America…Our
Christian Heritage,
Our History and Faith in God
"The Deception
of Separation of Church and State"
Compiled and Written by Murray Hornsby, Director
American Heritage Alliance Inc. and The Nehemiah Ministry
Chapter 3
The
Big Lie … "Separation of Church and State" and
Its Origin
"The
Separation of Church and State"…
This
phrase does not appear in our Constitution or any of our country's
official documents. It does, however, appear in another prominent
document, the Constitution of the former Soviet Union: "The
church in the USSR is separated from the state from the church."
( Article 52 ). We have been deceived by those who said, "We
know what the truth is, and it is not your truth." As Pontius
Pilot said to Jesus "What is truth?" And we ask "How
could this have happened?" It has happened on our watch because
we fell asleep in a complacency of wealth and comfort. It is past
time to wake up and demand Truth!
The
letter was also penned in a private letter written by Thomas Jefferson
to the Dansbury Baptist Association in Connecticut, who wrote
to President Jefferson because they were convinced about the government
getting involved in matters of religion. " I contemplate
with solemn reverence the act of the whole American people which
declared that their legislature make no law respecting an establishment
of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof, thus building
a wall of separation between church and state. "It
is clear that Jefferson's "wall of separation" referred
to a one- dimensional wall to protect the Church from the State.
He is the same one who said, "No power of the freedom of
religion…(is) delegated to the United States by the Constitution,"
in the Kentucky Resolutions of 1798. 3
"The
Congressional Records from June to September 1789 record the months
of discussions and debates of the ninety Founding Fathers who
framed the First Amendment. Significantly, during those debates
not one of the framers ever mentioned the now infamous phase 'separation
of church and state.' The phrase is not found in the US Constitution,
the First Amendment, nor any of the notes from the Constitutional
Convention." 4
In
fact, from the Constitutional Convention in 1789 until 1947 when
the Supreme Court of 1947 changed the application of this amendment,
it was clearly understood that the First Amendment was meant to
prevent Congress from establishing 'a National Religious Sect'
as the British had done with the Anglican Church of England which
imposed religious taxes on constituents and even imposed by law
penalties for noncompliance with the Church's precepts. For over
150 years, this was the original intent regarding the scope and
jurisdiction of the Constitution, the national Government and
the Bill of Rights. "There is simply no historical foundation
for the proposition," wrote Chief Justice Rehnquist in his
dissent in Wallace v. Jaffree, "that the Framers intended
to build the 'wall of separation' that was constitutionalized
in Everson. But the greatest injury of 'the wall' notion"
continued Justice Rehnquist, "is the mischievous diversion
of judges from the actual intentions of the drafters of the bill
of Rights. No amount of repetition of historical errors in judicial
opinions can make the errors true. The 'wall of separation between
church and state' is a metaphor based on bad history, a metaphor
which has proved useless as a guide to judging. It should be frankly
and explicitly abandoned." 5
Never
in our country's founding period was there an official belief
that education shouldn't embody the teaching of God's moral truths.
This principle is most clearly shown by the passage of the northwest
Ordinance of 1787. At that time the "Northwest"
was the territory comprising what are today Ohio, Indiana, Michigan,
Illinois, and Wisconsin. Congress sought to tame that wilderness
and encourage settlers to move into the region. Thus it provided
for a series of land grants to move into the region. The Congress
believed that by educating settlers, good order and decency would
come to the territory because, in their view, education included
not only academic subjects but also the teaching of Godly values.
The Northwest 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." 6
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Chapter 4
