Ariana JossieFDAMF 101Sister Andersen15 February 2019 Individual Essay ActivityI chose to write the first prompt which is, “the religion clauses in the First Amendment have been challenged many times in the United States Supreme Court. How does understand Thomas Jefferson’s Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom and Dallin H. Oaks, “Religion in Public Life” help us define religious freedom and what our role is in protecting it?” I chose to write about this prompt because I believe that I have found some facts that are factual and spiritual. All the time, our religion, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, is attacked and put under pressure by those who do not understand or know about it. I will share some thingsfirst from Thomas Jefferson’s Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom, and then I will share some things from Dallin H. Oaks talk, “Religion in Public Life.” I will end by tying what these two documents share, how they can help us define religious freedom, and finally what our role in protecting it is and what we need do to protect it. Thomas Jefferson had several challenges in his personal life and his political career. He knew of the inequality in society and saw that people did not act and talk the same as when they were in public as when they were in private. He saw of the impositions of religious values had ongovernment policies, which led to instances on occasions of blunt injustice. Thomas Jefferson wrote his Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom to make others known of the injustices that were happening. It weakened the supremacy of a single religion or creed over public life. In the Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom, he stated, “God created the mind free, and that all attempts to influence it by temporal punishments or burdens, or by civil incapacitations only led to habits of hypocrisy and meanness and were departed from Gods plan who chose not to propagate it by coercions on either.” What he meant by this is that God created man to choose forhimself. Man tries to influence the mind by temporal punishments or burdens or civil incapacitations. This was not part of God’s plan, if it had been, he would’ve made it since he has the power to do so. The definition of freedom is the power to act, speak, or think as one wants to without hindrance or restraint. It explains itself well and it still explains itself when you add other words to it, like for example, the word religion. Well it’s pretty much self-explained. Religious freedom is the right to choose a religion without interference by the government. To the founding fathers, it was the right of any man to believe as he wished. Thomas Jefferson’s statute passed in 1786, making Virginia the very first state to legally separate church and state, which led to the other states to separate also. This led to the southern states to sever and separate their ties from the Church of England. Other denominations would then form like the American Episcopal Church, the American Presbyterian Church, Catholics, Jews, etc. By being citizens of America, we have the right to freedom of religion and to defend ourselves when we feel like that freedom is being infringed upon. Everyone has the right toknow of our rights. If we are faced with issues of religious freedom, we can know of them and beprepared. In his talk Elder Dallin H. Oaks told of how when he was a law clerk in the Supreme Court he saw how the nine court justices grappled with the task of interpreting the First Amendment and how later as he was a lawyer, law professor, legal counsel for the Bill of Rights for the Illinois Constitutional Convention, and a justice of the Utah Supreme Court he swore to uphold and interpret the constitutions of our state and nation. He tells of how in 1962 the school prayer cases were brought and passed by the Supreme Court. This made reciting prayers in school to be banned. In ways this makes sense because since we have our freedom of religion meaning we have our choice of any religion or can choose to not to choose any religion, made it that the kids had their religion of freedom. But to many this made them blew up. They knew theyhad their freedom of religion meaning that they could perform it whenever, wherever they wanted to, but this case made their freedom of religion unusable. President David O. McKay sawthe direction of those decisions with prophetic vision. He cautioned the saints to remember that public schools could not be non-denominational but that others had their right to practice their freedom of religions and that they should respect this. Later Elder Oaks also said in his talk, “Religion in Public Life,” that as being members of the church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, we can understand that the United States needed to be a place without an established statereligion. If we did have an established state religion, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints would have never been founded. But this doesn’t mean that religious beliefs and their influence should subsequently be banned from public life. Everyone has their own right to perform what religion they choose to, and it does not ever have to be concealed. Elder Oaks said,“The preservation of religious freedom depends upon public understanding of and support for this vital freedom. It depends upon the value the public attaches to the teachings of right and wrong in churches, synagogues, and mosques. Believers and nonbelievers must be helped to understand that it is faith in God—however defined—that translates religious teachings into the moral behavior that benefits the nation.” Understanding how the American politics and the Constitution developed without knowing of the importance religious belief played in the colonists’ lives isn’t possible. Religion is closely intertwined with politics and economics you seehow it played in daily decisions. The Founding Fathers created our government on religion. Theyfought to defend religious freedom, because all who came to America came in search of religiousfreedom. Know you are probably wondering what Thomas Jefferson’s Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom and Dallin H. Oaks talk, “Religion in Public Life” have in common? I will tell you. The thing that they both had in common was that they helped us define what religious freedom is and they reminded us that not only was it the Founding Father’s role but it’s also our role to protect our religious