Church without state.

West, John G., Jr.

When Alexis de Tocqueville arrived in the United States in 1831, he was struck by how Americans were "forever forming associations."for help, public-spirited citizens sought to solve societal problems on their own. Tocqueville may not have realized that this national enthusiasm for "associations" was largely of recent vintage. Although Americans had always been industrious, the explosive growth in civic associations did not occur until the second decade of the 19th century.

Perhaps no one deserves more credit for creating this culture of volunteerism than Lyman Beecher (1775-1863).Beecher Stowe and abolitionist preacher Henry Ward Beecher, the elder Beecher was a powerful minister and reformer in his own right. As one of his colleagues commented, "In massive talent, Lyman Beecher stood among his brethren like Daniel Webster in the Senate--alone."

As a young clergyman in the early 1800s, Beecher confronted a society in crisis. Church attendance was dropping, and alcoholism and other social ills were on the rise. The elite classes were abandoning orthodox Christianity for a demythologized religion of human reason. Elected officials were increasingly reluctant to enforce morality or piety by law, and there was growing support in the political sphere for abolishing tax subsidies for churches, which had long been the bulwark of Protestantism in New England.

Beecher viewed these developments with alarm. Like most ministers of the era, he believed that republican government could not survive without a virtuous citizenry, and that a virtuous citizenry depended on religion. In the absence of established churches and direct state support for religion, he feared the worst. But instead of despairing, he responded brilliantly: If the government would no longer support religion directly, the religious adherents themselves had to do whatever the government could not.

Government used to promote civic virtue by compelling people to "support the gospel and attend the public worship of God,"1826. "But these means of moral influence the law can no longer apply; and there is no substitute but the voluntary energies of the nation itself, in associations for charitable contributions and efforts, patronized by all denominations of Christians, and by all classes of the community who love their country."

Beecher advocated replacing government support for religion and morality with a network of voluntary societies that would spread the gospel, inculcate moral habits in the young, and reclaim the dissolute. In those cases where government action might still be necessary, the associations would seek to create a political consensus through educational efforts. In a free society, Beecher realized, persuasion had to precede coercion.

During his career, Beecher held four pastorates -- in Long Island, New York; Litchfield, Connecticut; Boston; and Cincinnati -- and traveled the Northeast and West speaking not only in churches but also at revival and reform meetings. His widely circulated sermons and tracts helped inspire evangelicals to organize scores of voluntary associations for evangelism, missions, and social and political reform. They formed groups to help alleviate poverty, teach reading and writing to the poor, and prevent alcohol abuse. Beecher himself took part in many of these efforts, such as the American Temperance Society and a group that promoted the voluntary observance of the Sabbath. The many private associations of the era transformed American society in a way that few government programs could.

"They say ministers have lost their influence,"exert a deeper influence than ever they could" have with state support. He had learned through experience that the free-enterprise system in religion, far from being hostile to faith, created the conditions for true piety and civic virtue to flourish. Beecher was not the first to discover this truth, of course. Baptists and Methodists in America had long advocated the separation of church and state as beneficial to true religion. But at the time, they tended to view religion as a private matter without a clearly defined social role. Beecher's unique contribution was to show how religious groups could play a dynamic public role once direct state support of churches had ended.

Even as Beecher championed Christianity's civic role, however, he keenly appreciated the limits of religious activism and recognized the dangers that politicking posed for Christianity. The political ambitions of some activists could easily overwhelm the message of the gospel and provoke public censure. Beecher advised Christians to confine their political efforts to the "great questions of national morality" and avoid formulating an explicitly Christian position on every political issue.

During our own era, when questions are again being raised about the proper role of faith in the public square, we all might learn from Beecher's free-enterprise and common-sense approach to religion in public life.

John G. West Jr. is a senior fellow at the Seattle-based Discovery Institute. His book The Politics of Revelation and Reason: Religion and Civic Life in the New Nation will be published in May by the University Press of Kansas.