When a church becomes an institution for compelling belief or worship; when it assumes to itself the sole right to interpret Scripture and define morality; when it forms a priesthood claiming exclusive approaches to God and divine grace; when it makes its worship a magic ritual possessing miraculous powers; when it becomes an arm of the government and an agent of intellectual tyranny; when it seeks to dominate the state and to use secular rulers as tools of ecclesiastical ambition—then the free mind will rise against such a church, and will seek outside of it that “pure religion of reason”
...more
