James Madison Quotes

What influence in fact have ecclesiastical establishments had on Civil Society? In some instances they have been seen to erect a spiritual tyranny on the ruins of the Civil authority; in many instances they have been seen upholding the thrones of political tyranny: in no instance have they been seen the guardians of the liberties of the people. Rulers who wished to subvert the public liberty, may have found an established Clergy convenient auxiliaries. A just Government instituted to secure & perpetuate it needs them not.

In every country and in every age, the priest has been hostile to liberty. He is always in alliance with the despot, abetting his abuses in return for protection to his own.

Islam is a totalitarian ideology. It rules every aspect of life — economics, family law, whatever. It has religious symbols, it has a God, it has a book — but it’s not a religion. It can be compared with totalitarian ideologies like Communism or fascism. There is no country where Islam is dominant where you have a real democracy, a real separation between church and state.

There can be but little liberty on earth while men worship a tyrant in heaven.

Liberty's chief foe is theology.

I do not know which is the more dangerous to liberty—Romanism or Protestantism. Either is fatal if it predominates.

Never, I beseech of you, encourage a certain “Christian party in politics,” which under moral and religious pretenses is officiously and continually interfering with the religious opinions of others, and endeavoring to effect by law and other means, equally exceptionable, a systematic course of measures evidently calculated to lead to a union of church and state. If a union of church and state should be effected, which may God avert, then will the doctrines of the prevailing sect become the creed of the country, to be enforced by fines, imprisonment, and doubtless death! Then will superstition and bigotry frown into silence everything which bears the appearance of liberality; the hand of genius will be palsied, and a check to all further improvements in our country will be the inevitable consequence. If we now permit the glorious light of liberty to be extinguished, it may never more shine to cheer a benighted world with the splendor of its rays.

A Scottish Presbytery … agreeth as well with a monarch as God and the Devil … I give not a turd for your preaching.

The Church is the handmaid of tyranny and the steady enemy of liberty.

Secularization is the process by which certain responsibilities pass from ecclesiastical to political authorities.

Religion organized in the Church has in times past pursued two lines of action—First, it has secluded itself from the world, gone out of the world, that is, of the State; and, secondly, it has striven to reenter the world as a conqueror, to dominate the world

The President is the Theologian in Chief.

The first revolt is against the supreme tyranny of theology, of the phantom of God. As long as we have a master in heaven, we will be slaves on earth.

Christianity is the enemy of liberty and civilization.

Man will never be free until the last king is strangled with the entrails of the last priest.

I beg you be persuaded that no one would be more zealous than myself to establish effectual barriers against the horrors of spiritual tyranny, and every species of religious persecution.

The ecclesiastical establishments of Europe which serve to support tyrannical governments are not the Christian religion but abuses and corruptions of it.

We should never say that we recognize the right of these mullahs to oppress their own people.

There cannot be freedom in Iraq without bringing down the mullahs.

Our government should be led by religious men …. Religion is with politics and politics is with religion. They are as one.

“Theocracy” has always been the synonym for a bleak and narrow, if not a fierce and blood-stained, tyranny.

The most potent combination is that of religion and politics, because then if you object, you are a heretic.

Now who can hear Christ declare that his kingdom is not of this world, and yet believe that this blending of church and state together can be pleasing to him?

The only time I every fear religion is when it has the power of the state behind it.

History I believe furnishes no example of a priest-ridden people maintaining a free civil government.