In 1962 the Supreme Court ruled it “unconstitutional” for prayers to be said in the public school system. In 1963 our Supreme Court ruled it “unconstitutional” for the Bible to be used in our public school system. Since then, the Ten Commandments and anything “religious”, have also been deemed “unconstitutional” for use in our public school system. The basis for all of these decisions has been the claim of defending the “separation of Church and State”.
The phrase “separation of Church and State” does not come from the Constitution, or the Declaration of Independence, or any other legal document. It originated in a personal letter from Thomas Jefferson to the Dansbury Baptist Association dated January 1, 1802. In this letter President Jefferson used the phrase “separation between Church and State”i to assure the Association that the Government would make no laws restricting their free exercise of religion. However, that is not the application made by the Supreme Court. Instead, they used that phrase for exactly the opposite purpose. So not only have they misinterpreted (and misapplied) the phrase, its “legal precedent” is a personal letter not a legal document!
Thomas Jefferson’s view of the part religion should play in education would more aptly be understood in light of the fact that in 1787, while he was serving in Congress, Congress passed the “Northwest Ordinance”, which Jefferson highly influenced. Article 3 of that “Ordinance” states: “Religion, morality, and knowledge, being necessary to good government and the happiness of mankind, schools and the means of education shall forever be encouraged”.ii
That schools and religion were intertwined is an established fact of early America. Churches were schoolhouses, clergy were often the teachers, and the Bible was the main textbook. If “separation between Church and State” was a philosophy of early America, why did it take until 1962 for God (prayer, the Bible, etc.) to be expelled from school?
i Albert Ellery Bergh, The Writings of Thomas Jefferson (Washington, D.C.: The Thomas Jefferson Memorial Association, 1904), Vol. XVI, pg. 282
Tags: Christian Nation, Political, Separation of Church and State