Church responds, defends its rights

I write as one among the growing majority of freedom-loving Americans who are increasingly concerned over the incremental erosion of the constitutional freedoms we have long enjoyed as a people. I personally admire the courage of our Founding Fathers who boldly declared at the risk of their lives, “We hold these truths to be self evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by the Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness …”

We Americans are a people who have long recognized that these divinely inherent freedoms are in reality the bedrock and source of the prosperity of our great nation. We recognize that they supersede all earthly powers and are unassailably ours by divine decree. We further recognize that the original settlers who landed on our fair shores were fleeing the old world where religious and civil tyranny had reigned for over a millennia, and that they were determined to establish a nation where freedom of conscience was granted to all.

Many of these freedoms were eventually codified in our national constitution and specifically defined in its 27 amendments. As an example, the first amendment to our constitution recognizes three of these basic divine rights:

1. “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion…” This means that there is a realm (conscience) into which government may not intrude, and as a cooperating player in society it must maintain a neutral role assuring the right of all citizens to practice their faith (or lack thereof) freely according to the dictates of their consciences.
2. “…or prohibiting the free exercise thereof…” the meaning of this phrase is straightforward and easily understood. It is evident that our founders placed such a high regard on personal religious freedom as to express it in the clearest unequivocal terms. Plainly stated this freedom is intelligible and unimpeachable.
3. “…or the right of the people peaceably to assemble…” It has been the unilateral and arbitrary denial of this basic religious freedom (supposedly attributed to COVID-19) that is raising increased concerns and protest on the part of the religious community across our nation. It is the unwarranted and unwelcomed encroachment on this basic religious freedom (to a greater or lesser degree by many state and local governments) that should alert and alarm all of us as to how easily our freedoms can slip through our fingers. And it should be further understood that religious liberty is the mother of all freedoms, which means that the Second Amendment and those that follow it are all validated by the first. In other words unless all citizens are free to exercise all their constitutional freedoms no one nor their supposed freedoms are ultimately secure.

It seems obvious therefore, that a mere 10 acre plot of land located at the corner of Lancaster and Rimrock roads for the purpose of establishing a Christian school and house of worship has civil and religious liberty implications that extend far beyond its boundaries. To deny one group their divinely and constitutionally granted liberty to freely practice their faith and to peaceably assemble on property that they own, at the very same time places the same freedoms enjoyed by others in jeopardy. To preserve “freedom and justice for all” is the ultimate reason we continue to press forward.

Don Eckenroth, chairman of the Building & Planning Committee of the Hayden Lake Seventh-day Adventist Church.