Did the Founding Fathers Support a Separation of Church and State?

“Although the words ‘separation of church and state’ do not appear in the First Amendment, the establishment clause was intended to separate church from state. When the First Amendment was adopted in 1791, the establishment clause applied only to the federal government, prohibiting the federal government from any involvement in religion. By 1833, all states had disestablished religion from government, providing protections for religious liberty in state constitutions. In the 20th century, the U.S. Supreme Court applied the establishment clause to the states through the 14th Amendment. Today, the establishment clause prohibits all levels of government from either advancing or inhibiting religion.

The establishment clause separates church from state, but not religion from politics or public life. Individual citizens are free to bring their religious convictions into the public arena. But the government is prohibited from favoring one religious view over another or even favoring religion over non-religion.

Our nation’s founders disagreed about the exact meaning of “no establishment” under the First Amendment; the argument continues to this day. But there was and is widespread agreement that preventing government from interfering with religion is an essential principle of religious liberty. All of the Framers understood that “no establishment” meant no national church and no government involvement in religion. Thomas Jefferson and James Madison believed that without separating church from state, there could be no real religious freedom.”

“Because the words ‘separation of church and state’ do not appear in the Constitution, the argument runs, the document provides for merger of the two.

It’s bosh: ahistorical, untextual, illogical.

Patriots like Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, and James Madison were profoundly skeptical about the claims of what they called “revealed religion.” As children of the 18th-century Enlightenment, they stressed reason and scientific observation as a means of discovering the nature of “Providence,” the power that had created the world. Jefferson, for example, took a pair of scissors to the Christian New Testament and cut out every passage that suggested a divine origin and mission for Jesus…

The words “separation of church and state” are not in the text; the idea of separation is. Article VI provides that all state and federal officials “shall be bound by oath or affirmation, to support this Constitution; but no religious test shall ever be required as a qualification to any office or public trust under the United States.” The First Amendment’s Establishment Clause (which Christine O’Donnell had apparently not read) provides that “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion”–meaning that not only no church but no “religion” could be made the official faith of the United States. Finally the Free Exercise Clause provides that Congress shall not make laws “prohibiting the free exercise” of religion. (These prohibitions were extended to state governments by the Fourteenth Amendment, whose framers in 1866 wanted to make sure that the states maintained free, democratic systems instead of the old antebellum slave oligarchies that spawned the Civil War.)

If government can’t require its officials to support a church; may not support a church itself; and may not interfere with the worship or belief of any church, is there a serious argument that church and state are not separate?”

“The words ‘separation of church and state’ are not in the Constitution… I think this is a shorthand version of what the establishment clause means.. [The phrase, separation of church and state] does have a deep history because there were, in the 18th century, prominent writers who openly advocated for a union between church and state. There’s actually a famous essay by one of the Bishops in the Church of England by that very title… And, our framers did not did not believe in a union between church and state… This did not mean that the framers believed that the American people should be any less religious than they choose to be…It didn’t mean that the culture — that there was anything wrong with having religious elements in the culture. What it meant is that we would not have a system in which the government was able to tell us what to believe, was able to control churches, decide what their doctrines, decide who their personnel would be, and so forth.”

“Recognizing the unique and intimate nature of religion, the Founding Fathers wisely put religion on a different footing in the U.S. Constitution’s First Amendment from other forms of speech and observance – mandating strict separation of religion and government to ensure religious freedom for all individuals and faiths. Largely because of the First Amendment’s prohibition against government regulation or endorsement of religion, diverse faiths have flourished and thrived in America since the founding of the republic.

Some claim that the First Amendment’s Establishment Clause does not really require separation of religion and government because the phrase ‘separation of church and state’ does not appear in the First Amendment. And others go farther – claiming that the Constitution and our nation’s government are based on a particular faith or religious beliefs.

Both claims are false. While it is true that the words ‘separation of church and state’ do not appear in the Constitution, the writings of key Founding Fathers, other documents from the period, and statements by subsequent U.S. Presidents demonstrate that our government is not based on any religion, and the founders intended a separation of church and state to ensure religious freedom.”

“James Madison, the father of both the Constitution and the First Amendment, consistently warned against any attempt to blend endorsement of Christianity into the law of the new nation…

The words ‘separation of church and state’ are not in the text; the idea of separation is. Article VI provides that all state and federal officials ‘shall be bound by oath or affirmation, to support this Constitution; but no religious test shall ever be required as a qualification to any office or public trust under the United States.’ The First Amendment’s Establishment Clause… provides that ‘Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion’–meaning that not only no church but no ‘religion’ could be made the official faith of the United States. Finally the Free Exercise Clause provides that Congress shall not make laws ‘prohibiting the free exercise’ of religion…

If government can’t require its officials to support a church; may not support a church itself; and may not interfere with the worship or belief of any church, is there a serious argument that church and state are not separate?”

“The ‘establishment of religion’ clause of the First Amendment means at least this: Neither a state nor the Federal Government can set up a church. Neither can pass laws which aid one religion, aid all religions, or prefer one religion over another. Neither can force nor influence a person to go to or to remain away from church against his will or force him to profess a belief or disbelief in any religion. No person can be punished for entertaining or professing religious beliefs or disbeliefs, for church attendance or non-attendance. No tax in any amount, large or small, can be levied to support any religious activities or institutions, whatever they may be called, or whatever form they may adopt to teach or practice religion. Neither a state nor the Federal Government can, openly or secretly, participate in the affairs of any religious organizations or groups and vice versa. In the words of Jefferson, the clause against establishment of religion by law was intended to erect ‘a wall of separation between church and State.'”

Feb. 10, 1947 - Everson v. Board of Education

“The justice’s [Antonin Scalia’s] impassioned dissent in McCreary County v. the American Civil Liberties Union of Kentucky is a revealing portrait of the historical revisionism at the heart of the Christian conservative campaign to convince Americans that the separation of church and state is nothing more than a lie of the secularist left.

The marvel of America’s founders, even though nearly all of the new nation’s citizens were not only Christian but Protestant, was that they possessed the foresight to avoid establishing a Christian or religious government and instead chose to create the first secular government in the world…

Regardless of the framers’ private beliefs about God, it is more important to look at their public actions in crafting the legal foundation for the new republic… And here the right-wing script goes awry, for it cannot explain why, if the founders intended to base the government on Christianity or monotheism, they failed to spell out their intentions in the Constitution itself. There was certainly ample precedent for doing so, not only in the Articles of Confederation but in nearly every state constitution.

Custom, rather than law, is the basis of the most common arguments for breaching the wall between church and state… Handed a tabula rasa [something in its original pure state] by a public uneducated in civics, right-wing revisionists are free to ignore not only the strong anticlerical views of so many of the nation’s first leaders but also their loathing of all entanglements between religion and government.”

“By maintaining the separation of church and state the United States has avoided the intolerance which has so divided the rest of the world with religious wars… Can any of us refute the wisdom of Madison and the other framers? Can anyone look at the carnage in Iran, the bloodshed in Northern Ireland, or the bombs bursting in Lebanon and yet question the dangers of injecting religious issues into the affairs of state? The religious factions will go on imposing their will on others unless the decent people connected to them recognize that religion has no place in public policy. They must learn to make their views known without trying to make their views the only alternatives… We have succeeded for 205 years in keeping the affairs of state separate from the uncompromising idealism of religious groups and we mustn’t stop now. To retreat from that separation would violate the principles of conservatism and the values upon which the framers built this democratic republic.”

“It is ironic, then, that evangelicals—so focused on the ‘true’ history—have neglected their own. Indeed, the one group that would almost certainly oppose the views of 21st-century evangelicals are the 18th-century evangelicals… In state after state, when colonists and Americans met to debate the relationship between God and government, it was the proto-evangelicals who pushed the more radical view that church and state should be kept far apart. Both secular liberals who sneer at the idea that evangelicals could ever be a positive influence in politics and Christian conservatives who want to knock down the ‘wall’ should take note: It was the 18th-century evangelicals who provided the political shock troops for Jefferson and Madison in their efforts to keep government from strong involvement with religion.”

“Believing with you that religion is a matter which lies solely between Man & his God, that he owes account to none other for his faith or his worship, that the legitimate powers of government reach actions only, & 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 & State.”