America is the first nation founded on principles rather than kinship relations, and the key to protecting America’s diversity lies in the First Amendment, Oliver “Buzz” Thomas told a crowd of students, faculty and community members Thursday night.
Thomas said that our First Amendment rights are under attack, and echoed our founding fathers in the call for “constant vigilance.”
“The story of America is the story of a nation struggling to live up to its own ideals,” Thomas said.
America, he said, is an experiment in liberty. “It is the nature of experiments that they can fail,” Thomas said. “America is never finished.”
The unfinished work that Thomas, a minister and a lawyer, referred to is the need for a separation of church and state in the United States. His speech, a part of the Dr. Roy S. Nicks Distinguished Lecture Series, focused on the importance of the separation of church and state as well as “freedoms at risk” within the United States and abroad.
One of the major issues facing the world is “how to live together with our deepest differences – that is, our religious differences,” he said.
As an example of the separation of church and state, Thomas asked the audience what the United States’ mottos were. Audience members answered “In God We Trust” quickly, but hesitated to find the second.
“E pluribus unum,” Thomas said. “Out of many, one. As I travel around the country I see plenty of plurals, but very little unum.”
The glue that holds our nation together is not our religious consensus, but our civil consensus.
“Gone are the days when diversity meant Baptist, Methodist and Presbyterian,” he said. Some scholars identify as many as 2,000 religious groups in the country, according to Thomas.
“There is no religious consensus in America,” he sad. “There never was . The only common ground we are able to form our ‘unum’ from is civic.”
The series is co-sponsored by the Claudius G. Clemmer College of Education and the Department of Educational Leadership and Policy Analysis. Staying true to those educational roots, Thomas took a moment to tell the audience that a teacher’s job is not only to educate their students, but to equip them for citizenship. One way to equip students for citizenship is to make sure they know that the American arrangement is still a minority view, he said.
Thomas was disturbed that in a recent poll, 60 percent of Americans believe the Constitution establishes the United States as a Christian nation.
The only thing that the constitution says about religion is the no establishment clause and the free exercise clause in the First Amendment. Therefore, said Thomas, this dictates that the government is supposed to remain neutral in all religious affairs.
Freedom of religion never matters to citizens unless they are a minority, said Thomas. Baptists in Tennessee might not worry about the separation of church and state because they are in a majority view; Baptists in Utah and Baptists in New Orleans might see the world differently.
It is important that all religions are respected, said Thomas, not just the majority views.
“We are all in this together,” he said. “We contend with one another, yes. But we contend on a level playing field.”
In the question-and-answer session following the speech, Thomas received a question about the reactions of many to the words of Rev. Jeremiah Wright and how this will affect the campaign of Sen. Barack Obama. Thomas wrote a column for USA Today on March 24 about the topic, saying that he was disturbed that any candidate would be judged based on their religion or things their minister said.
Thomas was “offended by what Wright had to say” but said, “If we start hanging politicians based on their ministers, it’s a problem.”
Reactions of the audience, consisting of around 170 people, were mixed.
“I thought he gave a very fine lecture,” said Vice Provost Bert Bach. “I thought he raised the consciousness of all of us as to what it means to be an American.”
One woman came from Greeneville, Tenn., and did not agree with Thomas’ message.
“We came here because we’ve read some of his articles in USA Today,” said Tara Rimondi, 26. “Actually, I strongly disagree with Dr. Thomas. We’re reformed Presbyterian. . We do believe this nation was founded on Christian principles and that we should uphold them.”
Dr. Roy S. Nicks was happy with the way the lecture went.
“I was just very, very pleased with his speech and the reaction from the audience, and the questions that were asked,” said Nicks.
“Buzz Thomas is a national authority on the First Amendment as it relates to church-state relationships and he showed that knowledge tonight.

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