For too many years the politicians and courts of this country have been able to perpetrate the false idea of "separation of church and state". They claim that they founding fathers of this nation designed this to be a basis for our form of government. Nothing could be further from the truth. They did intend to keep government out of the religious arena by disallowing a national religion such as existed in England with the Church of England; however the intent was never to keep the church out of government. Please consider my statement in light of these quotations from some you may have heard of:
US Supreme Court - Church of the Holy Trinity vs US 1892:
"This is a religious people. This is historically true. From the discovery of this continent to the present hour, there is a single voice making this affirmation ..... These are not individual sayings, declarations of private persons: they are organic utterances, they speak the voice of the entire people .... These, and many other matters which might be noticed, add a volume of unofficial declarations to the mass of organic utterances that this is a Christian nation."
North Carolina Constitution 1876
"No person who shall deny the being of God, or the truth of the Protestant religion, or the divine authority of the Old or New Testaments, or who shall hold religious principles incompatible with the freedom and safety of the State, shall be capable of holding any office or place of trust in the civil department within this State."
John Jay - First Chief Justice US Supreme Court:
"Providence has given to our people the choice of their rulers, and it is the duty as well as the privilege of our Christian nation to select and prefer Christians for their rulers."
House Judiciary Report in 1854:
"Chistianity must be considered as the foundation upon which the whole structure rests. Laws will not have not permanence or power without the sanction of religious sentitment, without a firm belief that there is a Power above us that will reward our virtues and punish our vices. In this age there will be no substitute for Christianity: that, in its general principles, is the great conservative element on which we must rely for the purity and permanence of free institutions. That was the religion of the founders of the Republic, and they expected it to remain the religion of their descendants. There is a great and very prevalent error on this subject in the opinion that those who organized this Government did not legislate on religion."
"The great vital and conservative element in our system is the belief of our people in the pure doctrines and divine truths of the gospel of Jesus Christ."
Continental Congress - May 16, 1776:
"The Congress ... desirous ... to have people of all ranks and degrees duly impressed with a solemn sense of God's superintending providence, and of their duty, devoutly to rely ... on His aid and direction ... Do earnestly recommend ... a day of humiliation, fasting and prayer; that we may, with united hearts, confess and bewail our manifold sins and transgressions, and, by a sincere repentance and ammendment of life ... and through the merits and mediation of Jesus Christ, obtain His pardon and forgiveness."
The Fallacy of Separation Of Church And State
