There can be no doubt that Christianity is under siege in America. More and more we hear of various attacks on our religious faith. In doing so we hear in the news the discussion about this so called “separation of Church and State.” The mainstream media and our Washington leaders like to twist this concept into something that our founders never intended. It reflects a growing effort to limit Christianity in our civic and social culture.
The First Amendment to the Constitution reads “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.” Our founders had come out of England where the Church and the State were one and the same. They wanted to make sure that the government could not control religious activity. This is seen in a letter Thomas Jefferson wrote in 1802 to a church stating that this amendment had placed a “wall” between church and state. But Jefferson’s point was that this wall was to “protect” the church from government rule, to preserve religious freedom.
The purpose of the first amendment was not to keep the church out of the state, but to keep the state out of the church. Our government was formed by “Christian” men who used their faith in God to lead them in the establishment of our great republic. “Righteousness exalts a nation” (Pr. 14:34). It is the principals of Christianity that made this nation great. Its demise can only harm our people, weaken our nation, and fail to lift us to greater progress.
-Dennis Doughty
