Separation of Church & State
By Chris Van Buskirk

If ever there was a subject guaranteed to bring forth a range of opinions and ideas it is the ever-touchy topic of "Separation of Church & State." So many people have heard that phrase for so long that they have come to believe the words are actually enshrined in the constitution. "I know its there," they say, "somewhere right after 'We The People...' Isn't it?"

No it is not. Nowhere in the Constitution, nor in the 27 amendments to the Constitution, nor in any law passed by Congress do the words exist. So where did they come from?

The first amendment actually says, "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances."

The foundation for this amendment lay in the prevailing opinion in 1789 that religion needed to be protected from government, not the other way around. The systematic persecution of Puritans by King James, the Thirty Years War which was fought over religion in Germany, and even the persecution of Baptists, Quakers and other sects in the colonies, would still have been relatively fresh in their minds. These events would not have been ancient history to our founding fathers, but current events.

And so men like George Mason and Patrick Henry insisted that Congress add the Bill of Rights, and Mason practically wrote them. Mason and Henry also wrote the Virginia Bill of Rights. Patrick Henry wrote Article 16, which states, "That religion, or the Duty which we Owe our Creator, and the manner of discharging it, can be directed only by Reason and Convictions, not by Force or Violence; and therefore all men are equally entitled to the free exercise of Religion, according to the Dictates of Conscience; and that it is the mutual duty of all to practice Christian Forbearance, Love, and Charity towards each other."

When Thomas Jefferson was elected President in 1800, a group of Baptists in Connecticut wrote him a letter. They were very concerned that the Congregationalist Church would become the official church of the state. In his reply, Jefferson wrote, "Religion is a matter which lies solely between man and his God, that he owes account to none other for his faith or his worship, that the legislative 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."

Ahah, there's those words. But Jefferson, though President at the time, was writing a personal letter. He was not a delegate to the Constitutional Convention. He wasn't even in the country when the Constitution was being debated. And indeed, in his letter back to the Baptists, he committed a serious breech of political correctness and told them, "I reciprocate your kind prayers for the protection and blessing of the common Father and Creator of man." On the very day Jefferson sent his letter to the Danbury Baptists he was making plans to attend church services in the House of Representatives.

For 150 years the words lay in the dustbin of history. On the contrary, the Supreme Court stated in Church of the Holy Trinity v. United States, "These, and many other maters which might be noticed, add a volume of unofficial declarations to the mass of organic utterances that this is a Christian nation…" But alas, the Supreme Court can reverse itself. Fortunately in the case of Dred Scott, unfortunately in the 1947 case of Everson v. Board of Education, "The First Amendment has erected a wall between church and state. That wall must be kept high and impregnable. We could not approve the slightest breach." Ironically in this case, they found no breach; the New Jersey statute permitting the state to reimburse parents for the expense of busing their children to and from private, including parochial, schools was upheld.

What was breached was a perception. The Supreme Court in effect, ignored a century and a half of precedent, and reached back to a quote that wasn't even a court case, and overturned the clear intent of the Founding Fathers. And then the floodgate was opened; leading to, but not ending with Madeline Murray O'Hare's famous case removing prayer form public schools. The hall of shame continued with the court's ruling in the case of Abignton v. Scheck: "If portions of the New Testament were read without explanation, they could be, and have been, psychology damaging to the child." In another case, Stone v. Graham, the Supreme Court ruled, "If the posted copies of the ten commandments are to have any effect at all, it would be to induce the students to read, meditate on, perhaps to venerate and obey the Ten Commandments. This is not an acceptable objective."

One can just imagine the satraps and presidents of Babylon making the same argument, "It is an unacceptable objective for citizens of this great empire to pray to anyone except the King. They might venerate and obey the Ten Commandments, which is a foreign law. We simply can't have that sort of treason. It goes against our tradition. It might damage the children. Therefore make a law and decree that anyone who violates this will be thrown to the lions." Darius went along with this idea and the rest is history. It remains to be seen how God will write our history if we continue on this path.

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