Fascinating Facts with Matt

Separation – that’s a good thing right? February 10, 2010

The phrase ‘separation of Church and State’ is not found in the United States Declaration of Independence, nor is it found in the Constitution, Bill of Rights, any Constitutional Amendments or even in the Federalist Papers. The phrase comes from a personal letter written by then-President Thomas Jefferson shortly after he was elected. The Baptist Association of Danbury in Connecticut had written President Jefferson to congratulate him on his election, and to also raise their concerns about the phrasing of ‘free exercise of religion’ in the Constitution. They believed that this phrasing implied that the people’s right to individual and corporate religious expression was granted by the government (alienable right) rather than noted by the Constitution as a God-given right (inalienable right). Their concerns were shared by Jefferson. He was of the opinion that if a centralist government with a particular religious disposition were to be elected, they could potentially have the right to curtail the ‘free exercise of religion’.

In President Jefferson’s written response to the Baptist Association of Danbury, he states:

“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 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.”

The separation of Church and State was only ever meant as a way of protecting the Church from persecution or regulation by the State. It wasn’t until 1947 that the Supreme Court of the United States took that phrase from Thomas Jefferson’s letter out of context and used it to justify the removal of prayer from schools and other public forms of religious expression.

Separation of Church and State was meant to be a good thing but has been horribly twisted to fulfill another agenda. Fact.