important stand for the separation of Church and State in the formation of King's College.
 
PAUL RAUSHENBUSH:
What I think is really important here is that there are stories and examples of why this principle was so important. And one of the things that you hear from proponents of Christian Nationalism is: all of the founders were Christian, therefore we are a Christian nation. Not understanding that the difference between these different traditions represented different religions, almost. I mean, the wars in Europe were between different Christian denominations, what we would call denominations, but they were different faiths. And so it's so specious, this idea, oh, well, they were all Christians, therefore. And, you know, I just think that that point has to be made, because you're just saying it, non-Quakers showing up for Quakers is analogous, today, for Jews to show up for Hindus or Muslims to show up for Christians, for us to show up for one another.
 
RANDALL BALMER:
That's right. This is part of the story. This is part of the narrative as well. People kind of rallying around this idea – and let's be clear that this idea is very much under attack, and one of the real culprits in all this is a guy by the name of David Barton. I know you know that person. David Barton, who claims to be a historian. I mean, I won't get into this, but let's just say we have every right to be skeptical of those claims.
And he argues, for example, that 53 out of the 55 founders were Orthodox Christians, a number that presumably includes Thomas Jefferson, who excised from the New Testament any references to the divinity of Jesus or miracles and so forth. Benjamin Franklin, who was clearly a skeptic when it came to matters of religion. I mean, that's just a preposterous claim. And the other thing he argues is that the phrase “Separation of Church and State” occurs nowhere in the Constitution, and I'll give him that point, but you also have to deal with the two things.
First of all, Thomas Jefferson's famous letter to the Baptist of Danbury, Connecticut, that he wrote on New Year's Day 1802, as President of the United States, he said, I contemplate with sovereign reverence that act of the whole American people, which declared that their legislature should, quote, “Make no law respecting an establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof,” end quote, thus building a wall of separation between Church and State. Now, the people who are making these specious claims also claim to be originalists when it comes to the Constitution. Thomas Jefferson is about as original as you can get, and he uses the phrase separation of Church and State, which of course various Supreme Court rulings have picked up, as well.
The other bit of evidence refuting people like David Barton is the Treaty of Tripoli. The Treaty of Tripoli was negotiated at the end of George Washington's administration. It was sent to the Senate for ratification by John Adams, who of course was Washington's successor as president, with his full endorsement, read aloud before the Senate and ratified unanimously on June 7th, 1797. Article 11 of The Treaty of Tripoli reads, “As the government of the United States is not in any sense founded on the Christian religion…” Let me repeat that. A”s the government of the United States is not in any sense founded on the Christian religion.” And this was ratified unanimously by the U.S. Senate in 1797. That's pretty clear.
 
PAUL RAUSHENBUSH:
Actually, I have given a lecture, many times, including the Treaty of Tripoli. And I asked the audience, how many of you have heard of the Treaty of Tripoli? Maybe one hand, maybe two. But it's so important that that was just understood. It was really almost just understood. And I think the other, the letter of George Washington to the Hebrew congregation in Newport, there's so many different examples that we can point to that no one is second class because of their religion. This is just so important. Maybe you can break down for me as – treat me as I am someone who's just a little dense but, you know, trying his best. What's the connection between the separation of Church and State and the freedom of religion?
 
RANDALL BALMER:
Oh, I think it's very clear. I think the First Amendment is America's best idea precisely because it has worked to bracket religious factionalism from the workings of government, but also because it established, effectively, a free marketplace for religion in America. And what I find striking – and I write about this in the book, certainly – is in 1776, Adam Smith published this huge tome called The Wealth of Nations, which is a brief for free market capitalism. And one of the examples he uses is religion. He said, if the State stays out of the religion business – obviously I'm characterizing his argument here – if the State stays out of the religion business, religion will flourish. And this is what I study. I study American religious history. I can attest that religion has flourished in America.
Now, we can have another conversation about the quality of religious life in America, but in terms of quantity and energy and vitality, the First Amendment – which includes both disestablishment and free exercise – the First Amendment set up this free marketplace. So you have these religious entrepreneurs, to extend the metaphor. Religious entrepreneurs were constantly competing for popular followings. And yet again, American religious history is littered with these individuals: Mother Anne Lee and the Shakers, Joseph Smith and the Mormons, Elijah Muhammad and the Nation of Islam, Mary Baker Eddy, Christian Science, all the way up to, I suppose you can even put Joel Osteen in that category. These are religious entrepreneurs who are out in this marketplace, and that marketplace is salubrious, it's vital, precisely because the State has not put its thumb on the scale when it comes to matters of religion.
 
PAUL RAUSHENBUSH:
Well, that is the perfect segue to this moment where the State is definitely putting its thumb on religion. I know you've been following this but you know, just the past, whatever, 10 months that we've been living in the idea of of an Anti-Christian Bias Task Force, which is clearly trying to set up a narrative of how Christians are being persecuted in this country. You may know Interfaith Alliance created a letter in response with 26 prominent Christians saying: not only is it wrong and a ploy to be able to suppress freedom of religion, but also insulting to the actual persecution of Christians, which is happening around the world. But look, it doesn't exist here.
Plus the Religious Freedom Commission, which you've seen is all right-wing Christians, one Orthodox Jew, They're putting their thumb, specifically establishing religion as the Christian religion, again, made in their image, and really putting their thumb on it and saying, this is the religion that we are putting forward. You know, the argument has been made and should be made that Project 2025 is a Christian Nationalist document. And so we're living in this moment that is just an affront to the very principle that the founders put forward. And if they actually succeed, we'll only suppress this free marketplace of ideas and religion that you've been talking about. So you are publishing this book into that reality. So tell us a little bit about how you understand this moment, because I feel like, this is the last thing I'll say, but I feel like I haven't quite experienced this. I mean, we've experienced the Christian right, we experienced the Christian Coalition, we experienced the Moral Majority, but this feels like extra.
 
RANDALL BALMER:
It's very different, I think, because they now control the levers of government. And we have a Supreme Court that is utterly supine when it comes to, well, pretty much everything, but certainly on matters of Church-State issues and the First Amendment.
And the other thing I'll add to what you so beautifully described there, Paul, is that I think underlying this is this real rhetoric of victimization and marginalization that is being perpetrated by the leaders of the religious right. And by the way, I believe that that is one of the reasons you have this anomaly over the past three presidential elections of four of five White evangelicals supporting, let's be clear, a self-confessed sexual predator, who is not exactly an avatar of family values. You know, we can go through the whole list, but you get my point. And I think one of the reasons is that Donald Trump speaks the language of victimization better than anyone I've ever seen in my lifetime.
Now, it's always about him. He's a victim, of course, but I think there's some visceral way in which evangelicals connected with Trump and this rhetoric of victimization. And he would throw bones to them once in a while: You guys are really being persecuted and I'm going to be your defender and that sort of thing. But primarily it's about him. But I think there's some kind of visceral identification with that rhetoric.
That said, As you know, there's no truth behind it. I mean, these people are arguably running the country, and to turn around and claim that they're victimized in some way, or marginalized, is ludicrous. It's simply not the case.
 
PAUL RAUSHENBUSH:
I think what they mean by we're victimized is that everybody's not doing what we want them to do. That's really their definition of victimization.
 
RANDALL BALMER:
And that goes back to the whole point about majoritarianism, right? Because we have the numbers, we have the right to impose our ideas on you, on me, on everybody in society. And that, again, I think is utterly contrary to both the letter and the spirit of the Constitution.
 
PAUL RAUSHENBUSH:
Just what is being done in the name of Christianity and just the brutality and the cruelty and here you have Speaker Johnson who has just kept the government shut down. I think, hopefully, by the time this airs, the government will be open. But, you know, really just insisting that we have to be able to take away health care from people and have to have people go hungry in order for the government to open. These are the self-avowed Christians who are crying victimization.
And, you know, I think this is something I would just posit for you as a historian. There is actually a moment here that I'm – this might be hopeful, but I am seeing some energy around – is a resurgence of a kind of Christianity that understands its roots when we did move forward. When we did move forward on women's rights, when we did move forward on slavery, when we did move forward on civil rights, there were Christians who saw the moment and they said, we have to speak up, we have to be out in front, we have to show up, we have to say what we think. And I do think you're seeing a great deal of, and I applaud this and we're helping to support it at Interfaith Alliance, faith leaders in the front line saying, we're not going to accept this.
And one of the things we've been really intent on since the beginning – let's just remember that this is an administration that, out of the gate, JD Vance said that the Catholic bishops were padding their bottom line because of their immigration work – so much so that the Pope had to talk about it. And Elon Musk took on the Lutheran Church for its work with Lutheran Services, and again and again… And so it's interesting that they talk about Christianity, but it only means the political arm of Christianity that agrees with them. But I'm hopeful that there is a moment for Christianity that we're witnessing that is going to respond. Are you seeing any of that?
 
RANDALL BALMER:
I think there's a little bit of that. And, you know, Paul, I've spent far too many years of my life and my career trying to encourage evangelicals. And as you know, I came out of this world, and I, in many ways, still identify with the best of evangelicals. I haven't seen much that's very good lately. And I've been trying to do two things. I'm trying to reaffiliate evangelicals with the New Testament itself, the words of Jesus. We talked about immigration a minute ago. I mean, Jesus called on us to welcome the stranger, treat the foreigner as one of your own.
How you translate that into public policy, I think, is a tricky issue. I acknowledge that, but at least that principle should guide some of our attitudes toward those who are refugees from other places, for example. Jesus talked about feeding the hungry and caring for the poor. And as you said, you have Mike Johnson in Washington, who claims to be a Christian, claims to be a follower of Jesus. And the way he's acting is, let's put it mildly, not in lockstep with those principles.
And the other thing for evangelicals is that I want to remind them that in the 19th and even into the early part of the 20th century, evangelicals were champions for women's equality. Evangelicals were engaged in prison reform. Evangelicals, as you said, were in the North, of course, were trying to eliminate the scourge of slavery. Evangelicals supported public education, because they saw that as a way for those in the lower margins of society to become upwardly mobile and to improve their lot in life. And so you have that noble legacy that has just been utterly tossed away by the leaders of the religious right.
 
PAUL RAUSHENBUSH:
So let me ask you about that, because you’ve done many things, but one of the moments that you really did this “aha!” switch with me – you've written about it and I've heard you lecture about it, that abortion wasn't really the genesis of the modern hardcore-right evangelical movement. It was not abortion. That became a foil. It happened earlier than that. And just because you're with me now, what was the catalyst for the modern right-wing evangelical movement?
 
RANDALL BALMER:
I say this without any equivocation or fear of contradiction. The catalyst was not Roe v. Wade. It was not abortion. The catalyst was a defense of racial segregation at places like Bob Jones University and segregated academies like Jerry Falwell's Liberty Christian Academy in Lynchburg, Virginia. That was the catalyst for the rise of the religious right. Abortion was added later. And abortion was added, in part, as a way to divert attention from the real origins of the political movement that we know today as the religious right. And again, I can go through all the evidence.
 
PAUL RAUSHENBUSH:
I think that that's really important, that there was a sense of, again, already, who counts in America? And what are we affiliated with? I think that's important. When you look at the public landscape of today, this book is a really important contribution. For all of us who are trying to meet this moment, knowing about religion and staying firm in our understanding, because it's a little bit crazy-making right now, where they're just trying to say, they're only going to give money – the Department of Education has declared – they're only going to give money to projects that underscore that this country was founded, and they like to use Judeo-Christian, which is just ridiculous. But your book, America's Best Idea: The Separation of Church and State, is so important right now for us to hold on to that idea.
Our listeners are from all different religious traditions. Many of them are not religious at all, but they are all worried about America, trying to figure out how to do it. Our tagline is “Where religion and democracy meet.” What should we be doing right now? And I know you're not an activist and an organizer, but from your perch, what would you love to see the average American taking with them into every room that they enter?
 
RANDALL BALMER:
I think truth is a powerful antidote to what we're seeing right now. And one of the reasons I wrote this book is to refute this nonsense that America is and always has been a Christian nation. I mean, it's just demonstrably false. There's no historical evidence to to support that assertion.
And it's not just that. I mean, I'm looking at other things, too. The Johnson Amendment, for example, which is awfully important. I'm looking at the Blaine Amendments in the 19th century and talking about the implications of all of that. James Blaine was a member of Congress from Maine, and he became Speaker of the House of Representatives, and he supported an amendment that would bar the use of taxpayer funds for religious education.
And it did not pass. It passed the House, but it did not pass the Senate, but 37 states adopted some version of the Blaine Amendment that, again, prohibited the use of taxpayer money for religious education. And what we're seeing now, of course, is that states with Republican supermajorities – Iowa, Florida, Oklahoma and so forth – they are trying to circumvent that and with, unfortunately, with the blessing of the Supreme Court in the Espinoza decision and the Makin decision. So that's a very important moment.
So again, history matters, right? Truth matters. I think that's awfully important. Also, you asked me how to resist, and no, I'm not an activist in the way that you are – which I admire, by the way. I do a different form of activism, I suppose.
I think the other thing is that we should not lose sight of the importance of small, even symbolic acts. I think the aggregate of that resistance is powerful. And we saw that on No King's Day. I addressed a rally in Walla Walla, California on No King's Day, and I'm sure you did something similar as well. Those small acts, I think, are important.
And I think the third element that I would emphasize is the importance of hope. Some years ago, somebody asked me to write an essay on hope – which of course, as you know, is one of the three theological virtues in Christianity: faith, hope, and love. And it occurred to me, we talk a lot about faith, we talk a lot about love, we don't talk much about hope. It also occurs to me that hope is the only virtue that is volitional. That is, I can choose to be hopeful. And we're living in a dark place right now. And I don't need to tell you that. You understand that very well. But I think it's important that we don't lose hope. Because if we lose hope, if we lose that sense, I think we're in very deep trouble.
 
PAUL RAUSHENBUSH:
Well, I think authoritarians would very much like us to lose hope, because it's a sense of the future and a sense of possibility in the future. If you lose hope, you basically succumb to the moment and assume that what is true now will always be true.
I want to just shift for one minute to your location at a university. Universities have become a battleground for how authoritarianism functions in America. And, you know, coming from an academic family, and many of the members of my family were in the academy or we certainly valued it at the highest level, and really one of the great institutions in America that have allowed people to thrive from different backgrounds. It's been a way that this country has moved forward and the power of it, I think, it's so by intention that there is an effort to make universities bend the knee. I am curious how, as much as you can say about how you're experiencing freedom in the university and academic freedom, freedom of expression, freedom of religion in the university setting.
 
RANDALL BALMER:
I haven't personally, I haven't felt the effects of this, at least not yet. And who knows? Maybe this podcast will put me in the hot water, which is fine. I'm happy to do that. I'm prepared to stand up for what I believe. But my general advice on this, and this is to my president, my own institution here, I think the first rule of the playground that every kid learns is you can never appease a bully. You have to stand up to a bully because if you try to – I mean, look at Columbia – if you try to appease a bully, he's simply going to come circle back around and make even more demands. So you have to stand firm.
Now, it's easy for me to say. I'm not responsible for a multimillion dollar budget or billion dollar budget or whatever academic institutions work with these days. But it seems to me that principle still holds, that you cannot appease a bully. And I don't think there's any discussion about whether or not Donald Trump is a bully. And you just can't do it. You have to stand up to it. And the president of MIT wrote, I think, a really wonderful response to the Trump administration demands. And I certainly hope that other college presidents and other universities will follow that example.
 
PAUL RAUSHENBUSH:
You say the thing about a bully and the use of power that this administration has done. What kind of shocks me is that they're very creative in the ways that they can punish adversaries and just break basic understandings of norms of democracy that I thought were pretty well established, that we would all abide by. That's the clearest sign to me that this is an authoritarian effort.
 
RANDALL BALMER:
Well, it's more than authoritarian. It's sadism. It's really reprehensible and utterly contrary to everything I thought America was all about.
 
PAUL RAUSHENBUSH:
So one of the things that I've been working with is, what it takes right now, the courage that it takes. Talk about bullies what does it take? What kind of courage as a value, as a Christian value, actually. And so I would love to hear what you think, what does courage look like right now?
 
RANDALL BALMER:
Even small acts of resistance, I think, constitute courage. You know, showing up at the No Kings Rally and offering these small gestures of resistance. And I think the aggregate effect of that is eventually going to bear fruit.
Now, I'm not Pollyannish about this. I mean, we have to deal with at least another three years here, or a little bit more than three years. Who knows what happens in 2028. So I understand the stakes that are involved, and I understand the challenge that is there, but I think it's important not to give up the fight. And I'm falling into cliches here, but stand up and be counted as part of the resistance here. And do so – for people of faith – do so on the basis of their faith and drawing on their faith for their own sustenance, because that's awfully important; but also using the language of faith to resist this present evil. And I say that advisedly. What we're seeing is a manifestation of evil. greater than you and I have ever seen in our lifetime. And I think we have to rise to the challenge.
 
PAUL RAUSHENBUSH:
And I do think that's where those excellent words circle back to this book, because there is a value in our religious traditions that is not caged or contained by a State approval or not. And that they're trying to take religion and put it into their statecraft and saying, this is the allowed religion of the moment. And even you and I who bear the name of Christian but are not counted in their understanding of Christian, even more for us, we have to be out there saying, no, from our Christian point of view, we want freedom of religion. We want separation of Church and State based on our religious point of view. And we want a democracy that works for everyone based on our religious point of view.
I think it's just so important, as you say, to frankly wear our religion on our sleeve now more than ever and say, we want to be counted among those who do want a diverse democracy where people have diverse faiths and beliefs, including no particular religion, have equal status under the law, and that we can live side by side with, and not everyone has to agree with me on everything.
And just to wax uneloquent for a second, I don't demand that everyone agree with me. I mean, I'm a gay man with children. If you don't think I should get married, If you want to do that in your own family and say, we don't want to get gay married, that's fine. But I should have the right to live my life the way I want to live. And that's what is so important about separation of Church and State, is that you should have the right. No one is going to force you to get gay married, believe me. It's hard enough being gay married when you're gay. No one wants you to get gay married. But I do think that's the principle. I try as much as I can to say I actually do envision a future of America where conservative religious people have an equal place along with anyone else to live their life, live out their faith commitments, but they can't dictate to the rest of us. That is just untenable and unfair.
And I think it goes directly into this question of separation of Church and State, and why it is America's best idea. I truly believe that. It's the thing we got most right at our founding. I think that you're 100% right. And so I really want to recommend this book, America's Best Idea: The Separation of Church and State.
Let's put it this way. Dr. Randall Ballmer has written very big, important, hefty – I won't say ponderous – but big, important books, all of them very readable. This is actually something that you can carry. You can actually digest this and learn so much. And it will help us in this moment, the more people who have read this book. And so congratulations on this book.
Rev. Dr. Randall Balmer is a historian and a New York Times best-selling author. His latest book is America's Best Idea: The Separation of Church and State. He is ordained in the Episcopal Church and holds the John Phillips Chair in Religion at Dartmouth College.
Randall, it is so good to talk to you, always. Thank you so much for all your work.
 
RANDALL BALMER:
Well, thank you, Paul. Likewise. Happy to be here. Keep the faith.
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Host Rev. Paul Brandeis Raushenbush talks with Democracy Forward President Skye Perryman about the organization's successful court challenges to unconstitutional administration actions. Paul also talks with Rev. Rachel Griffin-Allison, Senior Pastor at Oak Lawn United Methodist Church in Dallas.
Host Rev. Paul Brandeis Raushenbush welcomes Scott Carter, the creator, executive producer, and host of the "Ye Gods" podcast. Scott explores faith, beliefs, and values with a diverse list of interesting guests and no judgement and no agenda.
Host Rev. Paul Brandeis Raushenbush talks with theologian and historian Dr. Diana Butler Bass about her inspiring new book, "A Beautiful Year: 52 Meditations on Faith, Wisdom, and Perseverance."

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