The Myth of Separation of Church and State

When discussing the concept of "Separation of Church and State", it must be stressed that both sides have in this debate have tended to overstate their case. The Conservative Christian must recognize that there is indeed a degree of "compartmentalizing" that is biblical. This is expressed in principle in the maxim that Jesus taught that one is to "render unto Caesar that which is Caesar's, but to God that which is God's". (Mark 12:17). The Founding Fathers recognized the inherent dangers when the cleric wielded the sword. On the other hand, they all certainly would have recoiled in horror at the idea that the Federal government would in any capacity be in the business of stomping out religious expression in the public or private sector. That, of course, is the state of affairs in our contemporary society. The First Amendment to the US Constitution reads as follows:

The phrase "separation of church and state" has become erroneously entangled with this Amendment in the mind of the public. The source of the phrase can be found in a private correspondence of Thomas Jefferson some 11 years after the ratification of the Amendment. He wrote this phrase, "thus building a wall of separation between church and State...." on January 1, 1802, in a private letter to the Danbury Baptist Association to assure them that the federal government could not and would not try to establish a national denomination. Jefferson was actually an ambassador in France during the time of the Constitutional Convention, so it is somewhat curious that his correspondence would be considered the authority on the First Amendment, rather than the associated writings of those who wrote the Amendment. Ironically, Jefferson himself confirms that even in his view, the so-called "separation" (ie. avoidance of established sectarianism) was binding on the Federal government, but not on states or local municipalities. He said unambiguously in his Second Inaugural Address in 1805 that:

It has been the habit of some civil liberty groups to make the argument that any toleration or allowance of religious expression in the public sector is tantamount to the "establishment" of religion. This is a logical fallacy, quite absurd upon examination. Just to demonstrate how foreign this would have been to the Founding Fathers, consider this fact: The same day Congress passed the First Amendment (Sept. 25, 1789); they approved a resolution requesting President George Washington to proclaim "...a day of public thanksgiving and prayer....". According to the ACLU interpretation of the First Amendment, all the lawmakers who ratified the First Amendment clearly did not know their own intent of the First Amendment.

In a similar vein, while President of the United States, Thomas Jefferson was also made president of the Washington, DC public school system in which he placed the Bible and the Isaac Watt's hymnal as the two primary reading texts. So apparently even Jefferson himself did not see the First Amendment as a mandate to divest the public sector of religious expression or sentiment.

In short, the First Amendment was simply a declaration that the Federal government would not establish a sectarian denomination as an official national church. They were all to familiar with the strife and bloodshed associated with the marriage of the crown of England to the Anglican church, and the centuries of problems and turmoil that were the result of that union. Madison's own notes of the debate over the First Amendment are as follows:

There are numerous examples of the Federal government's promotion of "religion" and "morality" in general as beneficial to the Republic, but the government stayed far away from defining it's terms so as to not allow one sect or denomination capitalize on governmental pronouncements. By remaining nonsectarian, the Federal government remained within the First Amendment parameters of not "establishing a religion" (i.e.. not declaring a particular denomination the "national" church.). A Presbyterian, Catholic, Baptist, or Freemason could find no offense in the declarations of days of prayer, or days of thanksgiving.

Is Religious Expression "Injurious" in a Pluralistic Society?

If we are to believe the ACLU's arguments, American society is different from that of our Founding Fathers, and religious expressions that were commonplace then are unacceptable today. What a disconcordant note ACLU lawyers must sound when they are arguing that the posting of the Ten Commandments in a public place is unconstitutional while the judges they are arguing before are sitting beneath a motif of Moses receiving them on Mt. Sinai! All though it is true that there is a larger diversity of belief in this country today, the Federal government is already far more divested of anything pertaining to "religion" than the Founding Fathers ever seem to have envisioned. The actual reason for that is because courts have swallowed the erroneous idea that a person's display of their faith can be somehow injurious to another. The rationale goes something like this:

1. Subject A has some type of visible emblem of their faith.

2. Subject B does not ascribe to that faith, and says that seeing that emblem causes them emotional stress, a diminishing of self-esteem, or otherwise mental anguish.

3. Therefore, Subject A must be forced by the courts to get rid of that visible emblem of their faith.

One can see quite quickly how this line of reasoning will ultimately end in having the government become a great Orwellian conformity machine, being obliged to reduce all expression in a bland plain vanilla that absolutely no one can say is offensive. Also keep in mind that it merely takes one individual to claim that they are harmed by another's religious expression to illicit a court decision that affects the other 270 million people in this country. In the recent infamous case of Dr. Michael Newdow in California, he succeeded in convincing the 9th Circuit Court that his daughter was somehow injured by the phrase "Under God" in the Pledge of Allegiance, and thus get the Pledge declared unconstitutional. Never mind the fact that his daughter is a Christian attending a Calvary Chapel church, willingly says the Pledge every day, and begged him not to pursue the case. Newdow is simply an activist with an agenda, and with one court decision, trampled the rights of tens of millions. Thus, "Pluralism" which the ACLU claims they are protecting, actually becomes the victim to the whim of the courts. It merely takes the claim (however unfounded it may be) of mental duress, or anguish. Would Thomas Jefferson ascribe to this idea? Would be argue that all mentionings of God must be obliterated by the Federal government because it may cause "injury"? He actually addressed that exact issue when discussing the disestablishing of the church in Virginia..