Gerald R. Ford Quotes

Without God, there would be no American form of Government, nor an American way of life.

History makes the point time and time again No greater mischief can be created than to merge the power of religion with the power of government.

I think the founding fathers believed religion shouldn't interact directly with government.

Those who deny the existence of a supreme being have been turned into second-class citizens by a government that continuously sends messages that 'real Americans' believe in God.

When religion and politics ride in the same cart, the whirlwind follows.

politics and religion in the United States work like the twin grips of a pair of pliers on a critical mass of the masses.

America was first colonized by Puritans. Most of our earliest immigrants, and many since, have come here in order to practice their religious beliefs as they please. Our culture has always been, and will most likely always be, profoundly influenced by religion.

I disagree strongly with the concept of separation of church and state. It was not written into the Constitution.

It can have a secular purpose and have a relationship to God because God was presumed to be both over the state and the church, and separation of church and state was never meant to separate God from government.

Martin Luther King Jr. really understood the role of the churches when he said, 'The church is not meant to be the master of the state.' We don't sort of take power and grab the levers of government and impose our agenda down people's throats.

Our fathers founded the first secular government that was ever founded in this world. Recollect that. The first secular government - the first government that said every church has exactly the same rights and no more; every religion has the same rights, and no more.

My concern is to keep religion and the state separated. I don't think that religion and politics go together. When you see political decisions colored by religion, decisions that affect us all... I thought: 'I do not want to go back to medieval times.'

A union of government and religion tends to destroy government and degrade religion.

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 mixing of government and religion can be a threat to free government, even if no one is forced to participate.... When the government puts its imprimatur on a particular religion, it conveys a message of exclusion to all those who do not adhere to the favored beliefs.

When religion controls government, political liberty dies; and when government controls religion, religious liberty perishes.

The great decisions of government cannot be dictated by the concerns of religious factions.

God doesn't belong in politics.

The freedom of all faiths, and non faiths, is best protected when government does not give its blessings to any.

Religious freedom in the American sense, incorporating the separation of church and state, has been the pivotal concept of the national development of the United States of America.

If they wanted a Christian state, they could have done it. They were writing the rules. They could have put God in the rules.

At its core, America’s public religion is strongest when it speaks softly, most influential when it is the least prideful, and most convincing when it is the least coercive. We are not, and should never become, a theocracy; we are, instead, a democracy of believers—and crucial to a democracy of believers is fighting to the death to protect the right of anyone to choose not to believe. Crusades are for the insecure, literalism for the weak. Faith that is forced on others is not faith—conviction does not come from compulsion.

You are free, free to go to your temples, you are free to go to your mosques or to any other places of worship in this State of Pakistan. You may belong to any religion or caste or creed - that has nothing to do with the business of the State …. the first duty of a government is to maintain law and order, so that life, property and religious beliefs of its subjects are fully protected by the State

Puritanism, believing itself quick with the seed of religious liberty, laid, without knowing it, the egg of democracy.

Our government makes no sense, unless it is founded in a deeply felt religious faith—and I don't care what it is.