Religion and the State
RELIGION AND THE STATE TV/TR. HERBERT HOOVER has followed the *** example of President Coolidge, declaring that the future is threatened with disaster "if religion cannot and does not keep step...
...Hoover went on to say, "challenges all the forces of orderly constructive progress...
...This latter opinion appears rather fantastic, to say the least...
...Out of our materialism has grown a series of philosophies which insist that materialism alone is the sole basis of human action and inspiration...
...President Coolidge and Secretary Hoover have been criticized by those who take the view that while the utterances of a President, or any other official of the government, when they relate to subjects properly within the sphere of government, justly deserve the respectful consideration even of those who disagree with their opinions, religion is not properly within the sphere of their official responsibility, and what they say on that subject should not be taken seriously...
...Speaking before the Y. M. C. A. convention in Washington, he said— "The flooding in of modern knowledge has cost religion heavily where it has not kept pace in intellectual respect and confidence...
...HERBERT HOOVER has followed the *** example of President Coolidge, declaring that the future is threatened with disaster "if religion cannot and does not keep step with the new materialism that is sweeping the world...
...This situation, Mr...
...That religion should be separated from the state, so far as the favoring or the establishment of any particular form of religion is concerned, should remain the unalterable foundation stone of this nation...
...In Russia and elsewhere the Communist revolt insists on sweeping away all existing human institutions, including religion . . . Godless generations are to be reared on a national scale...
...Hoover explained that evidences of the trend of the times "lie in the weakening of moral fibre, in loosening family and home ties, in youthful criminality . . . in disposition to disregard or suppress discontent instead of discovering the causes and removing them...
...Hoover strong confirmation of its own guiding principle that all the problems of society ultimately stem from moral and spiritual causes...
...Mr...
...It is certain that the President and Mr...
...Other critics go further and assert that speeches by leaders of the government such as have been made by President Coolidge and Secretary Hoover are perilous, inasmuch as they tend to support the efforts of the leaders of "fundamentalist" groups to change the basic principle of the American nation—the separation of church and state —and to bring their particular religious views under the active protection of the forces of the state...
...in the complacency of millions over the wrongs and sufferings within and beyond our borders...
...Hoover would not have spoken as they did unless the pressure of evidence supporting their contentions had made it a duty for them to speak out their minds on this subject...
...but the further fact that without religion as a binding force no nation or state can long endure in any condition tolerable to free men, should also be clearly recognized...
...This journal finds in the words of the President and Mr...
Vol. 3 • November 1925 • No. 1
