Separation of church and state is a fallacy.
Thomas Jefferson:
"And can the liberties of a nation be thought secure when we have removed their only firm basis, a conviction in the minds of the people that these liberties are of the gift of God? That they are not to be violated but with His wrath? Indeed I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just, that His justice cannot sleep forever."
George Washington - Inaugural Speech to Congress April 30, 1789:
"No people can be bound to acknowledge and adore the the Invisible Hand which conducts the affairs of men more than those of the United States. Every step by which they have advanced to the character of an independent nation seems to have been distinguished by some token of providential agency ... We ought to be no less persuaded that the propitious smiles of Heaven can never be expected on a Nation that disregards the eternal rules of order and right which Heaven itself has ordained."
Abraham Lincoln:
"It is the duty of nations as well as men to own their dependence upon the overruling power of God, to confess their sins and transgressions in humble sorrow yet with assured hope that genuine repentance will lead to mercy and pardon, and to recognize the sublime truth, announced in the Holy Scriptures and proven by all history: that those nations only are blessed whose God is the Lord."
"All the good from the Saviour of the World is communicated through this Book; but for the Book we could not know right from wrong. All the things desirable to man are contained in it."
John Adams:
"We have no government armed with power capable of contending with human passions unbridled by morality and religion ... Our constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other."
Thomas Jefferson: "The clergy by getting themselves established by law and ingratiated into the machine of government have been a formidable engine AGAINST THE CIVIL AND RELIGOUS RIGHTS OF MAN."
"I am for religous freedom and against all manuevers to bring about a legal ascendary of one sect over another"
"The law for religous freedom has put down the religous aristocracy of the clergy and resored to the citizen the freedom of the mind"
All said over 200 years ago and today some folks would have us believe we are a Christian nation and the Founders wanted religous influence in government.
The Founders WANTED NO religous influence in government.
Get over it. Need more?
You do know that the original
13 American colonies had some form of state-supported religion that lasted from 109 years for Pennsylvania upwards to 228 Years for New Hampshire. This in itself shows that this country was founded on Judeo-Christian values.
Samuel Adams, who has been called 'The Father of the American Revolution' wrote The Rights of the Colonists in 1772, which stated: "The rights of the colonists as Christians...may be best understood by reading and carefully studying the institution of the Great Law Giver and Head of the Christian Church, which are to be found clearly written and promulgated in the New Testament."
Our sixth President, John Quincy Adams said "From the day of the Declaration...they [the American people] were bound by the laws of God, which they all, and by the laws of The Gospel, which they nearly all, acknowledge as the rules of their conduct"
John Jay, the first Chief Justice of the US Supreme Court said: "Providence has given to our people the choice of their ruler, and it is the duty, as well as the privilege and interest of our Christian nation to select and prefer Christians for their rulers." This was said despite the explicit provision in the federal Constitution forbidding any religious test for federal public office.
Justice Joseph Story wrote for a unanimous Supreme Court in 1844 ( Vidal v Girard's Executors): "It is also said, and truly that the Christian religion is a part of the common law... ."
Our constitutional legal system is still based on the Jewish/Christian Bible, not the Koran or other holy book. We still observe Sunday, the Christian Sabbath, as an official holiday. Easter and Christmas still have a special place in the holiday lexicon. The Ten Commandments are still on the wall behind the Supreme Court Justices when they take the bench. Our coins still display the motto "In God We Trust." The US is still firmly part of a Western Civilization fashioned by a Judeo-Christian religious ethic and heritage. Alexis de Tocqueville observed more than a century and a half ago, "There is no country in the world, where the Christian religion retains a greater influence over the souls of men than in America." That is still true today. We live, not under a Christian government, but in a nation where all are free to practice their particular religion, in accommodation with other religions, and in accordance with the basic principles of the nation, which are Christian in origin. It is in that sense that America may properly be referred to as a Christian nation.
Is America a Christian Nation?
(Matthew 22:21).
