opinions and belief of men, whether they are identified as religious subject matters or nonreligious subject matters were considered to be religion, that is the duty that we owe to our Creator.

What we think about mathematics, what we think about science is just as much a duty to our Creator as what we think about Jesus Christ, whether he is or is not the Son of God. They believed that the minds and hearts of the people, and therefore teaching, education, was considered to be religion.

If we would get back to the original intent of our Fathers and understand religion from the way they intended it to mean, then I think it would have a much broader-based appeal and then I think a lot more people would be concerned about religious freedom. And it would be elevated where it should be.

Sentor HATCH. Dr. Hill.

Dr. HILL. I think that 25 years ago I was in this building going up and down the halls with our civil rights needs and the problems of civil rights. I think 25 years later we still have civil rights problems, but now it is our religious rights.

No, I do not think the same emphasis is being placed because there is an assumption abroad in the land that we are always going to have proper religious rights in this country. There is the assumption on the part of a lot of elected officials. It will always be there. It is just like the assumption that the plantation owner had, that the slaves were happy and that we did not even have to bother about them. And there are a lot of people who believe that religious freedom in the United States, with the exception of one, hither, thither, yon, everything is all right.

I think our presence here today, coming from such a broad spectrum and altogether suggests that all is not well and we certainly hope we can convince those in Congress that all is not well. And I think you can look at the voting rights, I mean the voting in recent years, things that matter in terms of civil rights for the most part have been passed.

Things that have mattered in religious freedom that the religious community has asked, have been somewhat bogged down.

So I do not think the same emphasis has been placed but I think that it does need to be placed here.

Sentor HATCH. Thank you, doctor.

Congressman Buchanan.

Mr. BUCHANAN. Well, Mr. Chairman, religious liberty is a cornerstone of all our liberties and the protection of freedom of conscience, free exercise is certainly a matter of premier importance and of first importance.

It does seem to me that while real and legitimate problems have been raised here, there has been such an emphasis on the negative that we may overlook the fact that religious liberty does flourish and has flourished in the United States under the protections of the first amendment. And that perhaps to a unique degree among the nations of earth, of which I am aware, that is the case in our country and therefore the answer would be yes, religious liberty is of first importance, the protections of freedom of conscience, expression are of first importance. But I think the first amendment track record overall is quite good.

Sentor HATCH. Thank you.

Senator Leahy, I will be happly to turn to you at any time here. Senator LEAHY. Mr. Chairman, you are covering all of the issues I would want to, and doing it better than I would.

I yield my time to you.

Sentor HATCH. Well, if I could just ask one more question of the four of you. And let us start with you, Congressman Buchanan.

Do you feel that the Nebraska cases, the Reverend Moon's case, the Bob Jones case, the tax and other issues raised by Reverend Bergstrom here today are indicative of any trend towards unconstitutional intrusions into the affairs of churches by the Government. And, if you do, how would you describe that particular trend? Congressman Buchanan?

Mr. BUCHANAN. I doubt my own competence to answer in the cases discussed, Mr. Chairman.

I would say that you do well to look hard at any possible Government intrusion into religious liberty.

Again, it seems to me that the experience of our society and the preponderance of the experience of our society is in the opposite direction from that. And I suspect that there is not serious violation of religious liberty in the United States nor a trend in that direction.

Senator HATCH. Could you wait just one second, Reverend Hill, before we call you on.

We do have Reverend Paul Weaver of Vermont here. Reverend Weaver, where are you?

Senator LEAHY. He is right behind you, Mr. Chairman.

Senator HATCH. Why do you not go take your place at the table. Senator Leahy has asked me if we could take just some short testimony from Reverend Weaver as well before we end this today and we still give him a few minutes to do that.

Senator LEAHY. Mr. Chairman, I-

Senator HATCH. There is a seat over there.

Senator LEAHY. Mr. Chairman, I would note I greatly appreciate your courtesy. I know there have been hundreds of people who have asked to testify here today. And Reverend Weaver, who is well respected in the State of Vermont, has asked personally if he could testify-primarily because of the events in Vermont that have been alluded by a number of people over this past week. And I know that you are making an extraordinary effort to bring him into this. And I just want to express my appreciation to you.

Senator HATCH. We are very happy to have you, Reverend Weaver. I am just so pressured for time, but I do want to do this for Senator Leahy and for me. But we will get to you last.

But if you could answer that question. These cases, these instances that have been raised today, are they indicative of any unconstitutional trend or intrusions by the Government into the affairs of our churches; and, if so, how would you describe that trend and what shall we do about it?

Dr. HILL. Well, I want to describe the trend first.

I think that there is antagonism on the part of governmental agencies towards the church. I think this antagonism is in the Internal Revenue, I think this antagonism for instance in my own community is in the Department of Building and Safety, for instance, I can give you a good illustration.

The Department of Redevelopment of the Downtown Los Angeles-redeveloped Los Angeles, and I used to be a member of the city planning and zoning, redeveloped Los Angeles to accommodate 50,000 citizens downtown. But they made sure no more churches. And as the other churches are closed down and they are closing them down through code enforcements, no more replacements.

People, but no churches, is kind of throughout the country. There is antagonism against the church, against religious freedom now. That might not be an international movement led on natinally by Senators and what have you, that we are going to stop religious freedom, but I think as the church has become the church, in my own area, in civil rights, as Dr. Falwell and others have played a great role in the community, there is antagonism in Government all the way down to the city councils and I think that that does exist. And wherever problems can be brought up, they are brought up. We fight them daily. I happen to be vice president of the National Baptist Convention that represents 7 million people and we do have day-to-day antagonistic problems from governmental agencies who would just as soon rebuild the city and leave out the churches.

Senator HATCH. Dr. Titus?

Dr. TITUS. I think these cases and particularly the Nebraska case, and the case involving Bob Jones are indicative of the example of the breakdown between the jurisdictional wall between the authority of the civil government and the authority of God. If we do not have a legal system that acknowledges a sovereign God that rules us before we come into a society, such as was the faith of our forefathers, then religion is going to be an invention of the State, or it is going to be an invention of people who are in authority. Rights once inalienable become merely civil and what we have, I believe, in example after example today, and I think in Nebraska and the Jones cases are good examples, is that when you have people who think that they have total authority over a particular area, such as education, then in good faith, believing that they have a compelling State interest, they can force people to conform to what they think is good educational policy or whatever other policy that they happen to enforce. As long as they do not believe that religion is an inalienable right granted by creator God, then they are going to substitute their own judgments for what they think is right and good for society.

We must go back to the faith of our fathers if we are going to have a religious freedom that is fixed and forever in a way to keep good faith bureaucrats from trying to impose their views on the rest of us.

Senator HATCH. Dr. Kennedy.

Dr. KENNEDY. I believe that there is very definitely a trend that I alluded to earlier, and I believe that in the last half century this has begun in our educational institutions with increasing secularization. What is now commonly called secular humanism, it used to be called simply infidelity by the Founding Fathers of our country, it is a disbelief in any sovereign God who has overriding authority over the State and over all individual lives.

I think that this view that has pervaded our educational institutions has spread from there to our media where it has been greatly

strengthened, and it has been spread abroad throughout our country. Now people educated in that way, indoctrinated through our media, are in our bureaucracies, they are in our Government, they are the people that Dr. Hill has had to deal with and others in our churches. And I think that this secularism bodes very ill for the future of religious freedom in this country.

It is a fact that this Nation founded by predominantly Christian people provided for the world the greatest amount of religious liberty that had or has ever existed anywhere in the world before. There is no other nation in the world that has allowed the degree of religious liberty that was allowed by Christian America established on these shores. And yet today we find in secular humanisn an increasingly intolerant alien religion that is intolerant of any other religious view expressing its opinion in the public sphere, and it has done all it can to repress and suppress the expression of any other religious viewpoint in our schools, in our Government, anywhere. Efforts to take away the motto of in God we trust, suits against the astronauts, for reading the Bible, suits against prayer, taking away the Ten Commandments, all this type of thing, pushed by people who are unbelievers, who are atheists, who are secular humanists, whatever you want to designate them as, demonstrate a very intolerant system. And I think that unless the American people realize that this Christian system allowed a degree of religious liberty never before seen, where Tom Paine and Robert Ingersoll and Madeline Murray O'Hare could express their views on any platform in America, on national television and in the press, and everywhere else, where any person could come, whether it be a Buddhist or a Hindu, could proselytize-which is against the law in many other countries of the world today-tremendous religious freedom in Christian America.

I believe that if we see the complete success of the secularist view of life, you will find a continual corresponding diminution of the amount of religious freedom that is allowed in our country. And I believe that under the guise of neutrality or of secularism, and without letting people know that this is a religion, we have virtually in this country today an established religion in America. It is the religion of secular humanism. It is established in the sense that it is taught in virtually every public school in America today, and its tenets are upheld by the courts of this country. Evolution, one of the principal pillars of secular humanism is taught in virtually every school in America, while creationism may not be taught by court edict, and on and on you can go with other things. Their amoral ethical system is taught, their world view in taught, and so this country is being indoctrinated in another religion which has been established in this country. And I believe that unless the American people see this larger view of what is happening, they are not going to understand the whys and the wherefores of the particular cases that we are facing, and I think that America needs to get back to its foundations, to the views of the founders of this country as to what America was originally founded upon if there is going to be any hope of continuing religious freedom in this Nation.

Thank you.

Senator HATCH. Now, our last witness here on this panel is Reverend Paul Weaver of Vermont.

If you could conclude in just a few minutes, I would appreciate it. STATEMENT OF REV. PAUL WEAVER, TRINITY BAPTIST CHURCH, ROUTE 2-A, WILLISTON, VT

Reverend WEAVER. Thank you, Senator Hatch, for the privilege. For 35 years I spent my life in parsonages. My dad was a pastor. Now I have been one for 14 years. I have watched the change in attitude toward religion, the relationship between Government and the church break down. In the fifties, I saw a friendly relationship, neutralized perhaps in the sixties and seventies, becoming in many ways an adversary relationship in the eighties, which is to my dismay.

We are law-abiding citizens. We love this country as much as anyone. I find myself on a July 4th now standing and watching the parade of our little town and wondering how long our freedoms will hold out. Where as a young child, I stood there with great hope for the future in these matters.

There indeed is religious intolerance in Government circles today. We have been fortunate in our State to have a good State supreme court and legislature who have dealt successfully with two of our problems and put them to rest because there were some brave individuals who were willing to deal with the issues as they really were; that religious liberty issues were involved with educational matters. But what distresses me most I suppose is the events of this past weekend in our own State, and by Executive order and promulgation, a group of 90 State troopers and 50 social workers descended upon one of our small towns. In that town was a church that has been described by many as cultic, one that certainly I do not hold beliefs in common with, but people who have precious religious guarantees under our Government. And they came into the town and they came into the homes, they took 112 children. Their hope and purpose was to detain the children for 3 days to investigate the possibilities of child abuse, allegations that have been made for a number of years, but none that have been proven, none that have held up in courts, that have held up with records. They were going to detain 112 children for 3 days.

Fortunately, the judge would not allow it, Judge Frank Mahady would not allow it. They had a Burke Mountain school set aside to take these young people, psychiatrists there, ready, medical doctors there ready to examine these children and to take them perhaps permanently away from their parents. These children were removed from their homes with breakfast muffins in their mouths. The wives were wakened up with flashlights in the privacy of their own beds and their homes, the men were taken off without any concern over the care of their property and without any general concern I believe for their religious liberty.

For one of the first times, I have seen the religious community and adversarial organizations within our State come together in agreement on this particular thing. When you see the ACLU and the Christian school group get together on the last three issues that have occurred in the State of Vermont, you know there must