My Brother Erik on: Separation of Church vs. State, Part I

One of the most disturbing trends of the last 70 years in America has been the eradication of this nation’s Judeo Christian principles and influences from all walks of government and even general society.

Groups like the American Civil Liberties Union and Americans United for Separation of Church and State has attempted to create an environment in which government and religion are enemies.

Their favorite phrase that they and their friends in the liberal mainstream media keep trumpeting over and over has been "separation of church and state."  They have touted the phrase so many times that most people believe the phrase is in the Constitution. Nowhere is "separation of church and state" referenced in the Constitution.

In 1947 the Supreme Court popularized Thomas Jefferson's "wall of separation between church and state."  Taking the Jefferson metaphor out of context, these groups have often used the phrase to silence Christians and to limit any Christian influence from affecting the political system.

The obvious first problem with the above assertion is that this quote, “wall of separation between church and state”, is not from an official government document.  It was in a letter from Jefferson to the Danbury Baptist Association.

The Danbury Baptists sent a congratulatory letter to Thomas Jefferson upon his election as President in 1801.  The Danbury Baptists was alliance of churches in Western Connecticut. The Baptists were a religious minority in the state of Connecticut where Congregationalism was the established church. 

In a nutshell, the Danbury Baptists expressed concern in their letter to President Jefferson that the Federal Government would establish one religion for all the states. 

Jefferson, in a draft of his letter to the Danbury Baptists stated “Believing with you that religion is a matter which lies solely between man & his God, that he owes account to none other for his faith or his worship, that legitimate powers of government reach actions only and not opinions, I contemplate with sovereign reverence that act of the whole American people which declared that their legislature should make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; thus building a wall of separation between church and state.”

It is clear as one read’s Jefferson’s letter in its entirety that it was Jefferson's original intent that "wall of separation between church and state" meant that the church was to be protected from the government, not the reverse. 

Next week, I will discuss the true purpose of the First Amendment that our nation’s Founding Fathers wrote in the United States Constitution.