SEPARATION OF CHURCH AND STATE

It is frequently proclaimed in today's public discourse that the founding fathers of the United States were deeply religious men who founded this country on Christian principles and intended the federal government to carry out those principles in the course of its activities. Proclamations of that sort in the current political environment make for good sound bites, but apart from the fact that many of the founding fathers were religious men, the proclamations contain no truth.

James Madison, the fourth President of the United States, is recognized as the primary drafter of the United States Constitution. These were his stated views on government and religion:

"And I have no doubt that every new example will succeed, as every past one has done, in showing that religion and Government will both exist in greater purity, the less they are mixed together."

"In no instance have... the churches been guardians of the liberties of the people."

"Religion flourishes in greater purity, without than with the aid of Government."

"The number, the industry, and the morality of the priesthood, and the devotion of the people have been manifestly increased by the total separation of the church from the state."

"The purpose of separation of church and state is to keep forever from these shores the ceaseless strife that has soaked the soil of Europe with blood for centuries."

Thomas Jefferson, author of the Declaration of Independence, had these words to say on the subject:

"I consider the government of the United States as interdicted by the Constitution from intermeddling with religious institutions, their doctrines, discipline, or exercises. " --Thomas Jefferson to Samuel Miller, 1808. ME 11:428

"Whenever... preachers, instead of a lesson in religion, put [their congregation] off with a discourse on the Copernican system, on chemical affinities, on the construction of government, or the characters or conduct of those administering it, it is a breach of contract, depriving their audience of the kind of service for which they are salaried, and giving them, instead of it, what they did not want, or, if wanted, would rather seek from better sources in that particular art of science." --Thomas Jefferson to P. H. Wendover, 1815. ME 14:281

"But a short time elapsed after the death of the great reformer of the Jewish religion, before his principles were departed from by those who professed to be his special servants, and perverted into an engine for enslaving mankind, and aggrandizing their oppressors in Church and State." --Thomas Jefferson to Samuel Kercheval, 1810. ME 12:345

"[If] the nature of... government [were] a subordination of the civil to the ecclesiastical power, I [would] consider it as desperate for long years to come. Their steady habits [will] exclude the advances of information, and they [will] seem exactly where they [have always been]. And there [the] clergy will always keep them if they can. [They] will follow the bark of liberty only by the help of a tow-rope." --Thomas Jefferson to Pierrepont Edwards, July 1801.

"History, I believe, furnishes no example of a priest-ridden people maintaining a free civil government. This marks the lowest grade of ignorance of which their civil as well as religious leaders will always avail themselves for their own purposes." --Thomas Jefferson to Alexander von Humboldt, 1813. ME 14:21

It's hard for me to fathom these founding fathers, in light of their stated opinions, basing a government on Christian principles, not to mention advancing the notion that government should be an instrument for advancing those principles. In fact, just the opposite appears true.

You'll get no argument from me when it comes to the assertion that a nation full of people who follow Christ's directives would be a nation worth emulating, but that wouldn't necessarily be the kind of nation Madison and Jefferson had in mind, or even a democracy for that matter. Both Madison and Jefferson recognized the danger of mixing affairs of the church with affairs of the government, and the potential for tyranny that such mixing would create. That's why, despite their religious convictions, they fought furiously for the separation of church and state. It was a good idea when this country was born. It's still a good idea today.