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Jefferson was also a Christian promoting person who approved of and participated in worship services in the chambers of Congress when Congress was in recess, who as President favored/promoted Bible reading in the public schools, who was the leading voice demanding a Bill of Rights be included in the Constitution with freedom of religion the first right to be protected by the Constitution.
His letter to the Danbury Baptists was to respond to their request for the federal government to intervene in their conflict with the Connecticut congregationalists. He did so by affirming his conviction that the 'wall of separation' between Church and State was to protect the state from being controlled by any religious group and to protect any religious group from being controlled by the state. It was a polite way of telling them it would be inappropriate for the federal government to do that.
It was in no way intended to suggest or propose that those in government or anywhere else should be prohibited from any religious opinion or expressions.
The letter itself underwent many drafts circulated to several for opinions before it was sent to the Danbury Baptists. The final version sent to the church is this:
"To messers. Nehemiah Dodge, Ephraim Robbins, & Stephen S. Nelson, a committee of the Danbury Baptist association in the state of Connecticut.
Gentlemen
The affectionate sentiments of esteem and approbation which you are so good as to express towards me, on behalf of the Danbury Baptist association, give me the highest satisfaction. my duties dictate a faithful and zealous pursuit of the interests of my constituents, & in proportion as they are persuaded of my fidelity to those duties, the discharge of them becomes more and more pleasing.
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. Adhering 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.
I reciprocate your kind prayers for the protection & blessing of the common father and creator of man, and tender you for yourselves & your religious association, assurances of my high respect & esteem.
Th Jefferson
Jan. 1. 1802."
And to support his position on religious/Biblical content in the schools:
National Council on Bible Curriculum in Public Schools - Founding Fathers
National Council on Bible Curriculum in Public Schools exists to promote the use of a state certified Bible course in public high schools nationwide.
www.bibleinschools.net
Jefferson giving his critique of a draft of the existing Constitution as it was being hammered out:
". . .I will now add what I do not like. First, the omission of a bill of rights providing clearly and without the aid of sophisms for freedom of religion, freedom of the press, protection against standing armies, restriction against monopolies, the eternal and unremitting force of the habeas corpus laws, and trials by jury in all matters of fact triable by the laws of the land and not by the law of nations. . ."
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