Supreme Court ruling discounts secular history of Colonial-era churches
The First Reformed Church of Pompton Plains in Pequannock was built before there was a New Jersey, a United States, or a Constitution of either one.
When the first Dutch settlers came in the early 1700s and gathered to worship in what today is Pequannock Township, there was no delineated separation of church and state. Similar to many colonial settlements, the church was established before the government. The First Reformed Church, like many 18th and 19th century churches, was the centerpiece of the towns that grew up around it.
In Pequannock, the bright white church, built in 1769 with its towering steeple, is directly across from town hall. A pathway of brick pavers across the Newark-Pompton Turnpike, the main street in town, connect the two anchor structures of the downtown.
"We like to say we are at the intersection of faith and life," said pastor Kathleen Edwards-Chase.
Life at the church means opening its doors to 17 non-religious organizations, including a town choral group, Belle Voce, and volunteer a service network called Community Partners for Hope, which feeds the hungry and helps the drug-addicted. An Alzheimer's support group meets there, as does Alcoholics Anonymous.
Faith and life intersect at the Church of Redeemer in Morristown, which feeds dozens of homeless and poor every day at its Community Soup Kitchen.
These two churches, and 10 others in Morris County, are hoping to challenge a recent New Jersey Supreme Court ruling that prohibits government funding for historic preservation of active houses of worship.
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The case was brought to the court by the Freedom from Religion Foundation, supported by the American Civil Liberties Union and a group called Americans United for Separation of Church and State, which argued that a Morris County program of awarding historic preservation funds to churches was unconstitutional.
The ruling is legally correct. The New Jersey Constitution, adopted on July 2, 1776, specifically says, no person should be "be obliged to pay tithes, taxes, or other rates for building or repairing any church or churches, place or places of worship, or for the maintenance of any minister or ministry ..."
In the April ruling, Chief Justice Stuart Rabner said a Morris County program that awarded $4.6 million in historic preservation funds to active churches "ran afoul" of the "plain language" in the state constitution that "bars the use of taxpayer funds to repair and restore churches."
But here's the problem. The intersection of life and faith at these churches also is an intersection with history.
How do you separate them from their role in American history?
Among the original 13 colonies, the Presbyterian churches were centers of intense patriot fervor.
For instance, Rev. James Caldwell was a significant revolutionary force. He was pastor of the Connecticut Farms Presbyterian Church in Union. The murder of his wife, at the church parsonage during the Battle of Springfield, is depicted on the seal of the Union County government flag. He's buried at First Presbyterian in Elizabeth, and both Alexander Hamilton and Aaron Burr went to school on church property.
At the First Presbyterian Church of Springfield, Caldwell rallied the troops, who took position in the church to fire at Loyalists and British Troops.
Presbyterian churches in Succasunna and Mendham were used as small pox hospitals for the Continental Army during the Morristown Encampments and both cemeteries hold the bodies of dead soldiers.
At the First Presbyterian Church in Orange, 78 men who fought in the Revolution are buried.
St. Michael's Episcopal Church in Trenton was in the center of the Christmas battle there that turned the momentum of the war.
At these various houses of worship, church and state are inextricably linked. Many are on the national and state historic registries because they are a part of America's secular history.
That was the logic behind Morris County granting $4.6 million for exterior church repairs. Exterior. That's an important word to remember as the county and churches petition the U.S. Supreme Court to hear the case.
"The New Jersey Court didn't recognize that the purpose of these grants is not to further worship or religion, but to preserve the history of these churches and protect their architectural significance," said attorney Kenneth Wilbur of the law firm Drinker Biddle in Florham Park, who is representing the 12 churches.
"The architecture is a very important piece of this," he said. "It gives us a good snapshot of the trends of the time."
The steeple at the Pequannock Church, for example, was designed by Sir Christopher Wren, the architect of London's St. Paul's Cathedral, one of the world's most spectacular structures and the most visited.
The church was a documented stop on "Rochambeau's March," when 7,000 French soldiers trekked from New England to Yorktown, Va., to support George Washington's army in 1781.
The property was also a documented stop on the Underground Railroad, some 80 years later. And this is where the separation of church and state ruling gets a little convoluted.
The minister's home at Pequannock is called the Giles Mandeville house. It was built in 1789 and was not part of the church. A subsequent owner opened his home to runaway slaves prior to the Civil War. The church bought it about 100 years later.
If the home were never put in church hands, it would easily qualify for historic grants. But now, it is ineligible.
The Pequannock church received $700,000 from the county to fix and beautify the exteriors of three buildings at the heart of the town.
Pastor Edwards-Chase says this is another part of the case being overlooked.
"If these types of buildings are allowed to deteriorate, it impacts the whole town," she said. "People here, not just parishioners, value our historic buildings. They're proud of them because of the way they reflect on the community."
This is true. The aesthetic character of the Morristown Green, for example, is set by the light colored stone and Romanesque Revival architecture of the Presbyterian Church and darker puddingstone of the United Methodist Church.
On grounds of the Presbyterian Church, George Washington received Holy Communion. A stained glass window in the church commemorates it. Under the Morris program, county funds could go to protect it. Under this ruling, they can not. In that window, the intersection of faith and American history are illuminated.
And so, the irony of the court ruling is this: these churches did their part in the fight for the very freedom that is now being used to deny help with their upkeep.
There has to be a better solution.
Mark Di Ionno may be reached at mdiionno@starledger.com. Follow The Star-Ledger on Twitter @StarLedger and find us on Facebook.
