Separation of Church and State

On the heels of our nation’s birthday, I have a history quiz for you. In which document do the words, “Separation of Church and State” (SOCAS) appear?
A. The Constitution
B. The Bill of Rights
C. The Declaration of Independence
D. Madalyn Murray O’Hare’s family cookbook (Oh wait, that’s the separation of “cheese and steak”)
The correct answer is E, “None of the above”. The first document believed to contain SOCAS is a letter from President Thomas Jefferson in 1802. Jefferson was responding to a letter from a group of Connecticut Baptists who were worried that because freedom of religion had been written into the laws and constitutions, the government might someday believe that it was okay to “regulate public religious activities.” The Baptists believed that freedom of religion was a God-given right, not a government-granted right. They didn’t want future governments to one day revoke freedom of religion. Jefferson agreed. He wrote back saying, “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 of,’ thus building a wall of separation between church and state.”
Jefferson was not alone in his stance on church and state. Remember he was pretty active in the founding of the USA going back to 1776 when he put his quill to work. Contrary to Lost Symbol author Dan Brown’s “history” books, many of the Fathers were bible-believing Christians. Religion was pretty dang important to those white-wigged-wearing politicians. I mean they didn’t wait to the 10th amendment to bring up God. They led off with Him.
And when it comes to the First Amendment, records show that in the discussions about the Almighty, the word “religion” was often interchanged with the word “denomination”. The beginning drafts of the First Amendment were written as, “Congress shall make no law establishing any particular denomination.” In those records the discussions revolved around curtailing what has been their experience under Great Britain, “the legal establishment by the national government of a single religious denomination in exclusion of all others.”
So in essence, the bricks of Jefferson’s wall were laid not to limit religious expressions, but to prevent the government from interfering with public or private religious activities. Times have changed, huh?
But change was slow. For nearly one hundred and fifty years, courts (including the Supreme one) often cited Jefferson’s letter and interpreted it to mean that the government couldn’t interfere with traditional religious practices such as public prayer or the use of Scriptures. Over time the courts outlined how and when the government could poke its fingers into religion. For example, the government could prohibit religious expressions that were “in violation of social duties or subversive of good order.” Things such as human sacrifice, incest, polygamy, or skipping Sunday services to stay home and watch football.
Then in 1947, the Supreme Court did an about-face and interpreted SOCAS “as requiring the federal government to remove religious expressions from the public arena.” Instead of limiting governmental interference, the First Amendment was now a limitation on religious expressions. In doing so, the Court did not cite Jefferson’s whole 1802 letter, his many other statements on the topic, or mention that earlier Court rulings used Jefferson’s phrase to preserve religious principles in public society.
In 1962 the Court went another step further and began redefining individual words of the SOCAS phrase. “Church” was no longer “federal denomination” but instead became, “public religious activity.” So, SOCAS became to mean that “public religious expressions must be kept separate from the public square”. Basically, those worrisome Connecticut Baptists were just a mere 160 years ahead of the game.
After the 1962 decision, the Court began removing religion from the schools. Many conservative folks will say that this is when our country and our educational system went to hell in a rolling backpack. I think the moral decline of our country was very subtle, happening over decades. Something occurred over time that shifted the heartbeat of the United States from God Bless America to America Ignores God. I wonder if it was the prosperity of the Industrial Revolution or the roar of the happy 1920s? Was it the agony of the Great Depression, or the atrocities of World War II? Was it a combination of everything? Maybe it’s just simply switching from putting God first to putting America first.
The good news is that the Courts are doing a 180 on their initial about-face. Two dozen states now mandate “abstinence-only” teaching in schools. The Supreme Court has now made it okay to have evangelism, prayer, and Bible clubs on public school campuses. “It’s permissible to show films that present family values from a religious perspective, pay for some student religious publications with school funds, and teach the Bible for credit. Furthermore, there are new laws that prohibit the content-based censorship of American history due to religious references found in certain historical documents ranging from the Mayflower Compact to Lincoln’s Second Inaugural Address.”
God said in II Chronicles 7:14, “If my people, who are called by my name, will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then will I hear from heaven and will forgive their sin and will heal their land.” Lord knows America needs some healing. I’m sure it’ll be tough to get a country of 300 million people to buy into II Chronicles 7:14. But maybe 300 million don’t have to. Maybe if more of the 600 or so non-wig-wearing big wigs in Washington D.C. gave a more concerted thought to the spiritual ideas of the Framers, America might just stand a chance.

(Quoted material above is from David Barton’s book, Separation of Church and State, What the Founders Meant.)