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do not know of any day or any particular hearing, where the Constitution and its particular applications were as articulately stated as by these two men here today.

I just want to thank you.

Mr. TRIBE. Thank you for those kind remarks. I appreciate the opportunity to be here.

Mr. BALL. I am honored to be with Larry Tribe on this occasion, and I deeply appreciate that the hearing is taking place.

Senator HATCH. I want to get you two together on a lot of other issues.

Now, I am going to go to our final panel here today, and that is a panel of a number of witnesses who are very important to this hearing.

They are Dr. D. James Kennedy, and I would like them to take their place at the table.

Dr. D. James Kennedy, senior minister of the Coral Ridge Presbyterian Church in Fort Lauderdale, FL, and president of the Coalition for Religious Liberty; Dr. Charles Stanley, pastor of the First Baptist Church in Atlanta, GA, and president of the Southern Baptist Convention, which has some 14 million members. He is also president of the In Touch Ministries; Dr. Herbert Titus, vice president for Academic Affairs of the Christian Broadcasting Network University in Virginia Beach, VA; my good friend, Dr. Edward V. Hill, pastor of the Mount Zion Missionary Baptist Church in Los Angeles, CA; and the Honorable John Buchanan, a good friend who is formerly a Congressman from State of Alabama, and who is now chairman of People for the American Way, he is chairman of the board.

We are delighted to have you gentlemen with us today.

I will say this, that I have to limit you to 5 minutes each, so that we will have some time for questions. I have another hearing that is equally as important this afternoon, starting in just a short while.

And so we will use these bulbs up here, green means you speak, when it comes to yellow, you have 1 minute left, and red means your time is up. And I would appreciate it if you would help me in this matter.

I would prefer to have some questions before the end of the day. I understand Reverend Stanley is not here.

Dr. Kennedy, let us start with you.

STATEMENTS OF D. JAMES KENNEDY, SENIOR MINISTER, CORAL RIDGE PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH, FORT LAUDERDALE, FL; PRESIDENT, COALITION FOR RELIGIOUS LIBERTY AND PRESIDENT, EVANGELISM EXPLOSION INTERNATIONAL; HERBERT W. TITUS, DEAN AND PROFESSOR, SCHOOL OF PUBLIC POLICY, VICE PRESIDENT FOR ACADEMIC AFFAIRS, CBN UNIVERSITY, VIRGINIA BEACH, VA; EDWARD V. HILL, PASTOR, MOUNT ZION MISSIONARY BAPTIST CHURCH, LOS ANGELES, CA; AND JOHN BUCHANAN, JR., CHAIRMAN OF THE BOARD, PEOPLE FOR THE AMERICAN WAY, WASHINGTON, DC

Dr. KENNEDY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Ladies and gentlemen, it is a pleasure to be able to speak to these important issues.

We have heard about 6,000 or 7,000 Christian believers and others in this country who are presently being prosecuted. There are scores of cases before our courts. We have heard of ominous clouds of an escalation of religious persecution in this country, and I would like to address the question as to why this is happening. Why, all of a sudden, are we seeing such a spate of cases of religious persecution?

Every nation in the history of this world and every government has been based on some theistic and or antitheistic foundation. Egypt, Iran, Saudi Arabia based on Islam; India upon Hinduism; Israel upon Judaism; China formerly upon Buddhism. It is incontrovertible historically that America was founded upon Christian theism. But today we see another religion which is encroaching upon that foundation, and whenever you see a mass of cold air come into contact with a mass of warm air, there inevitably will be a storm front and there will be thunder clouds and lightning bolts. We have heard the roar of judicial thunder, we have seen the striking of executive thunderbolts, and we have heard from some who have received those bolts today. But that is what is taking place in American today, and that is essentially that the original foundations of this country, Christian theism, are being replaced by the tenants of a new religion, secular humanism.

In 1892, the Supreme Court of the United States, in the Trinity decision, examined all of the documents pertaining to the origin of this country and concluded with these words: "This is a religious people, this is a Christian nation." Some of the statements, of course, which they looked at at that time concerning the foundational documents of this country were such as the birth certificate of America, which was the-of course the statement drawn up by the Pilgrims as they landed in this country where they said having undertaken for the glory of God and advancement of the Christian faith, a voyage to plant the first colony in Virginia. The first constitution in 1639 of the fundamental orders of Connecticut state that they came "to preserve the liberty and purity of the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ which we now profess." And furthermore, in 1643, when the New England colonies came together and formed the New England Confederation, the first confederation of various communities in this country, they stated this

Whereas we call came into these parts of America with one and the same end and aim, namely to advance the Kingdom of our Lord Jesus Christ and to enjoy the liberties of the gospel in purity and peace.

Time does not allow me to go over the literally scores or hundreds of other historical documents which establish this fact. But today securlar humanism, which is a religion according to the Humanist Manifesto of 1933 in which they declared nine times that they are a religion. The President of the Humanist Association wrote a book entitled "Humanism as a Religion." The dictionary defines humanism as a religion. Furthermore, the Supreme Court of the United States, in its decision in Torcaso v. Watkins, declared that humanism was one of the nontheistic religions in America. It is simply another name for atheism, and we have a conflict in this country between two religions, the religion of atheism, or humanism, and the religion of Christianity.

Now, every nation is going to be based upon one or the other of these: theism or antitheism. We find antitheistic nations such as Albania and the Soviet Union today which formed their laws upon an antitheistic base. We have this conflict which is taking place in America today. I believe that many people do not realize that this is the underlying cause for the amount of religious persecution that is now taking place.

All legislation is based upon morality. It is a lie which says that you cannot legislate morality. The truth is you cannot legislate anything but morality. We have laws against stealing and murder and rape because it is immoral to do those things.

Legislation is based upon morality; morality is based upon a theistic or antitheistic concept. Secular humanism has its whole ethical or moral agenda, which includes such things as abortion, suicide, euthanasia, free divorce, gambling, homosexuality, and many other ideas which had been historically repugnant to the moral standards of traditional Americans. They are busily engaged in forcing those views upon the American people, the very thing that they accuse us of doing, through legislative enactments. Already a great deal of their agenda has been enacted into legislation.

One of the means by which they have been doing this is through a distortion of the first amendment. I do not believe that the first amendment is dead, but I believe that it has been seriously distorted in our time.

For example, we frequently hear substituted for the first amendment the cliche of the separation of church and State or the wall of separation between church and State. The American Constitution does not teach the separation of church and State. It is however explicitly taught in the Soviet Constitution, article 52, which states that the church and the U.S.S.R. shall be separate from the state and the school from the church. But the American Constitution does not teach that.

The idea of a wall of separation between church and State derives from a private letter by Thomas Jefferson in 1802 to the Danbury Baptists in which he made the statement that there should be a wall of separation. The first amendment was a one-way street. It simply restrained the powers of the Federal Government: "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion;" Congress shall make no law "prohibiting the free exercise thereof." It said nothing about what the church or clergymen or Christians or believers of any other sort should do or should not do. A wall, however, restricts people on either side of the wall equally.

The idea of a free press is also a one-way street. It was that the Government should not interfere with the press, but if we said that there should be a wall between the State and the press, then we could prosecute the press every time it transgresses that imaginary line which, of course, would be the destruction of a free press. This is precisely what is happening in religion today. I am dismayed that we have no more time to discuss the underlying ramifications of these particular issues that we have heard today.

Senator HATCH. I am also, but I will be happy to keep the record open so that you can submit additional information to us. We will be happy to have that, Dr. Kennedy. We apologize that we are always pressured around here.

[Material submitted for the record follows:]

PREPARED STATEMENT OF D. JAMES KENNEDY

There are today several ominous movements going on in America and in the Western world, for the most part undetected by Christians, which I think portend great evil for the Church unless we understand them and do something about them. There is, first of all, a tremendous change that is coming about in the relationship of the Church and the state in America. It is happening so slowly that we are like that frog sitting in the pot of warm water which is gradually being heated to the boiling point. The frog just sits there and is slowly boiled to death. Like the frog, we do not even perceive what is happening! We have today, dominant in this country and accepted by 99% of the people, a view of the relationship of church and state which is almost diametrically opposite to that which was taught by the founding fathers of this country and which was expressed in the First Amendment of our Constitution. Yet, how many people are aware of that. If it goes unchecked much further it will, as it is beginning to do right now, bring about the destruction of the liberties of Christians in this land!

Does the First Amendment teach the separation of church and state? I venture to say that 95% of the people in America today have been brainwashed into the place where they would say 'yes.' But it does not! I think it is vital that we understand what the First Amendment to the Constitution says, because the relationship between these two 'kingdoms' has been a long and difficult one. The founding fathers of this country, I think, resolved that question in a marvelous way but it is being completely destroyed in our time - and most people are not even aware of it. The First Amendment states: "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof." Question: What does that say about what the Church can or cannot do? What does that say about what a Christian citizen should or should not do? What? Absolutely nothing! It says, "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof." It says nothing about the Church! The First Amendment teaches the separation of the state from the Church. Well, where did we get this idea of a 'wall of separation between Church and state'? That does not come out of the First Amendment. That comes from a private letter written by Thomas Jefferson in 1802 to the Danbury Baptists in Connecticut. He said, there should be "a wall of separation between Church and state." Now, what is the difference between that and the First Amendment?

Our religious liberties depend on a proper perception of the difference between those two things. The First Amendment is a one way street. It restrains the Federal government. The Bill of Rights was written to restrain the Federal government from interfering with the liberties of the people, because they were afraid that the people of this new country would not accept the new Constitution unless the rights of the people were further defined and protected. "A wall of separation," on the other hand, is most emphatically a two way street. It prohibits and restrains those on one side of the wall equally as much as it restrains those on the other side of the wall. Now we have a two way street. But in the last several decades what has been happening? It has been turned around until now we again have virtually a one way street moving in the opposite direction, so that 98% of the time in the last year (ask yourself if this is not true) when you heard the phrase 'separation of Church and state' what was being discussed was: What the Church shall or shall not do. That's 180 degrees off from the First Amendment of the Constitution! Now the Federal government is unshackling itself from the First Amendment, and the shackles are being put on the Church! Our freedoms are in grave jeopardy today and we sit like the frog in the pot as the water heats up.

Another ominous tendency is seen in the silent legal revolution going on in the Western world today. How many times have you heard it said that you can't legislate morality? Hitler was right! You can tell the big lie so often and so loud that people will come to believe it! "You can't legislate morality!" Like the separation of church and state, I am sure that the vast majority of Americans would say to that statement, "Of course you can't!" But I would simply like to ask this question, my friend: "If you can't legislate morality, pray tell me what can you legislate?" Immorality? The fact of the matter is that you cannot legislate anything but morality! We have laws against murder because it is immoral to murder; we have laws against stealing because it is immoral to steal; we have laws against rape because it is immoral to rape. This country's legistative enactments were founded incontrovertibly

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