First Amendment Religious Liberty is For Christians Only, Says Jenna Ellis

 Baptist News Global: Jenna Ellis Says First Amendment is for Christians Only

Here's her quote: 

"The whole point of having a civil society that recognizes the principles of religious freedom is so that we can go and evangelize, so that we can practice our faith, so that we can train up our children in the way they should go, says Proverbs, so when they’re old they won’t depart from it. It’s so that we can preserve and protect the Christian way of life. I mean, we don’t have all these protections for our rights that our Founders recognize come from God our Creator, so that we can go out and live a pluralistic society and say, ‘Well, let’s recognize the dignity of Islam.’ I mean, that’s not the point, that’s not the purpose whatsoever. We have a civil government that protects the right of Christians to be able to live and work. And we have this whole perverted notion that somehow our Constitution demands pluralism. That just isn’t there. If you take the whole context of the Declaration, the Constitution, the founding and everything we’re celebrating in America 250, absolutely."

And ignorance really is bliss, I guess.  

There's a clear indication in the language of the first amendment that crushes Ellis' argument that the founding fathers intended to protect only the religious liberty of Christians.  For one thing, Christianity is not mentioned, referenced, or even alluded to in the Declaration of Independence or the Constitution in its vague references to divine providence.  "Religion" was then, as it is now, an all inclusive term indicating an awareness of the existence of other faiths beyond Christianity, Judaeo-Christianity or Judaism.  

There is, in fact, no specific reference to Christianity in either the Declaration of Independence, or the Constitution.  That's not surprising, given that there were few Christians among the founding fathers, and none who understood Christianity in the context of conservative Evangelicalism's 19th century fundamentalist and pre-millennial dispensational perspective that is Ellis' understanding.  

The freedom of conscience protected by the first amendment is all inclusive.  Conscience includes religious practice, or the absence of any religious practice.  It also includes all other ideologies and thoughts, including those that are unique to any individual.  In the absence of any kind of interpretation written by any of the founders that would support Ellis' view, there is the fact that the courts have exercised the constitutional powers they have been given to interpret the Constitution as demanding and protecting religious pluralism.  

Christian faith practice does not require exclusive Constitutional protection.  True Christian faith, based on the core principles of the gospel revealed by Jesus Christ, can easily coexist, and win converts in a religiously pluralistic culture, as it did for the first three hundred years of its existence under Roman persecution, as it has everywhere else in the world, and where it has survived, and even thrived, under the  persecution of totalitarian regimes.  Ellis' pseudo-Christian religion is inherently weak, and requires being propped up by the power of civil government, lacking any real spiritual power of its own.  If they perceive a threat to their faith under the religious liberty provided by the United States Constitution, then they are genuinely insecure adherents of a false religion. 

And it's pretty clear that the establishment clause and the separation of church and state that it created was a clear benefit to Christianity in America, more than any other religion.  As Jefferson and Madison envisioned, and predicted, setting the church free from the state to practice faith with a free conscience was the best thing that could have happened to it.  

The attitude exhibited by Ellis, aside from the sheer ignorance she shows, isn't consistent with her claims of being Christian.  Jesus made it very clear that the one way Christians have of testifying to the veracity of their faith and commitment is by the way they treat other people.  As those billboards say, "That love-thy-neighbor thing?  I meant it! --God"  Jesus was pretty clear, using the example of a Samaritan to illustrate the answer to the question, "Who is my neighbor?" in his answer.  

So why isn't Ellis treating Muslims like they are her neighbor?  But then, those kind of people always have an answer as to why they don't have to be true to the core principles of their alleged faith.