The Myth of Church-State Separation

One would be hard pressed to find more suspect, specious, and erroneous reasoning in a United States Supreme Court decision than that found in Everson v. Board of Education (1947). When one considers the source however, controversial Justice Hugo Black, the devilishly sordid reasoning he employed becomes quite understandable.
The landmark Everson Decision is much celebrated by the secular humanists on the Left, such as the SPLC, the Communist Party USA, Democrat Socialists, and the ACLU. It is the author’s contention that this spurious decision provided precedent and provided cover to justify other similarly flawed decisions, such as Engel v. Vitale (1962) banning a generic school prayer and effectively removing God from American public schools. This decision was also authored by Justice Black, a reliable New Deal lackey who could always be counted on to advance FDR’s total government agenda. These unconscionable and disastrous decisions have effectively wiped God off the map where any public display of faith is concerned. Decisions like Everson, Vitale, and Schempp (No, not that one!) 1963, have effectively outlawed religion in the public square. The misplaced “separation of church and state” metaphor has become a shibboleth, or slogan, allowing Courts the means of citing the misused trope in order to avoid thoughtful legal analysis. How such a misplaced metaphor, based on “bad history,” came to shape the law in these United States will be covered in the second half of this writing.
The record of America’s Founding Fathers is replete with examples of how the secularist doctrine introduced by Hugo Black in the 5-4 Everson Decision has turned the intentions of the Founders concerning religion on its head. This cancerous trend has grown incrementally over the course of many Supreme Court decisions with stunningly little resistance from an apathetic and uninformed public. Its malign influence can be witnessed at every level of society. What we have here is failure to communicate a viable Christian message; the message being, that the Founders never wanted expressions of faith removed from public life. Like Strother Martin, I must confess that, “I don’t like this any more than you do.”
Before considering the sordid and pathetic history of the Everson Decision, it would be useful to document, as D. James Kennedy has, support for the contention that America was undoubtedly founded as a Christian nation.
Most of us are aware that “In God We Trust” is America’s National motto. The four word phrase was approved by the House and Senate and signed-off on by President Eisenhower. Stellar pastor, patriot, and Arthur Murray Dance Champion Jim Kennedy chronicles the many instances in our country’s founding, such as the Mayflower Compact, (“America’s birth certificate”) et al. in order to demonstrate that in all points in America’s founding we are a religious Christian nation. (Curiously, even the Pilgrims shared the same sentiment!?) Quoting the great Presbyterian Pastor, “The documents that formed this country, the ideals of its framers, the convictions of those who settled this land, the constitutions of all 50 states, the inaugurals of all of our Presidents (Washington’s Farewell Address), the inscriptions on our Capital’s monuments certainly testify that America is a nation under God founded for the furtherance of the Gospel Kingdom of our Lord Jesus Christ.” Dr. Kennedy goes on to cite Chief Justice Brewer in the Trinity Decision (1892) as he expresses that “We are a religious people and America is a Christian nation.” Renowned civil libertarian Justice and FDR appointee, William O. Douglas reaffirmed Brewer’s remarks when he stated in Zorach v Clauson (1952) that, “We are a religious people whose institutions presuppose a Supreme Being.” There exist numerous quotes from our Founders expressing the same attitude. In addition, American historian David Barton has made a career from documentation of similar sources concerning God and Country.
The foregoing discussion may seem obvious to some, but the author would like to impress upon the reader the scope of the tragedy for our Country that is the Everson Decision. It is worth noting how far our country has fallen since this misapplied and contrived decision was foisted on our Republic. Our Country and our families (school children, in particular) have suffered mightily as a consequence of this treacherous and incompetent decision that has effectively removed God from the public square; something that the record indicates was never the intention of the Founders.
As previously indicated, this paper will address the question of whether the Founding Fathers believed that public expressions of religion should not be permitted and how it was that an activist Judge Black and four other Justices managed to determine that the Founder’s intent was to divorce religion from the public square.
The plain meaning of the language of the First Amendment to the Bill of Rights addressing the place of religion in America should be quite clear to any American familiar with the Constitution. The First Amendment states that, ”Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion (“the establishment clause”) or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.” The plain language of the establishment clause clearly indicates, to an unbiased reader devoid of an agenda, that the clause prevents the Federal Government from “picking a winner” among the Christian sects, or denominations, and establishing that denomination as the preferred sect to be awarded privileges that the other sects would be denied.
This possibility was a very real concern for the Baptist Church in New England who had suffered under the sway of the Congregationalist Church favored by the powerhouse Federalist Party . A recently elected President Jefferson responded in letter form (January 1, 1802) to the Danbury Baptists of Connecticut who had the aforementioned concern. In what is generally considered to be a political statement, Jefferson sought to alleviate their fears by using the “wall of separation” as language of noninterference. Jefferson was cleverly employing Roger Williams’ “wall of separation” language from his “The Garden and the Wilderness” sermon. (Williams was a Baptist pastor who founded Rhode Island.) Williams’ “wall of separation” was meant to protect “the Garden” of God’s Church from being overrun by “the Wilderness” of government. An astute politician, Jefferson knew this would have the dual impact of “hurling a brick” at his Federalist opponents who had smeared him as a “Godless infidel” during a highly contentious Presidential Election.
Jefferson was known as an unyielding supporter of states rights’ federalism. He did not believe the proper role of the federal government was to interfere with the states, or the Christian Churches, in the way they would administer their affairs. During the course of Jefferson’s private letter, he would employ a fairly innocuous phrase citing that “a separation of church and state” existed that clearly indicated that no religion should be established by law at the federal level. While this metaphorical “separation” language existed in Jefferson’s letter, it is most interesting that none of these words – “separation,” “Church,” or “state” – are in the First Amendment. Moreover, the separation language cannot be found in any official government documents of that time. In fact, the phrase was never uttered by any of the 90 members of the Constitutional Convention which met for four months in 1789. (As Minister to France, Jefferson was not present at the Convention.)
It is highly disconcerting that any Supreme Court could contrive to interpret Jefferson’s language to mean anything but what its’ plain meaning indicates. In the Everson Decision however, a supremely activist Court, voting 5 to 4, reversed 150 years of precedent, and ignored numerous statements from our Founders and later Presidents of the United States (Washington, Madison, Monroe, and the Adamses et al.) that America was a Christian nation that depended on the providence of God and our Christian morality for our Country’s well being, and very existence following an unlikely (and providential) victory in the Revolutionary War.
Justice Black’s groundless commentary in Everson introduced a new and previously unknown legal principle: “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.” This unwarranted reasoning has turned the First Amendment to the Bill of Rights on its head and completely misconstrues President Jefferson’s true intent; and as any school boy can tell you, this action constitutes a clear-cut case of antidisestablishmentarianism. I’m sure Gene Wilder would concur with a perfect comedic pause and state, “That goes without saying.” (“Frawnkensteen” v. The Monster – 1974)
In the interests of full and embarrassing disclosure, I consider it imperative to now discuss the historical reasons an agenda driven “New Deal” Supreme Court would go to such unnatural lengths to misconstrue an obscure letter from a newly elected President to a constituent group – ouch. The Vinson, Black, Douglas Court had no better place to “hang their hat” since there was absolutely no constitutional or historical material to cite in support of a thoroughly untenable position.
With apologies to Eli Wallach, now comes “the ugly.” Surpassing even the ugliness of Chief Justice Taney’s Dred Scott decision (1857) declaring American slaves were non-citizens, is the sordid career of Alabama Klansman Hugo L. (lackey?) Black. Before attempting to explain the motivations of this anti-immigrant Freemason, it will be helpful to review some of Black’s more hateful and egregious decisions while on the Supreme Court. Always willing to carry water for the Franklin Roosevelt Administration, Black delivered the majority opinion in Korematsu (1944) allowing the exclusion of Japanese Americans to live as free citizens. Scholars uniformly describe this decision as “an odious and discredited artifact of bigotry.” (Now there is a day that will live in infamy!) If Black’s Korematsu opinion wasn’t bad enough, he was a zealous supporter of FDR’s scheme to pack the High Court with additional Justices; something Democrat Presidents in the 21^st Century have considered as well. In Fr. Mitch Pacwa’s presentation on Freemasonry’s history of animosity toward the Catholic Church, Pacwa points out that “Black wrote a law to make Catholic Schools illegal in Oregon with the intention of outlawing parochial education throughout the rest of the United States. Black’s long serving colleague, William O. Douglas consistently undermined the Christian Church, and religion in general. During the course of his numerous opinions, Justice Douglas would regularly attempt to deny funding to religious groups. Fearing the growing wealth and influence of the Catholic Church, a Protestant populated High Court sought to block immigrant influence in America. (Interestingly, the Court today (2023) is totally devoid of any Protestants.) This nativist bigotry on the part of the five Everson Justices doubtless contributed to the intentional misinterpretation of T.J.’s comments in his letter to the Danbury Baptist Association. According to JustBelief, the underlying motivation was far more nefarious; that being, an evil desire on the part of antiGod elites to cut-off the roots of the orthodox Christian Faith. This Faith was the foundation on which America was founded as evidenced by the nearly unanimous commentary of America’s Founders; many of which had clerical backgrounds. (It is also important to recognize that 123 of the first 126 institutions of higher learning in America were formed to promote the Gospel of Jesus Christ!)
Lest you believe the author’s commentary is overly harsh, sample a similar commentary from Col. Oliver North and David Goetsch’s 2022 book Tragic Consequences. Here the authors chronicle the price America is paying for rejecting God. In describing that, “all Americans are suffering the consequences of militant secularists who reject God but accept sin,” North and Goetsch briefly address the 1947 Everson Decision. To quote the authors: “For more than 150 years, the religion clause of the First Amendment was interpreted by the Courts as the Founder’s intended: as a Constitutional protection of religion from government intrusion. Then, ignoring legal precedent and acting on their personal beliefs and secular political agenda, the U.S. Supreme Court turned the First Amendment upside down. In one of the most blatant examples of legislating from the bench in the Court’s history, the Justices took a sentence out of context from a letter written by Thomas Jefferson, knowingly misinterpreted Jefferson’s words and used those words to transform freedom OF religion into freedom FROM religion.” (p.12) “The “wall of separation” Jefferson wrote about was intended to protect the Church from the kind of government intrusion associated with European monarchies; the kind the Pilgrims came to America to escape. The Justices took Jefferson’s sentence out of context, inverted its meaning, and opportunistically misapplied it for the purpose of advancing a secular agenda. Thus began an assault on Christianity that continues to this day.” (p.12) The insightful authors imply that the motivation of the judicial “agendists”(my word) was to outlaw public expressions of Christianity in America “so their sinful way of life could be justified.” (p.13)
In merciful conclusion, while the intent of the Supreme Court in Everson may have been to hamstring the growing influence of “undesirable” immigrants coming in vast waves to America’s shores in the previous eighty years, the High Court continued on its disastrous course far into the future. Once the camel’s nose, head, and neck were under the tent, momentum continued to build until our country was saddled with the grotesque and absurd decision that is Engel v. Vitale (1962). This bloody mess of a decision, not surprisingly authored by Justice Black, has been used to silence expressions of faith in public life. Abington School District v. Schempp (1963) consolidated with the “oh so vile” Murray v. Curlett case out of Baltimore, further solidified the attitude of hostility toward God and prayer, to include Bible reading, as unconstitutional and verboten in America. Exercising penetrating insight, Justice Potter Stewart wrote in his Abington dissent that the Court had in fact “established the religion of secularism;” clearly serving to undermine the Christian Faith.(JB). Renowned song writer Bob Dylan affirms Justice Stewart’s fundamental reasoning when he wrote: “It may be the devil or it may be the Lord; But you’re gonna have to serve somebody.” Slow Train Coming (1979)
In order to set our country on a more reasonable and constitutional course, we should heed the sage advice of Chief Justice William Rehnquist, and affirmed by the venerable Justice Potter Stewart, and abandon “the wall” metaphor; post haste, pronto, toot sweet, Like Now Daddy-O, etc.. Rehnquist confidently asserts that “the wall metaphor is based on bad history. It is a misplaced metaphor that should be frankly and explicitly abandoned.”
Whether Israel, China, Islamic countries, or modern Europe, history testifies that countries who turn their back on the God of the Bible suffer for their foolish error. At this time in America’s history, we seem to be in the process of being judged by an immutable Holy God who is no respecter of man. Brilliant Russian writer Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn stated this author’s contention more simply. When asked what happened to Mother Russia that led to its miserable conditions under brutal, murderous Communism, he said “We forgot about God.” Preeminent American jurist Robert Bork describes America as “Slouching Towards Gomorrah” by describing the cultural and moral decline of an America that has divorced God from our schools, homes and institutions. If America does not “right its ship” with a 2^nd Chronicles 7:14 form of repentance, and return God to the public square, as our Founders intended; “Abandon all hope ye who enter here.”