Separation Doctrine: “America shalt not worship.”
From 'The Raging War of Ideas' by Jason Jimenez; Re-Shift Ministries.
In 1830, upon arriving to North America from France, Alexis
de Tocqueville wrote, “The religious aspect of the country was the first thing
that struck my attention; and the longer I stayed there, the more I perceived
the great political consequences resulting from this new state of things. In
France I had almost always seen the spirit of religion and the spirit of
freedom marching in opposite directions. But in America I found they were
intimately united and that they reigned in common over the same country.”4 The
Constitution of North Carolina (1776) proclaims that: “…all men have a natural
and unalienable right to worship Almighty God according to the dictates of
their own consciences.”5
It is astonishing to think that despite all the evidence indicating
our nation was founded on Judeo-Christian truths, America continues to reject
the obvious. Many of the secular advancements to replace religious discussion
from the public square come from employing “separation of church and state” and
the First Amendment as legal principles penned by Jefferson. Secularists
(non-religious) want us to believe that Jefferson allegedly supported the idea
that there was no place for any religious reference among citizenry and that
religious disturbance was not to be tolerated in the public affairs of life.
They promote these false views and misrepresentation of the facts because they
want us to buy into the lie that America has always been a secular nation.
However, contrary to popular belief, what we actually find in history is quite
a different story regarding Jefferson’s viewpoints and the role Christianity
played in shaping America. With historical objectivity as our guide, let us
settle the truth about the “separation of church and state” once and for all.
Who Phrased the
Infamous Phrase?
In reference to the phrase “a wall of separation between
church and state,” we can indeed attribute that to Thomas Jefferson. However,
we must do so in the proper context. Jefferson was not the originator of this
phrase, but it was actually used as a famous metaphor by ministers in England
in the 1500s, and eventually in America in the 1600s. After periods of state
control and corruption of religion, an early Methodist bishop by the name of
Charles Galloway insisted that there ought not be any intrusion of governmental
matters with ecclesiastical ones. Rev. Richard Hooker was actually the first to
use the phrase, “separation of…Church and Commonwealth” under the reign of King
Henry VIII of England. The phrase “separation of church and state” originated
from the Pilgrims’ religious flight from England under the ecclesiastical
supremacy of Queen Elizabeth. The Pilgrims fled to Holland and eventually
settled in America where they stressed that government had no right to “compel
religion, to plant churches by power, and to force a submission to
ecclesiastical government by laws and penalties.”6 Therefore, the purpose of
separation was always to protect the church from interference by the government
– not to protect the government from the church.
What Did Our Founders
Believe?
The First Amendment is essentially divided up into two
clauses. The first being the Establishment Clause: “Congress shall make no law
respecting an establishment of religion;” and the second being the Free
Exercise Clause: “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.” What
exactly is the intended meaning of words like “establishment,” “religion,”
“prohibit,” and “free exercise?”
The Framers made it abundantly clear from the start that
Congress, not individual states, is limited in its capacity to establish,
exercise, and even disestablish a state-run religion. Additionally, the
Establishment Clause is the one that prohibits Congress from having
jurisdiction or enforcement over the religious freedoms expressed in public
life, and, it is the Free Exercise Clause that allows the state (i.e.,
Congress) to protect these religious freedoms and expressions. Historically
speaking, the view of that day was that the Church (religion) and State
(government) were two separate spheres but with adjoined purposes. Government
was to protect the civility for the people. Religion was to enhance the
morality and vitality of the people.
On July 13, 1787, the Continental Congress enacted the
Northwest Ordinance, and in it they prodigiously professed: “Religion, morality
and knowledge, being necessary to good government and the happiness of mankind,
schools and the means of education shall be forever encouraged.”7 Those in
attendance included George Washington, James Madison, Alexander Hamilton, and
Benjamin Franklin. These men are considered the most prominent figures in the
development of the U. S. Constitution and the ratification of the Bill of
Rights. George Washington was not only the President of the Convention which
created the U.S. Constitution, but he was also the President of the United
States who pushed for the creation of the Bill of Rights to enhance the
principles and protections of the liberties expressed in the U.S. Constitution.
We find no mentioning of a privatized faith of any sort in Washington’s
writings or addresses to the American people.
What Did Jefferson
Believe?
It’s important to point out that though Jefferson was the
architect of the Declaration of Independence, he was not a framer of the U.S.
Constitution.8 Jefferson was in France (acting as Ambassador) at the time of
the writing of the U.S. Constitution and the Bill of Rights. On June 19, 1802,
Jefferson wrote a letter in response to an article he had received from Dr.
Joseph Priestly who accredited the success of the U.S. Constitution to him.
Jefferson wrote:
One passage in the paper you
enclosed me must be corrected. It is the following, ‘And all say it was
yourself more than any other individual, that planned and established it,’ i.
e., the Constitution. I was in Europe when the Constitution was planned, and
never saw it till after it was established. 9
Upon Jefferson becoming President in 1801, many Baptists
were strong supporters of his Anti-Federalist positions and sought counsel from
the President. They did so based upon the reading of the Kentucky Resolution of
1798 whereby Jefferson declared his beliefs of interpreting the U.S.
Constitution:
That it is true as a general
principle, and is also expressly declared by one of the amendments to the
Constitutions, that “the powers not delegated to the United States by the
Constitution, our prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States
respectively, or to the people”; and that no power over the freedom of
religion, freedom of speech, or freedom of the press being delegated to the
United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, all
lawful powers respecting the same did of right remain, and were reserved to the
States or the people: that thus was manifested their determination to retain to
themselves the right of judging how far the licentiousness of speech and of the
press may be abridged without lessening their useful freedom, and how far those
abuses which cannot be separated from their use should be tolerated, rather
than the use be destroyed….10
According to this and other public remarks by Jefferson, the
Danbury Baptists knew the President opposed governmental control and
interference in religious matters of the church. In October 7, 1801, the
Danbury Baptist Association of Connecticut wrote to President Jefferson about
their concern that religious liberty is a God-given right, not a privilege
granted by the government. They realized that if the government granted such
religious freedoms to the people, then that would mean that it could, at any
given time, remove them. In response to the Danbury Baptists, Jefferson replied
on January 1, 1802:
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. Adhering to this expression of the supreme will of
the nation in behalf of the rights of conscience, I shall see with sincere
satisfaction the progress of those sentiments which tend to restore to man all
his natural rights, convinced he has no natural right in opposition to his
social duties [emphasis mine].11
On subsequent occasions, Jefferson articulated this same position
to others as he did to the Danbury Baptists. Jefferson wrote, “I consider the
government of the U.S. as interdicted by the constitution from intermeddling
with religious institutions, their doctrines, discipline, or exercises. This
results not only from the provision that no law shall be made respecting the
establishment, or free exercise of religion, but from that also which reserves
to the states the powers not delegated to the U.S.”12 John Adams agreed with
Jefferson, stating, “We have no government armed with power capable of
contending with human passions unbridled by morality and religion . . . Our
Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly
inadequate to the government of any other.”13 Jefferson and the Danbury Baptists
were simply addressing the dangers of the government’s marginalizing religious
freedoms, not the other way around.
Once again, it is perfectly clear that the
separation doctrine was a campaign of the church to remove government
oversight, not the government trying to remove the church from public life.
THE RAGING WAR OF IDEAS; Jason Jimenez (2012);
Xulon Press.
Notes & References
4 Alexis de Tocqueville, Henry Reeve, and John C. Spencer,
Democracy in America (New York: Allard and Saunders, 1838), 319.
5 “North Carolina Constitution of 1776,” Beliefnet, http://www.beliefnet.com/resourcelib/docs/169/North_Carolina_Constitution_of_1776_1.html
6 David Barton, The Jefferson Lies: Exposing the Myths You
Always Believed About Thomas Jefferson (Nashville: Thomas Nelson, 2012), 120.
7 “The Northwest Ordinance, Article III”, Northwest
Ordinance, http://www.northwestordinance.org/
8 Jefferson was not the architect of the First Amendment
(read the letter to Madison on December 20, 1787), and his letter using the phrase
“wall of separation” was written over ten years after the First Amendment was
ratified!
9 H. A. Washington, The Writings of Thomas Jefferson: Being
His Autobiography, Correspondence, Reports, Messages, Addresses, and Other
Writings, Official and Private, Pub. by the Order of the Joint Committee of
Congress on the Library, from the Original Manuscripts, Deposited in the
Department of State (Washington, D.C.: Taylor & Maury, 1853), 441.
10 “The Kentucky Resolutions of 1798,” Constitution Society,
last updated November 4, 2011, http://www.constitution.org/cons/kent1798.htm
11 “Amendment I (Religion), Document 58, Thomas Jefferson to
Danbury Baptist Association,” The Founder’s Constitution, http://www.presspubs.uchicago.edu/founders/documents/amendI_religions58.html
12 “Amendment I (Religion), Document 60, Thomas Jefferson to
Rev. Samuel Miller,” The Founder’s Constitution, http://www.press-pubs.uchicago.edu/founders/documents/amendI_religions60.html
13 “Message from John Adams to the Officers of the First
Brigade of the Third Division of the Militia of Massachusetts,” Beliefnet, http://www.beliefnet.com/resourcelib/docs/115/Message_from_John_Adams_to_the_Officers_of_the_First_Brigade_1.html
