There have always been differences of opinion about the separation between the church and the state. Lets try to clear up some of the misconceptions . The first amendment to the constitution reads:
“Congress shall make no laws respecting the establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech or of the press; or the right of the people to peaceably assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances”
I know this is the whole amendment and some of it doesn’t apply specifically to religion, but it gives us a context for what the framers of the constitution were intending that the government has no right over these things.
The idea that those who wrote the constitution were atheists who wanted religion to creep into the business of the state is absurd. The opposite is true. Most of the founding fathers found the bible and the Christian religion the very foundation of the new republic.
You might say that they wanted to make sure that the new government was not the oppressive one that they had fled from England. There, a state religion was formed and it was between the Church of England and the Catholic church. This caused very uncertain times and even war fought over it. That is why the colonists who came to this country wanted to make sure that one of the freedoms was religion.
So the phrase “separation of church and state” was penned by one of the signers of the constitution, as he wanted to make sure that the state did not interfere with the practice of religion. And then, many years later, it was taken out of context by the Supreme Court in two decisions , you can look them up…. One was in 1947 (Emerson vs Board of education) and in 1962 (Engle vs Vitale)
IF the idea was to keep religion out of government, why did they allow church services on Capitol Hill? There are services in a chapel outside the House Chamber to this day. So religion and government can exist together, with the government bodies embracing religious services and the religious community ,…. the people,, can embrace their religious beliefs openly.
pray to God that we can get back to that in total…..Amen
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