APNewsBreak: AG says Bible can’t be official Tennessee book

Tennessee's attorney general says a bill seeking to make the Bible the state's official book would violate separation of church and state provisions in the federal and state constitutions.

(Attorney General Herbert) Slatery in the opinion cites the provision in the Tennessee Constitution that states that “no preference shall ever be given, by law, to any religion establishment or mode of worship.” …

The Tennessee Attorney General's opinion is patently absurd. To understand the so-called "establishment clause", we need only to examine the actions of those who wrote and ratified it, subsequent to its passage.

And what do we find? We see the early Congress appropriating public funds to print Bibles and to send missionaries to evangelize the Indian tribes. Heck, Christian church services were held in the Senate and Supreme Court chambers, and Thomas Jefferson routinely attended them when he was President.

I think it's pretty safe to say that the Founders who wrote the First Amendment would have absolutely no problem with making the Bible a state, or even national book. The notion that the government must be completely secular, sterilized of any hint of religion, is just factually and historically wrong.

I think these are the only relevant clauses in the state constitution:

I.3: That all men have a natural and indefeasible right to worship Almighty God according to the dictates of their own conscience; that no man can of right be compelled to attend, erect, or support any place of worship, or to main-
tain any minister against his consent; that no human authority can, in any case whatever, control or interfere with the rights of conscience; and that no preference
shall ever be given, by law, to any religious establishment or mode of worship.
I.4: That no political or religious test, other than an oath to support the Constitution of the United States and of this state, shall ever be required as a qualification to any office or public trust under this state.

IX.1: Whereas ministers of the Gospel are by their profession, dedicated to God and the care of souls, and ought not to be diverted from the great duties of
their functions; therefore, no minister of the Gospel, or priest of any denomination whatever, shall be eligible to a seat in either House of the Legislature.
IX.2: No person who denies the being of God, or a future state of rewards and punishments, shall hold any office in the civil department of this state.

Be satisfied that this ruling also applies to the Koran and other books of heathen religions.

(Note that the definition of "heathen" is "a religion whose god is not the God of the Bible." The god of Islam is not the God of the Bible, because Allah had no Son.)

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