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Quote by Joseph Story

“The real object of the First Amendment was not to countenance, much less to advance Mohammedanism, or Judaism, or infidelity, by prostrating Christianity, but to exclude all rivalry among Christian sects and to prevent any national ecclesiastical patronage of the national government.”

Quote by Joseph Story

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Joseph Story
Joseph Story

Joseph Story was a distinguished figure in the early history of the United States. He served as an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States from 1812 to 1845. His contributions to American law and legal thought were significant, and he is remembered for his influential writings on constitutional law and his role in shaping the early decisions of the Supreme Court. more

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“...this is a religious people. This is historically true. From the discovery of this continent to the present hour, there is a single voice making this affirmation... There is no dissonance in these declarations. There is a universal language pervading them all, having one meaning. They affirm and reaffirm that this is a religious nation. These are not individual sayings, declarations of private persons. They are organic utterances. They speak the voice of the entire people. These, and many other matters which might be noticed, add a volume of unofficial declarations to the mass of organic utterances that this is a Christian Nation... we find everywhere a clear recognition of the same truth. U.S. Supreme Court, 1892 (Church of the Holy Trinity v United States)”

“at the time of the adoption of the Constitution, and of the [First] Amendment...the general, if not the universal, sentiment in America was, that Christianity ought to receive encouragement from the State so far as was not incompatible with the private rights of conscience and the freedom of religious worship. Any attempt to level all religions, and to make it a matter of state policy to hold all in utter indifference, would have created universal disapprobation, if not universal indignation.”

“Any every denomination of Christians, demeaning themselves peaceably, and as good subjects of the commonwealth, shall be equally under the protection of the law: and no subordination of any one sect or denomination to another shall ever be established by law. Massachusetts Constitution.”

“The situation for the children of Israel is parallel to the situation the church finds itself in today. That situation is called exile. Exile presupposes that we are in Babylon, not Jerusalem. So one of the major mistakes the church has made is expecting Babylon to act like Jerusalem, to be like Jerusalem, to recognize Jerusalem as an ideal. We see this in the way Christians keep trying to convince non-Christians that America is really a Christian nation and needs to start acting like it again. The church's missional posture has reflected this expectation. But the reality is that we should not expect Babylon to start acting like Jerusalem. The church should instead live like Jerusalem within Babylon (Matt. 5:14; John 17:14-19).”