Photo:Thomas Jefferson Memorial Back; Author:Sampsonsimpson20; Lic.:CC BY-SA 3.0
Yesterday was Thomas Jefferson’s birthday, a man whom we honor most of for his writing of the Declaration of Independence. However, Thomas Jefferson has become a favorite founding father of the ACLU, Americans United for Separation of Church and State, and other such atheist groups. They like to quote him as the author of the phrase “wall of separation of church and state.”
If there ever was an example of words being taken out of context, that is it.
Not only have atheists long used that quote to misrepresent Thomas Jefferson, but they have so often repeated it the phrase “separation of church and state” that it’s locked into the collective consciousness of a good portion of our population! The truth is, it’s completely untrue that Jefferson saw no role for religion in government.
Here is where the famous quote came from. In 1801, the Baptists of Danbury, Connecticut, wrote to the newly elected President Thomas Jefferson, and Jefferson wrote a brief response in which he used the phrase “a wall of separation between church and state” in order to reassure the Baptists that the new federal government would not establish a national church or otherwise infringe on their religious liberties. In no way did Jefferson believe or ever say that religion should not play a role in our public life or government.
The words “separation of church and state” do not appear in the United States Constitution, nor they cannot be implied from any wording in the Constitution. In fact, at the time our Constitution was written, most of the 13 original states had established churches, and the purpose of the First Amendment was to assure the states that they could keep their established churches and the new federal government would never impose a national church on them. That’s why the First Amendment reads: “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion… “
Plainly stated: there is simply no historical evidence or foundation for the idea that Thomas Jefferson or any of our founders ever intended to separate religion from our government.
This post originally appeared at https://www.phyllisschlafly.com/constitution/setting-jeffersons-wall-of-separation-straight/