How a 16th-century theologian shaped your Bill of Rights

What does Martin Luther, a 16th-century German theologian, have to do with the U.S. Bill of Rights? The connection may be surprising.

Five hundred and five years ago, at the Diet of Worms, Martin Luther was asked to renounce his reformist views. While many remember his reliance on Scripture and reason, his appeal to conscience is often overlooked. “It is neither safe nor right to go against conscience,” Luther declared, explaining that his conscience was “captive to the Word of God.”

Luther believed God established both the Church and the state, giving each authority to regulate behavior in different spheres. He argued, however, that neither institution had authority over a person’s conscience; that domain belonged to God alone.

Luther’s ideas echoed arguments from the early days of the Church. In the second century, the Church father Tertullian contended that the government should allow religious liberty, since only worship offered voluntarily was pleasing to God. He considered forcing people to worship both pointless and hypocritical. Other Church fathers made similar arguments. The concept is also underscored by Jesus’ words to render to Caesar what is Caesar’s and to God what is God’s, implying that worship and conscience are owed to God, not the state.

This same line of thinking influenced the Bill of Rights. The First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution begins, “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.” In the language of the period, an “establishment of religion” referred to a state church. Congress was prohibited from creating one, partly because many states already had their own established churches, and the Framers wished to avoid conflict between a national church and the states.

The Framers also wanted religion to flourish and believed this was best accomplished within a free marketplace of ideas. They reasoned that only with true freedom of conscience could churches compete for adherents.

To ensure this free marketplace of ideas, the First Amendment included other protections. Congress was prohibited from abridging the freedoms of speech, the press, peaceable assembly, and petitioning the government. The Framers believed each was an essential part of the unalienable right to liberty and that truth would prevail if people were free to publicly present and debate their views.

Freedom of religion is the first freedom mentioned in the First Amendment because every other freedom depends upon it. The right to hold and express beliefs is foundational to the rest of the amendment. Without it, we could not speak, write, assemble, or petition the government in support of any belief or idea not first approved by the government.

This all brings us back to Luther and his insistence that only God has authority over conscience. The American Founders were right to highlight that our unalienable rights, including liberty, are given to us by God. The listed rights are not granted by the First Amendment; rather, they are recognized and protected by it. Our conscience is a gift from God, and we are answerable to Him for how we use the liberty He gave us for His glory.

Originally published at BreakPoint.