OpinionRichard Conville | September 4, 2025
I’m all in when it comes to separation of church and state. That’s why I oppose posting the Ten Commandments in public school classrooms in Louisiana, Arkansas, Texas and wherever else legislators are clamoring to do so. That is The State, a.k.a. The Government, putting its thumb on the scales to influence students’ choice of religion.
Fortunately, all three states’ laws are in litigation, their constitutionality having been challenged.
The evangelical fundamentalists and conservative Catholics who push such legislation typically choose the version of the Commandments found in Exodus 20:1-17, and the wording is based on the 1611 King James Version of the Bible. It’s the version that is deeply imbedded in the culture.
Richard Conville
Such government intrusion into the realm of religion is ordinarily deemed unconstitutional based on the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment: “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion.” But those same religious groups also have embraced Christian nationalism, a fringe movement that uses government power to promote their version of Christianity. So in their view of the world, it’s OK to post the Commandments. In their view, that’s what God wants them to do.
However, if you take Jesus of Nazareth as your model for the practice of Christianity, as most Christians do, using government power to promote loyalty to him would not be OK. Why? Because Jesus never used or advocated coercion to gain followers.
Rather, Jesus was teaching his listeners it is enough to simply live out the values God has given you. For example, when confronted with the question, “Teacher, which commandment in the law is the greatest?” Jesus answered by quoting back to his questioner two texts from the Hebrew Scriptures, texts the lawyer who asked the question would have known well.
Jesus quoted from Deuteronomy 6:5, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.” And Jesus went on to add from Leviticus 19:18, “And the second is like it: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’”
Jesus did not try to get the Roman governor of Judea or the commander of the occupying Roman army to force his way of living on all Judeans. He simply said, in answer to the lawyer’s question, you already know the truth of how to live. Now go and live it.
“Jesus did not try to get the Roman governor of Judea or the commander of the occupying Roman army to force his way of living on all Judeans.”
So, yes, separation of church and state; but not separation of religion and politics! This is a useful distinction. Religion and politics have been intertwined in this country from the beginning.
For example, the founders rejected the divine right of kings, the foundation of King George III’s power and the power of all the monarchs in Europe for centuries. The founders’ view of God was that God does not get to name the ruler. The people do. That’s why we have elections.
Let that sink in as you hear the words of the president of the United States threatening to abolish voting by mail and voting machines and ginning up Congressional redistricting fever. Another fringe group in the MAGA world believes Trump is anointed by God to be our ruler. So to them, he should get to name himself as the ruler. But that’s not American democracy. That’s why we have elections.
Most of us in the South have gotten most of our values from our religion, and most of that religion has been Christian: The Golden Rule for example — “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.” That’s in the Bible (Matthew 7:12) and not Poor Richard’s Almanac.
And for most of us, our religious culture has come from the Bible, a combination of the Hebrew Scriptures and the Christian New Testament.
I was reminded of that anew last Thursday when there was another Democracy Rally on the steps of Hattiesburg City Hall. In recognition of that anniversary of Martin Luther King’s “I Have A Dream” speech, several attendees read portions of the speech. One of those passages was, “I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: ‘We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal.’”
That creed, of course, is found in the Declaration of Independence.
But then, King’s last “I Have a Dream” statement in the speech runs like this: “I have a dream that one day every valley shall be exalted, and every hill and mountain shall be made low, the rough places will be made plain, and the crooked places will be made straight; ‘and the glory of the Lord shall be revealed and all flesh shall see it together.’”
King was quoting Isaiah 40:3-5 — one day, someday, the fresh air of God’s freedom will blow in, replacing the stifling oppression of today. Later in verse 11, we read more of Isaiah’s view of God: “He will feed his flock like a shepherd; he will gather the lambs in his arms and carry them in his bosom and gently lead the mother sheep.”
No government overreach there! Just love.
At our nation’s founding as well as on that August day in 1963, religion and politics have dwelled together in this nation, sometimes in tension and sometimes in harmony. That is inevitable.
But not church and state intertwined: No, that’s government overreach; it takes away my freedom; and, if you look to Jesus for what it means to be Christian, that’s not Jesus either.
Richard Conville is professor emeritus of communication studies at the University of Southern Mississippi and a long-time resident of Hattiesburg, Miss., where he is a member of University Baptist Church.
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