“... a wall of separation between church and state...”

Eight words.   And yet, lifted out of the context in which they were written and divested of their true intent, they have produced a litany of court cases and rulings over the years which make a sad mockery of the intelligence which founded this country.  Consider the following:

• It is unconstitutional for a war memorial to be erected in the shape of a cross.  LOWE v. CITY OF EUGENE, 1969

• It is unconstitutional for a classroom library to contain books which deal with Christianity, or for a teacher to be seen with a personal copy of the Bible at school.  ROBERTS v. MADIGAN, 1990

• It is unconstitutional for school officials to be publicly praised or recognized in an open community meeting if that meeting is sponsored by a religious group.  JANE DOE v. SANTA FE INDEPENDENT SCHOOL DISTRICT, 1995

• It is unconstitutional for a kindergarten class to ask whose birthday is celebrated by Christmas.  FLOREY v. SIOUX FALLS SCHOOL DISTRICT, 1979

• Because a prosecuting attorney mentioned seven words from the Bible in the courtroom - a statement which lasted less than five seconds - a jury sentence was overturned for a man convicted of brutally clubbing a 71-year-old woman to death.  COMMONWEALTH v. CHAMBERS, 1991

• In a high-school class in Dickson, Tennessee, students were required to write a research paper.  Some students wrote about reincarnation, witchcraft, and the occult, but because Brittney Settles wrote her paper about the life of Jesus Christ, she was given a zero by her  teacher. SETTLE v. DICKSON COUNTY, 1995

• Though customized license plates are paid for by individual citizens, Oregon refused to 

print “PRAY”, Virginia refused to print “GOD 4 US,” and Utah refused to print “THANK GOD,” claiming that such customized license plates violated the “separation of church and state.”  IVERSON v. FORBES, 1993

As you can see from the cases above (and there are thousands more like them), the target has become more than just prayer or Bible reading in schools.  Indeed, it seems that even secular subjects, if offered by anyone associated with Christianity, cannot be allowed:

• A high ranking official from the national drug czar’s office who regularly conducts public school anti-drug rallies was prohibited from doing so in Nacogdoches, Texas.  The federal judge ruled that even though the speaker was an anti-drug expert, he was also known as a Christian minister and thus was disqualified from delivering a secular anti-drug message.  ALEXANDER v. NACOGDOCHES SCHOOL DISTRICT, 1991

Thomas Jefferson could never have foreseen that his words in a private letter would become the basis for a national policy aimed at removing the Christian heritage of our nation.   Had he known, I believe he never would have written them.   So, why did he write them?  If he didn’t intend the eradication of religious freedoms from society, why did he write about there being a “great wall of separation between church and state”?  I’ll tell you why.  Freedom.  Huh?  That’s right.  Freedom.  Only, not freedom FROM religion as today’s courts would have us believe, but the freedom OF religion.  Big difference. 

Thomas Jefferson used the phrase, not as a statement of United States public policy, but as a metaphor in a personal and private letter to the Danbury Baptist Association twelve years after the ratification of the First Amendment.  The Danbury Baptists had grown concerned over a rumor that the Congregationalist denomination was going to be made the “national” religion (denomination).   They forwarded a  letter to Thomas Jefferson and on January 1, 1802, Jefferson wrote back to them ensuring them that such was not the case:

“…Believing with you that religion is a matter which lies solely between a 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…”

What did he mean?  The context and circumstances of the letter prove that Jefferson understood the founders to be prohibiting Congress from setting up one particular denomination as a national denomination.  It was the focus of the letter he received and thus it was the intent of his letter.   He in no way imagined the eradication of religious liberty nor the limiting of religious expression.  Such is born out by his comment that “legislative powers of the government reach actions only, and not opinions…”  Jefferson meant for government interference to take place in religious matters ONLY when religious ACTIONS became “subversive of good order.”  Early courts understood this and ruled accordingly. 

In a ruling in the 1878 case Reynolds v. United States, the Supreme Court quoted a large portion of Jefferson’s letter and then stated:

“Coming as this does from an acknowledged leader of the advocates of the measure, it [Jefferson’s letter] may be accepted almost as an authoritative declaration of the scope and effect of the Amendment thus secured.  Congress was deprived of all legislative power over mere [religious] opinion, but was left free to reach actions which were in violation of social duties or subversive of good order.”

The Supreme Court then summarized what they believed to be Jefferson’s intent in declaring a “separation between church and state”:

“The rightful purposes of civil government are for its officers to interfere [only] when [religious] principles break out into overt acts against peace and good order.  In th[is]…is found the true distinction between what  properly belongs to the church and what to the State.”

That Court, and others, identified actions which - if perpetrated in the name of religion - allowed the government to interfere:  human sacrifice, incest, injury to children, advocating and promoting immorality, etc.  But, in orthodox religious practices and religious expression (i.e. public prayer, the use of the Scriptures, etc.) - the government was not to interfere.  Clearly, Jefferson wanted the Danbury Baptists to know that the government’s power to interfere in religious matters was severely limited by the Constitution.  In short, the Constitution protects religion from the government, NOT government from religion as is erroneously supposed.  This was common knowledge and upheld in public opinion and in open court from the time Jefferson wrote to the middle of the twentieth century.   When writing for the Kentucky Resolution in 1798, Jefferson wrote:

“No power over the freedom of religion…is delegated to the United States by the Constitution.”

In the news recently, surrounding the nomination of Supreme Court justices, we have heard much about a little Latin phrase:  stare decisis.  It means “let the decision stand” and is central to the issue of precedent, reminding courts to weigh heavily past courts’ rulings on a matter.  Early courts in our country’s history upheld the precedent established by earlier courts that the First Amendment was meant to protect religion from government intervention and not vice versa.  But, in 1947, breaking from the precedent set by 150 years of Supreme Court history, the Court took Jefferson’s words, lifted them out of context, and used them to imply a hostility between government and religion which previously had never existed:

“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.”  EVERSON v. BOARD OF EDUCATION, 1947

The die was set.  Suddenly, having no prior precedent, the Supreme Court - and numerous lower courts - began striking down religious activities and expressions, which had been constitutional for the previous 150 years using no greater authority than someone’s private mail.

Revisit the sampling of court cases at the beginning of this article.  For all of the talk about the  “zealousness” of the “religious right”, never have I seen a more staggering example of “zealousness” than by those who are seeking to remove from our society all evidence of religion and morality which, as George Washington put it, “are indispensable supports” to a free people and to the health and prosperity of a nation.

Yet, the courts of today would have us believe that Jefferson intended the removing of all evidence of religious history from our nation’s monuments; that he intended the principles of Christianity to be removed from our schools; that precious historical documents from the Founders should be withheld from our children simply because they contain references to Deity.  They would have us believe that Thomas Jefferson and the other Founders intended child pornography to be protected by the Constitution under the banner of free speech; but that children should not be allowed to carry a Bible to school and read it at recess or be “tormented” by the phrase ‘under God’ in a pledge to their country.  It’s happening in this country.

Thomas Jefferson, like George Washington, knew that the anchor of our liberties rested, ultimately, not in the shifting sands of human government or political opinion but in a much more secure place:

“God who gave us life gave us liberty.  And can the liberties of a nation be thought secure when we have removed their only firm basis, a conviction in the minds of the people that these liberties are of the Gift of God?  That they are not to be violated but with His wrath?  Indeed, I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just; that His justice cannot sleep forever.”