Religion In Government Quotes

#1. I think the world looks down on Republicans for their socially conservative views, which includes religion in government.

Gary Johnson

#2. What Mencken most strongly objected to in religion was not the expression of nonsensical views - these could easily be combated by rebuttal from the other side - but the inveterate tendency of religion to seek the enforcement of its views by the power of the government.

H.L. Mencken

#3. In a well-functioning democracy, the state constitution is considered more important than God's holy book, whichever holy book that may be, and God matters only in your private life.

Ayaan Hirsi Ali

#4. While we have a Constitution that is very strong in the sense that we are not gonna have a religion that's sanctioned by the government, it doesn't mean that we need to have a separation between government and religion.

Ken Buck

#5. The foundations of our national policy will be laid in the pure and immutable principles of private morality, and the preeminence of free government be exemplified by all the attributes which can win the affections of its citizens, and command the respect of the world.

George Washington

#6. Strongly guarded as is the separation between Religion and Government in the Constitution of the United States, the danger of encroachment by Ecclesiastical Bodies may be illustrated by precedents already furnished in their short history.

James Madison

#7. We seem to be pariahs alike in the visible and the invisible world, with no foothold anywhere, though by every principle of government and religion we should have an equal place on this planet.

Elizabeth Cady Stanton

#8. I am, as far as my politics reaches, 'King and Country' - no 'Innovations in Religion and Government' say I.

John Clare

#9. Let's face a historical truth: we have never had a "free market", we have always had government intervention in the economy, and indeed that intervention has been welcomed by the captains of finance and industry. They had no quarrel with "big government" when it served their needs.

Howard Zinn

#10. While just government protects all in their religious rites, true religion affords government its surest support.

George Washington

#11. Whatever you may think of the proposed mosque and community center, lost in the heat of the debate has been a basic question: Should government attempt to deny private citizens the right to build a house of worship on private property based on their particular religion?

Michael Bloomberg

#12. The modern concept of separation is an argument for a total separation of religion from the state. The consequence of the acceptance of the doctrine leads to the removal of religion as an influence in civil government.

Francis Schaeffer

#13. We are persuaded that good Christians will always be good citizens, and that where righteousness prevails among individuals the Nation will be great and happy. Thus while just government protects all in their religious rights, true religion affords to government it's surest support.

George Washington

#14. Many evangelicals believe religious freedom, if not religion itself, faces major problems with the government in the future.

Joel Hunter

#15. There is not a shadow of right in the general government to intermingle with religion. Its least interference with it would be a most flagrant usurpation.

James Madison

#16. If religious freedom is to endure in America, the responsibility for teaching religion to public school children must be left to the homes and churches of our land, where this responsibility rightfully belongs. It must not be assumed by the government through the agency of the public school system.

Sam Ervin

#17. I never liked the Hierarchy of the Church-an equality in the teacher of Religion, and a dependence on the people, are republican sentiments-but if the Clergy combine, they will have their influence on Government

Rufus King

#18. In my view, the Christian religion is the most important and one of the first things in which all children, under a free government ought to be instructed.

Noah Webster

#19. I had been taught that the separation between religion and politics happened in the Enlightenment. But there were people who tried to create a secular relationship to government 2,000 years ago, and those people were the Jews.

Elaine Pagels

#20. By our form of government, the Christian religion is the established religion; and all sects and denominations of Christians are placed upon the same equal footing, and are equally entitled to protection in their religious liberty.

Samuel Chase

#21. In the latter case it is often government that organizes the conquest, and religion that justifies it.

Jared Diamond

#22. If you chose a particular religion, you were siding with the government religion of whatever region you were in. That's never been true in America, but also, the United States also has so many more immigrant groups which also tends to imply more religious diversity right away.

Susan Jacoby

#23. The best government in the world, the best religion, the best traditions of any people, depend upon the good or evil of the men and women who administer them.

Pearl S. Buck

#24. Religion is of general and public concern, and on its support depend, in great measure, the peace and good order of government, the safety and happiness of the people.

Samuel Chase

#25. The government of the United States is not, in any sense, founded on the Christian religion.

George Washington

#26. This is what evil does; it makes choices for others in the name of religion, in the name of government, in the name of community, in the name of personal gain, that these individuals are best able to make for themselves.

John Kramer

#27. My principles in respect of religious interest are two,
one is, that the Church shall not meddle with politics, and the government shall not meddle with religion.

Lajos Kossuth

#28. In i86o the income of the nation's churches and religious voluntary societies came quite close to matching the total receipts of the federal government. Today the ratio of annual federal income to annual religion-related giving is about twenty-five to one.

Mark A. Noll

#29. The United States furnishes the first example in history of a government deliberately depriving itself of all legislative control of religion.

Philip Schaff

#30. A woman growing up under American ideas of liberty in government and religion, having never blushed behind a Turkish mask, nor pressed her feet in Chinese shoes, cannot brook any disabilities based on sex alone, without a deep feeling of antagonism with the power that creates it.

Susan B. Anthony

#31. It is the wall of separation between church and state ... that is largely responsible for religion thriving in this country, as compared to those European countries in which church and state have been united, resulting in opposition to the church by those who disapprove of the government.

Alan Dershowitz

#32. Modern society, the political body, the legal and judiciary system, the state of governance, capitalism and the very fabric of the society itself, including our religions and so-called morals and values, are institutions steeped in traditions of absolute and total violence.

Bryant McGill

#33. Our fathers founded the first secular government that was ever founded in this world. Recollect that. The first secular government - the first government that said every church has exactly the same rights and no more; every religion has the same rights, and no more.

Robert Green Ingersoll

#34. It has been the scheme of the Christian Church, and of all the other invented systems of religion, to hold man in ignorance of the Creator, as it is of Government to hold man in ignorance of his rights. The systems of the one are as false as those of the other, and are calculated for mutual support.

Thomas Paine

#35. In this respect the differences between the USA and the USSR are those of evangelical dinosaurs competing for domination on one small planet: the first deifies Jesus Christ, the other Karl Marx. Neither has much practical interest in what those two sincere and hard-working fellows actually preached.

Edward Abbey

#36. Religion may in most of its forms be defined as the belief that the gods are on the side of the government.

Bertrand Russell

#37. The purpose of separation of church and state is to keep forever from these shores the ceaseless strife that has soaked the soil of Europe in blood for centuries.
[Letter objecting to the use of government land for churches, 1803]

James Madison

#38. I consider ethics, as well as religion, as supplements to law in the government of man.

Thomas Jefferson

#39. It is not the function of religion to answer all the questions about God's moral government of the universe, but to give us courage through faith to go on in the face of questions to which we find no answer in our present status.

Harold B. Lee

#40. Religion and virtue are the only foundations, not of republicanism and of all free government, but of social felicity under all government and in all the combinations of human society.

John Adams

#41. I do not call the sod under my feet my country; but language-religion-government-blood-identity in these makes men of one country.

Samuel Taylor Coleridge

#42. The founding fathers went out of their way to establish a clear "wall of separation" between religion and state, to quote Thomas Jefferson. They reasoned, as James Madison so cleverly articulated, that both religion and government exist in greater purity if kept apart.

Phil Zuckerman

#43. In no instance has a system in regard to religion been ever established, but for the purpose, as well as with the effect of its being made an instrument of intimidation, corruption, and delusion, for the support of depredation and oppression in the hands of governments.

Jeremy Bentham

#44. He is a weak ruler who needs religion to uphold his government; it is as if he would catch his people in a trap.

Mustafa Kemal Ataturk

#45. We need religion as a guide. We need it because we are imperfect. Our government needs the church, because only those humble enough to admit they are sinners can bring to democracy the tolerance it requires in order to survive.

Jeff Miller

#46. The national Government sees in both Christian denominations the most important factor for the maintenance of our society.

Adolf Hitler

#47. Yes, religion and politics do mix. America is a nation based on biblical principles. Christian values dominate our government. The test of those values is the Bible. Politicians who do not use the bible to guide their public and private lives do not belong in office.

Beverly LaHaye

#48. Government seems to me to be a part of religion itself - a thing sacred in its institutions and ends.

William Penn

#49. No power of government ought to be employed in the endeavor to establish any system or article of belief on the subject of religion.

Jeremy Bentham

#50. As a result, socialism and communism, in particular, use government to suppress religion to such a degree as to leave the one true God out entirely.

Tony Evans

#51. We are a religious nation because we do not have a state religion, because the government guarantees freedom of religion but has no role in religion, because not only do we tolerate our religious differences, we celebrate them.

Geraldine Ferraro

#52. [T]he Christian religion, in its purity, is the basis, or rather the source of all genuine freedom in government ... and I am persuaded that no civil government of a republican form can exist and be durable in which the principles of that religion have not a controlling influence.

Noah Webster

#53. Religion is the most fragile of all freedoms. And that's because it is the most threatening to those in power.

Eric Metaxas

#54. Men are like plants; the goodness and flavor of the fruit proceeds from the peculiar soil and exposition in which they grow. We are nothing but what we derive from the air we breathe, the climate we inhabit, the government we obey, the system of religion we profess, and the nature of our employment.

J. Hector St. John De Crevecoeur

#55. Nonbelievers are protected by the religion clauses of the Constitution not because secular humanism is a religion, which it is not, but because when the government acts on the basis of religion it discriminates against those who do not "believe" in the governmentally favored manner.

Norman Dorsen

#56. Your government does not exist and should not exist in order to keep you or anybody else, no matter what color, no matter what race, no matter what religion, from getting your damn fool feelings hurt.

Kurt Vonnegut

#57. If virtuous, the government need not fear the fair operation of attack and defense. Nature has given to man no other means of sifting the truth, either in religion, law, or politics.

Thomas Jefferson

#58. So long as Christians remained members of a suspect society, subject to death, the boldest among them maintained that, since demons controlled the government and inspired its agents, the believer could gain freedom at their hands only in death.

Elaine Pagels

#59. The general government is proscribed from the interfering, in any manner whatsoever, in matters respecting religion; and it may be thought to do this, in ascertaining who, and who are not, ministers of the gospel.

James Madison

#60. The Establishment Clause prohibits government from making adherence to a religion relevant in any way to a person's standing in the political community.

Sandra Day O'Connor

#61. Same-sex marriage is not the final nail in the coffin for traditional marriage. It is just another road sign toward the substitution of government for God. Every moral discussion now pits the wisest moral arbiters among us - the Supreme Court, President Obama - against traditional religion.

Ben Shapiro

#62. In the long term, the United States could greatly benefit Islam by uniquely freeing the religion from government constraints and permitting it to evolve in a positive, modern direction. But that's the long term.

Daniel Pipes

#63. Religion flourishes in greater purity, without than with the aid of Government.

James Madison

#64. So religion, which among the Americans never directly takes part in the government of society, must be considered as the first of their political institutions; for if it does not give them the taste for liberty, it singularly facilitates their use of it.

Alexis De Tocqueville

#65. Open your newspaper - any day of the week - and you will find a report from somewhere in the world of someone being imprisoned, tortured or executed because his opinions or religion are unacceptable to his government.

Peter Benenson

#66. You know what the fastest growing religion in America is? Statism. The growing reliance on government.

Marco Rubio