Separation Of Church And State
Open your Bible to Hezekiah 7:14 and you will read the well-known and oft quoted verse, “Heaven helps those who help themselves.” Ok, the fact of the matter is that verse, although often quoted, is not in the Bible. The book of Hezekiah is not in the Bible either, in case you were wondering! My point is, no matter how hard you look in the Bible you will not find that quote despite the popular belief that it is a biblical quote.
There is a similar belief about the well-known and oft quoted phrase, “the separation of church and state.” Popular belief is that this phrase is in the Constitution. The fact of the matter is the phrase is not in the Constitution or the Declaration of Independence. (Maybe it’s in Hezekiah 7:15!)
While he was President, Thomas Jefferson received a letter from the Danbury Baptist Association in Connecticut. They wrote their letter on October 7, 1801 (ten years after the First Amendment had been ratified) because of their concern with Connecticut’s history of a state church. Historically, Connecticut’s official state church had taken action against Connecticut Baptists such as taxation and imprisonment. As an example of the persecution the Connecticut Baptists had suffered, the following happened in 1744: “…fourteen persons were arrested for holding a Baptist meeting, . . . tried, fined, and driven on foot through a deep mud (in February) to New London, a distance of twenty-five miles, and thrust into prison, without fire, food, or beds, where they remained, enduring dreadful sufferings, for several weeks.” (The Baptists Encyclopedia, 1881)
It was this historical background that prompted the Danbury Baptist Association to write to President Jefferson concerning their fears of a state or even a federal church. They wrote in part, “Our sentiments are uniformly on the side of religious liberty: that Religion is at all times and places a matter between God and individuals, that no man ought to suffer in name, person, or effects on account of his religious opinions, [and] that the legitimate power of civil government extends no further than to punish the man who works ill to his neighbor. But sir, our constitution of government is not specific. Our ancient charter, together with the laws made coincident therewith, were adapted as the basis of our government at the time of our revolution. And such has been our laws and usages, and such still are, [so] that Religion is considered as the first object of Legislation, and therefore what religious privileges we enjoy (as a minor part of the State) we enjoy as favors granted, and not as inalienable rights. And these favors we receive at the expense of such degrading acknowledgments, as are inconsistent with the rights of freemen. It is not to be wondered at therefore, if those who seek after power and gain, under the pretense of government and Religion, should reproach their fellow men, [or] should reproach their Chief Magistrate, as an enemy of religion, law, and good order, because he will not, dares not, assume the prerogative of Jehovah and make laws to govern the Kingdom of Christ.”
Jefferson responded on January 1, 1802 and his letter stated, “Believing with you that 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 would “make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof,” thus building a wall of separation between Church and State.” And there you have it, the phrase “separation of church and state.”
Even more interesting is Jefferson’s original draft of his letter. The original draft, which was not sent, showed Jefferson clearly stating that as President he would not preside as leader over a state church. Jefferson wrote, “I have refrained from prescribing even those occasional performances of devotion, practiced indeed by the Executive of another nation as the legal head of its church, but subject here [in America], as religious exercises only to the voluntary regulations and discipline of each respective sect…” In other words, the President of the United States is not a religious leader or head of a state church.
I hope this has put the “separation of church and state” phrase in its proper perspective. It is not in the Constitution or Declaration of Independence. It was merely one phrase in a letter from President Jefferson trying to assure a group of Connecticut Baptists that the US would not have a state church. Additionally, Jefferson’s response upholds the traditional and true intent of our First Amendment that our government will not establish a state religion and guarantees Americans the freedom to worship God.
Cross-posted at The Conservative Voice
Thomas Jefferson
February 28th, 2009 at 9:35 am #
I agree with you here. When the First Amendment was created it was not meant to create a separation of church and state. That kind of separation does not exist in this country, and I will stand against any law that tries to create one.
Barbara Patterson
March 25th, 2009 at 12:47 pm #
This country was founded on church before there was it’s own government. Whether some like it or not, that is how our Ancestors meant it to be.
How many people now days have read the Constitiution? They don’t even teach government in school anymore. So that makes many people unknowledgeable of what our government can and cannot do. Our Ancestors had the forsight to write it that way because they knew that men were greedy and would seek to gain and cause a dictatorship. It’s all right there for everyone to read and to try to rewrite it is complelely stupid.
Doug Indeap
May 12th, 2009 at 12:16 am #
The phrase “separation of church and state” is but a metaphor to describe the underlying principle of the no-establishment-of-religion and free-exercise-of-religion clauses of the First Amendment and the no-religious-test-for-public-office clause of the Constitution. The absence of the phrase in the text of the Constitution assumes much importance, it seems, only to those who may have once labored under the misimpression the words appeared there and later learned of their mistake. To those familiar with the Constitution, the absence of the metaphor commonly used to describe one of its principles is inconsequential–no more consequential than the absence of other phrases (e.g., Bill of Rights, separation of powers, checks and balances, fair trial, religious liberty) used to describe other undoubted Constitutional principles.
The legislative history of the First Amendment belies the narrow scope you would give it. The first Congress debated and rejected just such a narrow provision, and the courts have wisely interpreted the Amendment to restrict the government from taking steps that could establish religion de facto as well as de jure. Were Congress precluded only from formally establishing a national church, the intent of the Amendment could easily be circumvented by doing all sorts of things to promote this or that religion–stopping just short of formally establishing a church.
The First Amendment thus embodies the simple, just idea that each of us should be free to exercise his or her religious views without expecting that the government will endorse or promote those views and without fearing that the government will endorse or promote the religious views of others.
Reasonable people may differ, of course, on how these principles should be applied in particular situations, but the principles are hardly to be doubted. Moreover, they are good, sound principles that should be nurtured and defended, not attacked. Efforts to transform our secular government into some form of religion-government partnership should be resisted by every patriot.
Robert Steward
May 13th, 2009 at 7:12 pm #
Wow Doug that was deep! It also was the biggest and fanciest piece of manure I have ever read. Reasonable people will disagree and we invented lawyers just to have someone like you babble on endlessly and arrive nowhere. The discussion I beleive was that the idea of any seperation of Church and state never existed. To somehow arrive at the belief that our forefathers purposely never alluded to a Government Religion, meant they beleived that and wanted a Government by the People and for the people to be segregated from their religious beliefs by a secular government can only be derrived by a mind bent on secularism.
Truly anyone who would approach this in the manner of investigation would have to arrive at the conclusion that are founding fathers meant our Government to govern from the seat of and the basic principals of a Christian God. Now you are laughing and ask where do I come up with that. The evidence is smattered (I like that word) all over the founding fathers documents to include Jefferson’s which was only misconstrued by secularist like yourself to beleive he was saying that the Government should remove religion as it’s anchor. In fact Jefferson was saying the opposite if you delve past the statement of “seperation of church and state”, and read the the letter, he was clearly trying to relieve a religious group of any fears of our government adopting one religion and in no way was saying anything else.
The good thing about this country is that you get to disagree. The bad thing about this country is that you choose to.
Doug Indeap
May 16th, 2009 at 1:27 am #
Robert,
You’ve shifted the subject a bit–to whether the United States was founded as a secular government. The answer is clear that it was, as is evident from the Constitution which says nothing substantive of god or religion except in the First Amendment where the point is to confirm that each person enjoys religious liberty and that the government is not to do anything to establish an official religion and another provision precluding any religious test for public office.
To be sure, as you observed, some of those who drafted the founding documents professed their belief in a god, some specifically the Christian god. So what? Others among the drafters did not profess, or denied, any such belief. In any event, they drafted documents plainly founding the government on the power of the people (not a deity).
Lest there be any doubt, shortly after the founding, President George Washington (a founder) drafted and President John Adams (a founder) signed, with the unanimous consent of the Senate (comprised in large measure of founders), the Treaty of Tripoli declaring, in pertinent part, “the Government of the United States of America is not, in any sense, founded on the Christian religion.” This is not an informal comment by an individual founder, but rather an official declaration of the most solemn sort by the United States government itself. Note too that the Constitution provides that treaties, apart from the Constitution itself, are the highest law of the land—higher even than statutes. Appeals, no matter how earnestly or often repeated, to unofficial, informal comments by individual founders do not, indeed cannot, trump the plain import of legal declarations such as those in the Constitution and Treaty of Tripoli.
Back to separation of church and state. Contrary to your supposition, it is entirely understandable that religious founders would intend such a separation because they understood that free exercise of religion depends, in part anyway, on prohibiting the government from promoting or otherwise taking steps toward establishing religion. The plain fear is that in promoting a religion, the government will impair peoples’ free exercise of other religions. To avoid that, the First Amendment precludes government from weighing in and taking sides, i.e., take steps toward establishing religion.
Those attacking the principle of separation of church and state do so, it appears, because (1) they are highly motivated to promote their particular religion and (2) they think they have the political clout to bend the government to help them in the endeavor. Apart from how this would impair the religious liberty of others and how it would undercut the legitimacy of the government in the eyes of all those not of the privileged religion, there’s another practical reason for the attackers to rethink their view: The reality is that today the population of the country is much more religiously diverse than at any time in the past and the trend is that it is becoming more so. Even if we allowed religions to have at the government, the adherents of any particular religion, even the largest Christian sects, can’t be too sure they could capture and keep it.
Kelly W. Patterson
May 24th, 2009 at 11:48 pm #
There are plenty of quotes by Jefferson about the many reasons that government shouldn’t be dictating religious beliefs. A couple that are particularly relevant: