Our founders vividly understood the tyranny of religious government. For perspective, envision the Taliban or Iran’s supreme leader. Christians have not been immune. “No one expects the Spanish Inquisition” is a funny skit, but the real inquisition insisted on torture to exact a “true confession,” before burning people alive. During the Albigensian Heresy, as an army sent by Pope Innovent III prepared to put down the Cathers, the monk accompanying the army was asked by one of the soldiers, “How do we know the heretics?” The monk replied, “Kill them all. God will know his own.” In Henry VIII’s time, William Tyndale was executed for translating the Bible into English! The murder of people whose beliefs strayed from the local orthodoxy is universal in Christianity, including our own Colonial past. In Salem, Massachusetts, widows who would not remarry were hanged as witches (Women with property! Can you say Satan?). So our founders insisted on a secular government, separating church and state, and for 250 years, it has worked very well.

Many people who identify as Christian Nationalists apparently want to bring Taliban-like power and authority to our nation. Barrett Donahoe, in his column, wrote, “a loving, Christ-centered environment…” in his argument for private schools receiving state support. I have no problem with Wednesday Bible study, or any other church-supported dogma education. I have no problem with a non-governmentally supported school being Christ-centered. But every government that has ever let there be an established religion has abandoned freedom. State-supported religious schools will inevitably leave us as ONLY the “home of the brave.”

Bill Gillmore

Columbus