Church Autonomy Quotes

Religion and Government will both exist in greater purity, the less they are mixed together.

The separation of church and state is necessary partly because if religion is good then the state shouldn't interfere with the religious vision or with the religious prophet.

The settled opinion here is, that religion is essentially distinct from civil Government, and exempt from its cognizance; that a connection between them is injurious to both.

No religion can long continue to maintain its purity when the church becomes the subservient vassal of the state.

Intrude not yourself into ecclesiastical matters.

The separation of church and state was meant to protect church from state; a state that declares religion off limits in public life is a state that declares itself supreme over all religious values.

To think that a Catholic bishop must answer to a civil authority over matters of faith is abominable. It is abhorrent to me, to other Catholics, and to every member of every faith community.

A free church in a free state.

I believe that religious education must be the sole concern of religious associations.

The state authorities have no place in the church of God, no right to control and persecute the conscience.

The church ... is not the master or the servant of the state, but rather the conscience of the state.

If Baptists want to sleep in the pews and Pentecostals want to leap over them, it is none of Congress's business.

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.

The church state-wall must be kept high and impregnable. We could not approve the slightest breach.

There can, therefore, be no doubt that Presbyterians do carry out the principle that Church power vests in the Church itself, and that the people have a right to a substantive part in its discipline and government.

We find not in the Gospel, that Christ hath anywhere provided for the uniformity of churches, but only for their unity.

The church must be the critic and guide of the state, and never its tool.

I think people are free to marry any way they want to. But churches are free to set standards for marriage.

The union of church and state put the church under a political control.... The church was thoroughly subordinated to the state.

It's perfectly fair that you can't be a Roman Catholic priest unless you're a man. It seems right that the reach of anti-discriminatory law should stop at the door of the church or mosque.

My evangelical brethren confuse an objection to compulsion to an objection to religion. It is possible to hold a faith with enough confidence to believe that what should be rendered to God does not need to be decided and collected by Caesar

American Catholics rejoice in our separation of Church and State, and I can conceive no combination of circumstances likely to arise which would make a union desirable for either Church or State.

… the best thing that ever happened to the state of Connecticut. It cut the churches loose from dependence on state support. It threw them wholly on their own resources and on God.

When you subpoena one pastor, you subpoena every pastor.

The U. S Government must not, as by this order, undertake to run the Churches. When an individual in a church or out of it, becomes dangerous to the public interest, he must be checked; but the churches, as such, must take care of themselves. It will not do for the U. S. to appoint trustees, supervisors or other agents for the churches.