by William Armstrong

Created on: November 22, 2010   Last Updated: November 23, 2010

The ignorance of Americans on their own history and constitution has never been clearer, than on the issue of separation of church and state. The phrase originally cited in a letter from Thomas Jefferson to the Danberry Connecticut Baptists, soon after Jefferson had become president on March 4th 1801.

Many Americans believe that this nation was founded a strictly secular state. Many actually believe they are patriotically upholding the founder’s vision by making sure religion is completely removed from all public life.

Groups such as the ACLU and Americans United for The Separation of Church and State routinely file suits in court to intimidate and silence any religious voice in American public life. Cases are promoted to prevent nativity scenes, the Ten Commandments, Crosses from being displayed in public areas. Other cases promote denying the Boy Scouts use of government facilities, removal of (“In God We Trust”) on currency, censoring of school graduation and athletic event prayers, firing schoolteachers for leaving bibles on their desks.

At the same time, these groups turn a blind eye to the promotion of other religions, such as providing prayer rooms for Muslim students in public schools or school sponsored field trips to mosques, soliciting students to participate in Muslim religious rites as an educational experience. Public schools also promote new age religious ideas and forms of witchcraft as enlightened ideas, while Christianity is presented as part of our past ignorance, intolerance and bigotry.  

Many who use the term “Separation of Church and State” would be surprised to discover that it’s nowhere to be found in the Constitution. The phrase was taken from a political letter written by Jefferson to the Connecticut Baptists assuring them of their concerns about religious liberty. The Baptists in Connecticut had long been a minority in an area dominated by Federalist Congregationalists, and Jefferson wanted to assure them that the federal government would not interfere in showing preference to any Christian denomination above another. England and most of Europe had oppressed Christian minorities for hundreds of years, by mandating a single state Christian denomination. In England the Anglican Church was the state mandated church, all other Christian sects or denominations were prohibited.

Years after writing the Letter to the Danbury Baptists, Jefferson himself regularly attended worship services conducted

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