NEUTRALITY ACT:

Most important, though, Murray was interested in what sort of a thing these religion clauses in the First Amendment really are. Are they fundamentally situated with some kind of religious or anti-religious object in view? Were some of the devout Protestants right to see the clauses as a theological matter? Did they operate, out of wise Christian conviction, to protect the garden of the church from the wilderness of the state and politics? Or was it the other way around? Did sober minded men erect the "wall" between church and state to hem in religious influence and prevent churches from seeking the power to force membership and extract tithes?

Murray declined to endorse either of these interpretations. On his reading, the establishment clause and the free exercise clause, taken together, are not "articles of faith." Rather, they are "articles of peace." The distinction is critically important. Were they articles of faith, then it might well be the case that American Catholics, highly relevant for Murray's purposes, would have to dissent. But Murray was convinced that it was wrong to "dogmatize" about the articles as many religionists and anti-religionists tended, and still tend, to do. The better course was to see them as a product not of the work of theologians or political philosophers, but instead as the fruit of the work of lawyers and statesmen.

Murray's insight liberates the First Amendment to do its work quite well for a pluralistic society. The religion clauses, then, are not a theology to be believed but rather a practical agreement. They make possible a unity based on obtaining a level of performance without agreement about ultimate ends. In other words, the articles of peace are aimed not at aligning our souls, but rather they attempt to make it possible for us to live together in harmony.

Reading the religion clauses as Murray does relates nicely to the organic history of the United States and its colonial existence that preceded the nation. He pointed out that church-state arrangements in the U.S. are at least as much the result of pluralism and distance from the European institutional centers as from political theory or religious conviction. The evangelical historian Mark Noll affirmed the same thing decades after Murray did. What made sense in American conditions was to find a way to live together. Without this necessity, Murray notes, the work of the theorists and religionists would likely have made for good literature, but precious little actual law.

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