JOHNSON CITY -- Minister and constitutional lawyer Oliver "Buzz" Thomas of Greeneville had sharply critical words here Thursday night for several U.S. Supreme Court decisions in recent years having to do with religion and religious freedom.

He also cited disturbing statistics about the general public's knowledge -- and lack of knowledge -- of religious protections in the U.S. Constitution, and criticized the nation's educators generally for not teaching more about those constitutional protections.

Thomas spoke to an audience of about 340 people Thursday evening at East Tennessee State University. The address for ETSU's Dr. Roy S. Nicks Distinguished Lecture Series was titled "Freedom At Risk: Church and State at Home and Abroad."

A former practicing attorney and lecturer in constitutional law, an ordained minister, an author, and a regular columnist for USA Today, Thomas is also executive director of the Greeneville-based Niswonger Foundation.

He noted Thursday that he was not speaking in his Niswonger Foundation capacity.

Religion is "one of the few things people will kill each other over," Thomas said, yet in the United States, despite "rancorous public debate" about any number of topics with religious underpinnings, killing has been the exception until Sept. 11, 2001.

On that date, he said, this nation found out "just how deep a divide we had" between religious world views even in this country.

Thomas said that most Americans, asked to cite the national motto, will say, "In God We Trust," but that, he said, is the nation's second motto, enacted in 1950, not long before the words "under God" were added to the Pledge of Allegiance.

The first national motto, he said, was and is "E Pluribus Unum," a Latin phrase which means "out of the many, one." Today, Thomas quipped "I see a lot of pluribus, but not much unum," triggering laughter from the audience.

Rhetorically asking what is "the glue" that holds the United States of America together, Thomas said it is not religion, because "there is no religious consensus" in this country, "and never was."

In Colonial America, he said, various states had different established or "state-supported" religions.

He pointed out that, as a graduate of the University of Virginia's law school, he learned that "to be fully enfranchised" in colonial Virginia, a person had to be male, white, a property owner, and an Episcopalian.

But being an American today has "nothing to do with gender or skin tone or even language," Thomas said. "It's all about principles and ideals" stated in the U.S. Constitution.

Despite that, there are many misunderstandings about the Constitution, he said.

A poll a few years ago by the Freedom Forum showed, he continued, that 60 percent of Americans believe that "the Constitution established America as a Christian nation."

But the closest thing to doing that, Thomas said, comes where the date of ratification is referred to in the Constitution as "in the Year of our Lord," 1787.

In response to prompting from Thomas, several in the audience noted the U.S Constitution's First Amendment, which states, in part, "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof."

But even before that reference, Thomas noted, in its Article VI, the Constitution states that "no religious test shall ever be required as a qualification to any office or public trust under the United States."

Thomas went on to say that a survey of public school teachers by the Freedom Forum, which is part of the Gannett Foundation, found that "20 percent could not name a single freedom" listed in the Constitution.

Many in the audience at ETSU were education majors, or professional educators, and Thomas said he did not want to "offend anyone," by citing the poll.

However, he said, "I would expect a third-grader" to be able to at least name freedom of religion, speech, or the press.

"I'm a fan of public education," Thomas said, but too many Americans are "woefully ignorant" about this country's basic principles.

He also pointed out that the idea that the First Amendment "separates church and state" came not from some Communist document, as has been asserted by some, or from a letter written by Thomas Jefferson in 1802.

The phrase, Thomas said, was used by Roger Williams (1604-83), the founder of Rhode Island, "150 years before Jefferson," in writing of "a wall or hedge of separation between church and state."

"We take this stuff for granted," Thomas said, but at the time it was proposed, that was "a revolutionary concept" in a world where the head of the state was typically the head of the church, and toleration for other religious views was unusual. That situation is still the worldwide norm, he said.

"In Colonial Massachusetts, people were put to death under blasphemy law," he said, but Williams "challenged the notion that America was the new Israel," and said the Church itself is the new Israel.

Thomas said that the colonists struggling for survival under harsh conditions were understandably encouraged by the belief that they were "the chosen people" in a New World, and "they wanted to kill him [Williams]," but banished him instead.

Following that banishment, he purchased land from the Indians elsewhere and established what became the state of Rhode Island.

Asking himself how the United States is doing regarding respect for religion now, Thomas answered, "Pretty good, compared to the rest of the world, but not compared to where we started."

He said 15 free speech cases in recent years have shown that "the justices on the (U.S. Supreme) Court are not as committed to enforcing the First Amendment," because the court "denied First Amendment claims in all but two cases."

Thomas also criticized the use of tax money to support "faith-based initiatives" by executive order of President George W. Bush, after the Republican-controlled Congress would not go along with that action in his first term.

Worse, he said, in the spring of 2007, when taxpayers challenged President Bush's action, the Supreme Court said they did not have legal "standing" to complain about the practice.

Essentially, Thomas said, the decision not to hear that case "says the president can do what he wants." He added, "The judiciary ought to hear that case."

Thomas also criticized a decision by the U.S. Attorney General Michael Mukasey, who ruled that "an American citizen, on American soil, can be declared a military combatant" and locked up.

But the Supreme Court's 1990 decision not to allow native Americans to use peyote in religious ceremonies came in for some of Thomas' strongest criticism.

Traditionally, he said, the government has to prove a "compelling interest" -- that is, a good reason -- to restrict any religious practice. In deciding that the use of peyote, a naturally-occurring hallucinogen, should be prohibited in Native-American religious observances, the court ruled that the government did not have to prove a compelling interest as long as it did not single out anyone for prosecution.

Thomas said this case seriously eroded the concept of religious liberty, but few people know about it because it only affected a few people.

He said another situation that affected few but continued the erosion of religious liberty came in a 1990 Minnesota case, where Amish families objected to having to attach "big, garish red signs" that they considered "worldly" to buggies and wagons used on public roads.

The Amish proved to a lower court that silver reflective tape would be as effective, and would not cause them to have to violate their consciences, he said, but the Supreme Court overturned that ruling.

Few heard about it, Thomas said, because "there are not many Amish."

He quoted Pastor Martin Niemoeller, who famously said of the Nazis, "In Germany, they came first for the Communists, and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a Communist; and then they came for the trade unionists, and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a trade unionist; and then they came for the Jews, and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a Jew; and then . . . they came for me . . . and by that time there was no one left to speak up."

Thomas said he is fond of reading the decisions of famed Appeals Court Judge Learned Hand, who lived from 1872-1961.

Like Judge Hand, Thomas said he has come to believe "I'm not too sure that I'm right."

Judge Hand said that "Liberty lies in the hearts of men and women; when it dies there, no constitution, no law, no court can even do much to help it." Judge Hand also said, "While it lies there, it needs no constitution, no law, no court to save it."

Thomas told his audience, "That's your challenge. That's your job, along with everything else that you do," to "be informed, be engaged, and be advocates for freedom."

Annie Kariuki, an ETSU Education Leadership and Policy Analysis doctoral fellow, who closed the program, told Thomas he had been inspiring in his address.