Separation of Church and State
Posted in Journal on Apr 21st, 2015 Comments Off on Separation of Church and State
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.
– First Amendment to the Constitution of The United States of America
Over the last few decades, our United States Supreme Court and the mainstream media have done an excellent job of presenting certain things as “facts”, while in reality, they have very little to do with Truth. One of the myths they have successfully perpetrated is the theory that separation of Church and State is a time – honored principle, passed down from the authors and signers of the Constitution, and upheld throughout America’s history. They also espouse the belief that the First Amendment was created to keep anything religious out of Government.
Nothing could be further from the truth.
The First Amendment was added to the Constitution in the Bill of Rights. It was intended to keep government from establishing a national religion, not to stamp out every manifestation of religion in anything the government has jurisdiction over.
Let’s take a look at the actual history of the First Amendment, and see if we can determine what purpose our Founding Fathers intended it to serve.
When the Continental Congress was attempting to convince the 13 colonies to ratify the Constitution, many of the colonies were upset that there were no provisions in the new document to protect their rights, and several of them would only ratify it on the condition that a Bill of Rights would be added later, which the advocates of the Constitution agreed to.
Out of the 11 colonies that ratified the Constitution in 1789 (minus the Bill of Rights), 5 proposed an amendment that would protect their religious freedom. So when the Bill of Rights was proposed, it was offered as one of the first important amendments.
Ironically, the most widespread argument against the adoption of the First Amendment was that the new government had such limited power that it would have no chance to violate individual liberties.
During the first drafts, the language changed several times. One of the drafts read “All men have an equal, natural, and unalienable right to the free exercise of religion, according to the dictates of conscience; and that no particular sect or society of Christians ought to be favored or established by law in preference to others.” They were assuming that there would be Christianity, but didn’t want the government to institutionalize one denomination over another.
At one point, James Madison wanted to change the language to read “. . . nor shall any national religion be established. . .”. Representative Gerry opposed this because during the struggle to ratify the Constitution, it was made very clear that the government being established was NOT a national government, it was a federal government.
The Senate proposed a version that read “Congress shall make no law establishing articles of faith or a mode of worship, or prohibiting the free exercise of religion.” Eventually, Fisher Ames came up with the language we are all now familiar with, and it was passed into law.
As we can clearly see throughout the process that they went through to agree on the language of the First Amendment, the object they were trying to achieve was to keep the government from establishing a national religion, and from interfering with anyone’s practice of religion.
Our culture has been so brainwashed that it is commonly believed that the catch-phrase, “separation of Church and State” was included in the Constitution. It is not. Some people believe it is in the Bill of Rights. However, it’s not there either. It does not occur in any major founding document. It wasn’t even in existence until on January 1, 1802, Thomas Jefferson used it in a short letter of courtesy to the Danbury Baptist Association.
And the phrase was not given wide-spread recognition or credence until 1947, when the Supreme Court misconstrued Jefferson’s letter in Everson v. Board of Education…
In recent times, since 1947, the Supreme Court of the United States has rested much, if not most of their opposition to religion on Thomas Jefferson. How much weight should we give that?
Jefferson did not author or sign the Constitution. He was in France at the time it was written, and didn’t even see the document until after it was established. After he saw a copy, he sent a letter requesting a Bill of Rights be added. That is all the influence he had on our Constitution.
Placing a whole theory on a phrase written in a short letter written by a man that had very little or nothing to do with the First Amendment is a frightening practice, and will hardly be adhered to by anyone who takes the time to look at the facts.
If our founding fathers intended to totally eradicate religion from government, as the modern Supreme Court would have us believe, how do we explain these facts:
On April 7, 1789, the United States Senate appointed a committee to decide the manner of electing chaplains. On April 9, 1789, the House appointed a committee for the same purpose. The Senate elected its first chaplain on April 25, 1789; the House did the same on May 1, 1789.
I hardly think that if our forefathers’ intentions were to outlaw any religion in government they would have appointed chaplains BEFORE the First Amendment was even in existence.
Interestingly enough, on September 25, 1789, three days after Congress sanctioned the appointment of paid chaplains, they also decided on the final wording of the Bill of Rights. Also on September 25, 1789, the House resolved to ask the President to set a day aside for a national Thanksgiving.
Fisher Ames, the gentleman who produced the final wording for the First Amendment, said that he believed the Bible should be the primary textbook in all schools.
James Wilson, the second most predominant member of the Constitutional Convention (he spoke 168 times!), and an original Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court, asserted, “Human law must rest its authority ultimately upon the authority of that law which is divine….Far from being rivals or enemies, religion and law are twin sisters, friends, and mutual assistants. Indeed, these two sciences run into each other.”
George Washington warns in his Farewell Address, “Of all the dispositions and habits, which lead to political prosperity, Religion, and Morality are indispensable supports. . . And let us with caution indulge the supposition, that morality can be maintained without religion. . . reason and experience both forbid us to expect, that national morality can prevail in exclusion of religious principle.”
I believe it is safe to conclude from historical evidence that our founding fathers’ intentions were not to exclude any expression of religion from government. Rather, they were attempting to protect the people’s freedom to worship in whatever denomination they chose, rather than the government telling them how they had to do it.
Let us try to encourage our Nation to return to the truths that it was founded upon, and help create more public awareness of our early statesmen’s original intentions.
