Understanding Religious Freedom and the ‘Wall of Separation’

By Nick Spencer

Danbury Institute Fellow

Religious freedom is frequently referred to as America’s first freedom, not only due to its inclusion in the First Amendment, but because the two clauses pertaining to religious liberty (the Establishment Clause and the Free Exercise Clause) are enumerated before any other freedoms listed in the amendment. As the first explicit freedom contained within the Constitution, it would stand to reason that America’s founding fathers believed it to be of preeminent importance for the flourishing of our nation and its people. Over the course of our nation’s history, however, the question of how exactly to understand religious freedom has been fraught with controversy. What one believes about how the church and the state should relate to one another will almost wholly determine what one believes should be protected religious expression in the public square and what should not. Over this series of three articles, it will be demonstrated that what was originally intended to ensure freedom of religion has now been unduly weaponized to pursue freedom from religion. This shift to completely remove religion from the public square in the name of pluralistic neutrality was (1) not the intent of our founding fathers, (2) it deceptively restricts the free moral deliberation of a society, and (3) most importantly for Christians, it is neither necessitated nor desired by the standards of Scripture.

Each of the three articles in this series will deal with a separate claim from the list above, with this first article focusing on the concept of a “wall of separation” between the church and the state. As stated above, the historical record indicates that the intention of the founding fathers was to explicitly protect public expressions of a religious nature from persecution by both a state church and governmental actors. Thus, the prevailing modern narrative that the First Amendment necessitates separating the church from the state and ought to result in the exclusion of explicitly religious claims from public deliberation should be soundly rejected.

The "Wall’s" American Origin

The modern concept for a “wall of separation” between the church and the state does not originate within the text of the Constitution, much to the dismay of woke social justice warriors. Instead, the idea of strict separation arose from a Supreme Court opinion in the case Everson v. Board of Education of the Township of Ewing (1947), where Justice Black, writing for the 5-4 majority, pens this infamous phrase:

The “establishment of religion” clause of the First Amendment means at least this: Neither a state nor the Federal Government can set up a church. Neither can pass laws which aid one religion, aid all religions or prefer one religion over another (emphasis added).[1]

He closes his opinion by adding, “The First Amendment has erected a wall between church and state. That wall must be kept high and impregnable. We could not approve the slightest breach.”[2]

In arriving at such a conclusion, Black looked not to the words of James Madison contained within the Constitution, but to the words of his close compatriot Thomas Jefferson, written in a personal letter to none other than the Danbury Baptist Association on New Year’s Day of 1802. In that letter, Jefferson writes,

. . . 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.[3]

However, to conclude from Jefferson’s letter that the United States must erect a mighty and inviolable border between church and state which—as Black would have it—prohibits any level of the federalist system from recognizing as a matter of policy the importance of religion generally, ignores not only innumerable other writings from the revolutionary and early-American periods, but even betrays the full context of Jefferson’s letter from which the above phrase is extracted.

Examining the Evidence

Individuals familiar with the distinctives of Baptist ecclesiology will no doubt understand that the Danbury Association operated from a particular fear that government authorities would determine the permissibility of religious gatherings and oversee the administration of the church. In their initial letter to Jefferson, the Danbury Association declares their firm belief “that no man ought to suffer in name, person or effects on account of his religious opinions—that the legitimate power of civil government extends no further than to punish the man who works ill to his neighbor.”[4]

Notice what is missing from this statement: there is no mention that religion ought to be kept out of the public square, only that an individual ought not to be punished for expressing their religious convictions in a public manner—whether through public worship or otherwise. Further supporting this conclusion is a reciprocal exchange of prayer at the conclusion of the letters between the two parties.[5]

Countless other examples may be provided of the nation’s founding generation citing not only the usefulness of religion generally for the nation’s prosperity, but its outright necessity. Indeed, in a 1798 letter to the Massachusetts Militia, John Adams famously wrote that “our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.”[6] Similarly, many will also be familiar with George Washington’s farewell address, worth quoting here at length:

Of all the dispositions and habits which lead to political prosperity, religion and morality are indispensable supports. In vain would that man claim the tribute of patriotism who should labor to subvert these great pillars of human happiness, these firmest props of the duties of men and citizens. The mere politician, equally with the pious man, ought to respect and to cherish them. A volume could not trace all their connections with private and public felicity. Let it simply be asked where is the security for property, for reputation, for life, if the sense of religious obligation desert the oaths, which are the instruments of investigation in courts of justice? And let us with caution indulge the supposition that morality can be maintained without religion. Whatever may be conceded to the influence of refined education on minds of peculiar structure, reason and experience both forbid us to expect that national morality can prevail in exclusion of religious principle.[7]

Upon the weight of evidence from the nation’s founders, it ought not be said with any credibility that religion generally is of no interest or importance to the wellbeing of American democracy. That the government cannot establish an official church does not necessitate relegating the natural good of religion to man’s internal thoughts alone. For Justice Black to claim such a duty represents a clear ignorance of the historical record.

Despite Justice Black, and the majority of individuals today, misunderstanding the historical record, there remains to be answered the questions of whether the founders were even correct in their assessment as a matter of political prudence, or whether the importance of religious affections for the sake of public morality is supported by the word of Scripture. As the next two articles in this series hope to show, the answer to both remaining questions is a profound yes.

[1] Everson v. Board of Education of the Township of Ewing, 330 U.S. 1, 15 (1947).

[2] Everson v. Board of Education, 330 U.S. 1, 18 (1947).

[3] Thomas Jefferson, “Letter to the Danbury Baptists,” January 1, 1802, Library of Congress.

[4] Danbury Baptist Association, “To Thomas Jefferson from the Danbury Baptist Association,” in 1 August-30 November 1801, ed. Barbara B. Oberg, vol. 35, The Papers of Thomas Jefferson (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2008), 407–409.

[5] John Witte, “Facts and Fictions About the History of Separation of Church and State,” Journal of Church and State 48, no. 1 (Winter 2006): 32.

[6] John Adams, “From John Adams to Massachusetts Militia,” October 11, 1798, National Archives.

[7] George Washington, “Washington’s Farewell Address to the People of the United States” (United States Senate Historical Office), 16.

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Nick Spencer serves as the Director of Policy for The Family Foundation, a nonprofit organization that stands for Kentucky families and the biblical values that make them strong by advocating for God-honoring public policy in the Commonwealth.