What about "Blue Laws" and "Sunday Laws"?

The term "Blue law" is used in connection with Sunday closing laws. These laws require businesses of many kinds to close shop on Sunday. Most states in the United States still have Blue laws of one form or another on their legislative books. Most of these are not enforced. In some states they have even been declared unconstitutional. However, in some states, these Sunday closing laws are strongly enforced. We will now examine the history behind these Blue laws. We will also explore the concept of a national and even world Sunday Law.

We can "thank" Constantine for the first Sunday law (in AD 321). Over the course of the early centuries AD, there were other Sunday laws, which built upon the foundation set by Constantine. |0|

In the 1600s colonists arrived in America, and soon began establishing their own version of religious intolerance, despite coming so recently from England, where they suffered under the intolerance there. Very early in the history of the American Colonies, we find Sunday laws. |1|

It is of note that people fled to the American Colonies with the intention of avoiding religious persecution as it was found in Europe. Yet, arriving upon American soil, they found the same intolerance they had left on the other side of the Atlantic. These early Sunday laws were not American in origin, but British. The war against British rule, which established American independence, also established the American right to form its own version of Sunday laws: "Blue Laws" also called "Sunday closing laws".

By the mid-1900s, every state in the United States had Blue Laws on its books, yet, these were rarely and sporadically enforced. Each state had its own version of what was acceptable Sunday buying/selling practice, and what stores could remain open while others had to be closed. Because little was done to enforce these laws, most people never encountered a conflict. Few people knew about the Blue Laws, and those that knew often saw them as mere innocent holdovers from a bygone era. Very few indeed felt any threat from the existing Sunday closing laws--especially since they were largely ignored and not enforced.

Sunday closing laws in the U.S. caused little stir until 1951 when the Supreme Court was confronted with its first case on the matter: People v. Friedman.|2|

We should examine the position taken by the Supreme Court in that precedent-setting case, because it remains the consistent position in case after case.|3| As we have said, this IS a religious issue. History shows a trend. That trend will be shown in this next section.

We are really discussing two types of Sunday laws. The first has been examined above as "Blue Laws". These laws only require the cessation of normal business activity on Sunday. A second type, with its roots in the early-century Sunday laws, will ultimately make its appearance on the social scene once again. We spoke of this type briefly earlier in this page, when we talked about Constantine's contribution to state-enforced worship. This type of Sunday law actually enforces Sunday-sacredness. Sunday laws in this sense require Sunday to be kept holy, not only in the "blue law" sense, but in the sense that God must be worshiped on that day.|4|

Although many people cannot imagine such a law ever finding popularity in the United States of America, it has been prophesied and will indeed come to pass.|5+| Those who doubt should consider history, then, they should imagine to what lengths people will go when they feel threatened. Just let a major economic collapse and/or devastating drought/famine hit the US, then listen while the "new right" religious conservatives state that this is all "God's judgment upon us," and you will have the perfect climate for radical and sweeping legislation to "make us good."

This issue will become first a United States national, then a world test of loyalty. Before Christ comes again, He will have a group of people who would rather die than to disobey Him. There will be another, far larger, group who would rather disobey Him than to die. And those will be the choices before it's all over here on planet Earth.

For more information on the subject of Sunday Laws that are even in the works today, along with many other religious liberty concerns, please contact the Seventh-day-Adventist-published Liberty Magazine at the address below. You may obtain a subscription to Liberty Magazine, Liberty Sentinel, or you may request other information from: