OK, so you now maintain that every single one of those 87 documents is part and parcel of the Constitution of the United States. Very well, what about the Connecticut document I cited earlier that declares that, where laws do not suffice to render a judgment, the Word of God shall be used. Do you consider that to be part and parcel of American law today? Would you claim that the Bible should be quoted in court to overturn Roe v. Wade?


Whoa! You mean they wiped the slate clean -- and then restarted with a slate already full with all those other precedents? Which was it: a clean slate or a slate heavy with precedents?


Where in the First Amendment do they express their intent to preserve Judeo-Christian values?

There's a bit of inconsistency here, or at least cherry-picking again. You place much emphasis on the 1892 opinion of the Supreme Court, which says in part:


However, you then dismiss the several subsequent Supreme Court opinions that explicitly reject your interpretation of the First Amendment. I cite (from the link you, with admirable intellectual integrity, provided)

If we're going to use the Supreme Court opinions to decide what the Constitution means (what a concept! ), then we really should be up-to-date, don't you think?

They are precedence and applicable to the dicta of the Supreme Court. There are areas of law where the Bible is used but the Roe v. Wade decision is not one of them, abortion is a 17th amendment issue not a 1st amendment issue. Now the Connecticut document can be used as a secondary source (persuasive authority) but that is, again. another issue. The question is the intent of the FF and you seem oblivious to this crucial point of the debate.



They called that throwing the baby out with the bathwater so you have to discern was was kept and what was expunged upon our founding of this Republic.



The First Amendment is an expression of Judeo-Christian values.



Our civilazation and our institution are emphatically Christian, at least at the time the decision here cited is handed down. So what's the problem?



A pointed compliment, ya gotta love the level of debate on here. Anyway, I was providing proof that the intent of the Founding Fathers and the current interprutation are very different.



I think it would be helpfull to compare the difference between the modern interprutation and the intention of the Founding Fathers. Do you know what changed and why?

OK, I see your point that modern Supreme Court opinions are not relevant to the question of the intent of the founders -- but does that not also remove the 1892 Supreme Court opinion from consideration as well?

On the matter of documents preceding the Constitution, I don't think they can be used to infer the intent of the founders. Yes, the founders were well aware of those documents. They were also well aware of a great many other things that surely occupied their thoughts as well. The range of historical precedent mentioned in the Federalist Papers is truly impressive. They present examples from the entire history of Western civilization. There are lots of references to Greek and Roman experience; they talk about the English upheavals and the Thirty Years War and the Republic of Orange as well as more recent experience. The mere fact that these documents were part of their heritage gives them no position any more special than Plato's Republic, Machiavelli's The Prince, Erasmus' Education of the Christian Prince, More's Utopia, Hobbes' Leviathan, or any of the other political thought preceding them.


And how other to make that discernment than to rely on the plain text of the Constitution?


OK, I believe that your position here is that the First Amendment is an expression of the Judeo-Christian belief in the separation of church and state. Actually, that's most certainly NOT a Judeo-belief, but it was part of the original Christian religion (as in, "render unto Caesar").

Unfortunately, that belief was tossed aside the minute that Constantine made Christianity the official religion of the Roman Empire. Once they had some power, the Christians demonstrated that their human passions outran their piety. They lit into persecuting pagans with almost as much enthusiasm as the pagans had been persecuting them. When there weren't any pagans left to persecute, they turned on each other, persecuting different sects as heretical. It got so bad that one Emperor forced them all to sit down at Nicaea and thrash it out so as to preserve civic order.

After the Roman Empire collapsed, the Church glommed on to whomever had power, certifying and sanctifying their power in return for a little temporal power of their own. Right up through about 1700, Church and State were pretty much joined at the hip. Remember the Holy Roman Empire? Guess whose job it was to make it holy? And did you know that some of the Electors of the Empire were archbishops? Talk about church and state getting mixed together! And this wasn't just a Catholic thing: the Protestants were every bit as enthusiastic about merging church and state as the Catholics were. How 'bout that old Council of Trent's conclusion "cujus regio, eius religio" ("whoever's land it is, it runs under his religion"). In other words, church and state are one.

So this notion of separation of church and state had one brief shining moment when Jesus said it, but as soon as the Christians had some power, they threw that idea out the window forever. It was the Thirty Years' War (along with the accompanying brouhaha in England leading to the execution of Charles I, and the ugly little theocracy of Oliver Cromwell), that scared the religious fervor out of everybody. triggering a backlash now known as the Enlightenment, which was primarily characterized by a rejection of religious thought in favor of pure rationalism. The most influential thinkers of the Enlightenment, people like Voltaire and Rousseau, were famously anti-clerical. Coming out and saying you were an atheist in those days was akin to, say, reciting Salmon Rushdie's The Satanic Verses in downtown Teheran these days; it would only get you in trouble. So most of the Enlightenment thinkers made proper obeisance to religion by mumbling nothingburger euphemisms about "nature and nature's god" and "providence" and never saying or writing anything that could be used to nail them as atheists. And of course the most intellectual of the founders were all sons of the Enlightenment.

So let's dismiss this notion that separation of church and state is a Christian notion. Yes, it was Jesus Christ's notion, but Christians dumped that notion and never looked back.

"... the provisions of the Constitution are not mathematical formulas having their essence in their form; they are organic living institutions transplanted from English soil. Their significance is vital not formal; it is to be gathered not simply by taking the words and a dictionary, but by considering their origin and the line of their growth" (Gompers vs. United States, 233 U. S., 604, 610).

It should be realized that there are two major changes in the First Amendment, the Lemon test and the establishment clause. The Lemon test requires "secular legislative purpose" and the establishment clause is based not on court precedence but on Jefferson's letter to the Danbury Baptists. The expressed intent of the Founding Fathers was to encourage religion in as much as they saw it as not only vital but above human institutions. Political Protestantism developed the ideals of Democracy through the work of Protestant Reformers and latter through Protestant Whigs like Locke. It should be understood the the Roman Catholic legal and political system was a Republic that had lasted about 1,000 years.

"Builders, who, if they see a breach in a wall, instantly and carefully repair it: they are like gardeners who do not allow either a field or vineyard to be exposed to wild beasts. (John Calvin)

"The wall separating church and state was built upon the remains of an earlier wall, which separated the garden from the wilderness. This meta­phor of a wall separating the garden was applied in many ways but al­ways in a manner that suggested the purity of the church. Whether the wall represented the separation of the church from the world, the sepa­ration of the regenerate from the unregenerate, or the separation of par­ticular "gathered" churches from a national church, it consistently de­picted the church set apart from the taint of worldly things." (P. Hamburger, Separation of Church and State)

Now, Jefferson's quote was the basis for the establishment clause and the legal doctrine of seperation of church and state. Jefferson was responding to a group who was concerned that their religious liberty was not viewed as an inalienable right but as a revokable civil liberty. Jefferson reassures them in highly theological language they would immediatly recognize as Political Protestantism:

"Believing with you that religion is a matter which lies solely between Man & his God, that he owes account to none other for his faith or his worship, that the legitimate powers of government reach actions only & not opinions, I contemplate with sovereign reverence that act of the whole American people which declared that their legislature should "make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof," thus building a wall of separation between Church & State. [A]dhering to this expression of the supreme will of the nation in behalf of the rights of conscience, I shall see with sincere satisfaction the progress of those sentiments which tend to restore to man all his natural rights, convinced he has no natural right in opposition to his social duties." (Jefferson's Letter to the Danbury Baptists)

One of the things Jefferson was proudest of was not the Declaration of Independence he plagurized from Locke. What he was proudest of was the Virgina laws that protected religious liberty. The fear was that the Puritan vision of America as a city on the hill would turn into a centralized Federal Leviathan that subverted their natural right to worship according to the dictates of conscience.

The whole purpose of the First Amendment was not to keep religion out of public life but to encourage it. The best way to do this was to protect it from the corrupting influence of a centralized political system was the First Amendment. The Lemon test and the establishment clause are diametrically opposed to the intentions of the Founding Fathers.

It was Jeffersons belief that priestcraft corrupted the genuine article of faith and the moral vigor that it produced:

"But a short time elapsed after the death of the great reformer of the Jewish religion, before his principles were departed from by those who professed to be his special servants, and perverted into an engine for enslaving mankind, and aggrandizing their oppressors in Church and State: that the purest system of morals ever before preached to man has been adulterated and sophisticated by artificial constructions, into a mere contrivance to filch wealth and power to themselves: that rational men, not being able to swallow their impious heresies, in order to force them down their throats, they raise the hue and cry of infidelity, while themselves are the greatest obstacles to the advancement of the real doctrines of Jesus, and do, in fact, constitute the real Anti-Christ. "

(Jefferson's Letter To S. Kercheval, 1810)

He spoke passionatly on this issue many times.

Jefferson's Credo

You are going in circles. The establishment clause is part of the constitution.



You seem to be saying that the Constitution contradicts itself. Can the document be at odds with itself? Could the founding fathers be "diametrically opposed" to what they wrote?

BTW: Thanks for the link to Jefferson's pronouncements. We just interpret them differently.

The establishment clause didn't make it way into the dicta of the Supreme Court for a 150 years after the Constitution was ratified. What is more it was without precedence and only had the persuasive authority of Jefferson's letter to support it.




No but the modern interprutation can be. What they did was meant to encourage religion which is the opposite of what the Supreme Court does not. The establishment clause and the Lemon test are modern interprutations.



I'm glad you liked them, its allways fun to find that sort of thing bumping around cyberspace. I used to try to find that sort of thing in librarys but it takes forever. By the way, I don't happen to agree with a lot of what Jefferson wrote on religion. I just found it interesting that he could talk to the Danbury Baptists in their own language.

You continue to assume, without evidence, that the founders intended to encourage religion with the First Amendment. Yes, we agree that some founders wanted to write religion into the Constitution; yes, we agree that most founders believed religion to have a salutary effect on society. The logical leap you make is that, since they believed these things, they must have meant to write them into the Constitution. The problem is, they didn't write these beliefs into the Constitution. In modern phrasing, they wrote: Congress shall make no law with respect to an establishment of religion. There is simply no way you can twist that around to mean that they wanted Congress to make laws that would further religion. You are arguing that they meant the opposite of what they actually wrote.

No, I am arguing that the purpose of the First Amendment was to encourge relgion which is diametrically opposed to the modern interprutation, pure and simple. I also addressed the clear and simple phrasing but I suppose this thread has simply ran its course. I quoted exensively from both the founding fathers and the Supreme Court to support my position on this. It is either irrefutable are a matter of opinion that the intent of the Founding Fathers in the First Amendment was to preserve and encourage the genuine article of religion. I have seen nothing of substance to refute this and stand unconvinced from the arguments encountered.

I don't recall your explaining why the wording of the First Amendment means the opposite of what it appears to mean. Could you direct me to the posts where you explained that?


Yes, indeed you have presented a great many quotes, and I agree that some of the founders were fervent about this, but your many quotes don't address what the First Amendment means. You leap from a solid demonstration that many founders had strong beliefs in the value of religion to the conclusion that they must have meant the First Amendment to foster religion. It is this leap that I question.

I will also chide you for repeating a point that we had earlier dispensed with. You refer to the 1892 Supreme Court decision supporting your claim, but reject the several more recent Supreme Court decisions contradicting your claim. You reject these later Supreme Court decisions because they cannot indicate the intentions of the founders -- but that argument is every bit as applicable to the Supreme Court decision you quote. I think it best if we leave the Supreme Court out of this.

Are you saying that part of the 1st Amendment was not part of the Constitution until 150 years after it was ratified? Actually, the “establishment clause” is mentioned before the “free exercise clause.” How else can you interpret the words, “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion.”

I don't know why you are unaware of the Lemon test and establishment clause but for whatever reason you have yet to comment on them. There is not one iota of proof that the FF indended for our Republic to be exclusivly secular, I think this is clear to the unbiased observer. They believed that religion was essential and made provisions in the Constitution to preserve this vital element of American democracy. I never rejected the Supreme Court decisions on the Lemon test or the establishment clause. What I was trying to show you was that these are modern interprutations and I have seen very little to convince me otherwise.



How do we leave the Supreme Court out of this? I could say more but that one really stood out.

What I am saying is that the modern interprutation of the First Amendment was not a part of Constitutional law untill the Lemon law and establishment clause made there way into it. We should celebrate religious liberty because it was religion that was formost in the minds of the framers when the First Amendment was included. Your first right as an American is religion, this was not an accident.

There is no such thing as a 'Judeo-Christian value.' It's a meaningless phrase used by people who like to believe that Jews and Christians share values not shared by no others (Buddhists, Hindus, Muslims, Atheists, etc). It's a bunch of rubbish (unless, of course, you can identify a 'value' that is valued only by Jews and Christians.)

(Emphasis mine)

I have not been paying close attention to this topic because frankly, I don't think the original arguments against the topics premise (all the way back on page one) were ever adequately answered.

So thank you LyricalReckoner for bringing the above statement to our attention.

I have a question. How do we explain the religious dominance of government throughout Europe in the middle ages, as well as various events like the Crusades, the Inquisition, the Salam witch trials, etc, that could not have happened without government sanction and support if "the separation of church and state is a Judeo-Christian value"? Not to mention the fact that many left Europe for the New World to escape religious persecution by the state (a long list of such events can be found here(how anyone can claim to be moral or religious and commit the atrocities listed here is beyond me).

Edited to add: Links and correct a few typos, and add context to the quotation.

Christianity was as big an influence in Europe in the Middle Ages as Paganism was in earlier times. Jews and Muslims weren't particularly welcome in Europe back then.

The phrase Judeo-Christian value is a very recent invention, so far as I know. It sounds good but it means nothing.

Since the Lemon test was devised long after the death of the last founder, how can it reflect the intentions of the founders?


Yes, they are modern interpretations -- which is precisely why they should be left out of a discussion of the intentions of the founders. The 1892 Supreme Court opinion that you have frequently cited falls into the same boat and must therefore be rejected.

I am a new member to America's Debate. It's also late so please forgive any glaring errors.

I have been studying constitutional material for several years now and will share with you some of what I understand about what the Founding Fathers probably had in mind with respect to the government's power to legislate religion - yes, I said the government's power to legislate religion. In fact...

The three amendments that pertain to our religious freedoms are the 1st, 10th and 14th Amendments. With respect to the 10th Amendment, I have come to the conclusion that no meaningful discussion about our constitutionally guaranteed freedom of religious expression is possible without a reference to the 10th Amendment:

"Article 10: The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people."

This thread actually fails what I call the 10th Amendment test. This means that any "insights" to church and state separation that are being volunteered in this thread are probably based on the Supreme Court's twisted interpretation of the establishment clause in the Everson opinion.

The BIG problem with respect to the current confusion concerning our religious freedoms is that the country, including the Supreme Court, has long forgotten the model of government that the Founding Fathers had decided on. (Wars, both foreign and domestic, cause people to forget things. Also note that whoever wins a war evidently gets the "right" to rewrite history.) Regarding this government model, the Founding Fathers made a major distinction between federal and state governments. Jefferson, Mr. "wall of separation" himself, reflects on this model:

"Our citizens have wisely formed themselves into one nation as to others and several States as among themselves. To the united nation belong our external and mutual relations; to each State, severally, the care of our persons, our property, our reputation and religious freedom." --Thomas Jefferson: To Rhode Island Assembly, 1801. ME 10:262

In a nutshell, the Founding Fathers wrote the 1st Amendment to sterilize the federal government, referred to as the United States in historical literature, so that it had no power to legislate religion. But because the federal Constitution prohibited only the federal government from having the power to address religion, the 10th Amendment automatically delegated (reserved) this power to the states. However, the early states used their powers, including the power to legislate religion, to abuse the federal BOR rights of US citizens. This abuse of power culminated in the Civil War. Section 1 of the post Civil War 14th Amendment was essentially a "read my lips" to the states which made it mandatory for the states to respect the federal BOR rights of US citizens. However...

There was a "war" of political correctness that had been going on long before the Civil War got started. In my opinion, this political correctness survived the Civil War and influenced the Everson opinion. The clue that this polical correctness influenced the Everson opinion is evidenced by the fact that the Everson opinion fails the 10th Amendment test. Indeed, I have still not found a Court opinion which deals with church-state separation issues that references the 10th Amendment. The interpretations of the establishment clause and the 14th Amendment given in the Everson opinion are unconstitutional.

Finally, I'm not trying to tease people with my generalization about political correctness in the proceeding paragraph, but I am not prepared to address what I believe is the nature of the political correctness that influenced the Everson opinion.

Good night.