We ended Part II with the thoughts of Thomas Jefferson and James Madison as to the importance of interpreting the Constitution according to its plain meaning and intent of the authors. George Washington also wrote of the importance of adhering to the prescribed methods for changing the Constitution.

If, in the opinion of the people…the constitutional powers be at any particular wrong, let it be corrected by an amendment in the way the Constitution designates. But let there be no change by usurpation; though this in one instance be the instrument of good, it is the customary weapon by which free governments are destroyed.”[1] [emphasis added]

Joseph Story was the leading Constitutional scholar of the nineteenth century and in 1833 wrote in Commentaries on the Constitution that the Constitution “…was to be understood in terms of its plain, commonsense meaning” and must not be changed by the caprice of men.

The reader must not expect to find in these pages any novel construction of the Constitution. I have not the ambition to be the author of any new plan of interpreting the theory of the Constitution, or enlarging or narrowing its powers, by ingenious subtleties and learned doubts…”[2]

For 150 years original intent was the courts’ coin of the realm when interpreting the Constitution. But that dramatically changed in 1947. The beginning of that change occurred seventy-seven years earlier when Christopher Columbus Langdell became president of Harvard Law School in 1870 and developed the theory of legal positivism which was adopted and applied by other leading lawyers and jurists that followed him including Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes.[3] Since 1947, legal positivism has replaced original intent as the standard for interpreting the Constitution. The essence of the theory is summarized as follows:

1. There are no objective, God-given standards of law, or if there are, they are irrelevant to the modern legal system.

2. Since God is not the author of law, the author of law must be man; in other words, the law is law simply because the highest human authority, the state, has said it is law and is able to back it up by force.

3. Since man and society evolve, therefore law must evolve as well.

4. Judges, through their decisions, guide the evolution of law (Note again: Judges “make law).

5. To study law, get the original sources of law – the decision of judges; hence most law schools today use the “case law” method of teaching law.[4]

The Founding fathers including those who drafted the Constitution held a biblical worldview. In this worldview, eternal truths were revealed to man by God through his creation and His revelation to the ancient Hebrews and first century Christians. In the Christian worldview, the Supreme Being (God) created matter out of nothing and formed the universe. He impressed certain principles upon that matter, laws of nature from which it can never depart. However, man was His special creation and was allowed to choose to follow or depart from those principles as they relate to human nature. Those principles are truths that are intrinsic and timeless, and are essential elements needed to provide a coherent and rational way to live in the world. These truths are called by various names: permanent things, universals, first principles, eternal truths, and norms.[5]

These absolutes became the basis for American law and were expounded upon by men such as William Blackstone in his Commentaries on the Law of England. Blackstone wrote:

This law of nature…directed by God Himself…is binding in all the globe, in all countries, and at all times: no human laws are of any validity, if contrary to this; and such of them as are valid derive all their force and all their authority, mediately or immediately, from this original.[6] [emphasis added]

The American Constitution’s biblical origins and the Founders’ unbending devotion to original intent in its interpretation were hindrances to the proponents of legal positivism. In his book The New Freedom, Woodrow Wilson disparaged the Founders’ notions of original intent and argued that progressives should be allowed to apply the Darwinian principle in interpreting the Constitution.

And they [the authors of the Constitution] constructed a government…to display the laws of Nature…The government was to exist and move by virtue of the efficacy of “checks and balances.” The trouble with this theory is that government is not a machine, but a living thing. It falls not under the theory of the universe, but under the theory of organic life. It is accountable to Darwin…Government is not a body of blind forces; it is a body of men…Living political constitutions must be Darwinian in structure and in practice. Society is a living organism and must obey the laws of Life, not of mechanics, it must develop. All that progressives ask or desire is permission—in an era when “development,” “evolution,” “is the scientific word—to interpret the Constitution according to the Darwinian principle; all they ask is recognition of the fact that a nation is a living thing and not a machine.[7]

Wilson’s profoundly humanistic understanding of man jettison’s the Founders’ concern for the universal wickedness of fallen man and therefore dispenses with the need for those pesky “checks and balances” so important to the Founders. The Darwinian understanding of man is that he basically good and ever progressing. Therefore, as men and society evolve, so must their constitutions and laws.

Not content with a fluid interpretation of the Constitution to meet the needs of an evolving society, there is a new breed of activist judges that have gone beyond legal positivism to legal realism. Such realists are using the legal system to promote their own ends while using positivism as the “basis for denying divine law and/or natural law.” Judicial realism is another name for judicial usurpation of legislative power. Legal realists such as Charles Evans Hughes, the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court during most of Franklin Roosevelt’s administration, believe that, “We are under a constitution, but the Constitution is what the judges say it is.”[8] Put another way, judges don’t just interpret the meaning of the Constitution; they decide what they believe the Constitution ought to say. They become social policy makers who craft decisions based on what they think as opposed the wishes of the people and their elected representatives. Prophetically, Thomas Jefferson warned of such an activist judiciary, “The Constitution… is a mere thing of wax in the hands of the judiciary which they may twist and shape into any form they please.”[9]

The basis for liberals’ plea for separation of church and state rest only on eight words taken out of context in 1947, but they are now used to blast any hint of America’s Godly heritage from every facet of American society. Theirs is not a true separation of church and state but creation of an invisible church subservient to the state. However, the history and importance of separation of church and state is far longer and greater than its misapplication to the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment. The separation of the spiritual realm from the secular was instituted by Christ. The separate but complementary roles of church and state were designed and ordained by God. Therefore, the battle is not merely between church and state but just one battle on the far larger battleground of humanism versus Christianity. Dietrich Bonhoeffer, the renowned German theologian who was martyred for his stand against Nazism, called humanism “the most severe enemy” that Christianity ever had.[10]

The sad state of American jurisprudence with regard to a real separation of the dual realms of church and state occurred because of two major failures by the Christian church in America. We shall call the first failure an abandonment of the public arena which occurred in the late 1800s and early 1900s with the rise of the “social gospel.” The social gospel movement started within the church but was used by secularists for left-wing social reform. Fearing a gospel of “salvation by works,” many conservative and evangelical churches developed a “ghetto mentality,” backing away from society and burying themselves in prayer, Bible study, converting the lost, and personal morality and holiness.[11] But in doing so, they also became the silent church that also buried its responsibility to be salt and light to the government and culture at large. [See: Matthew 5:13]

The second failure of the church in maintaining the dual realms of church and state we shall label as acceptance. Contemporaneous with the abandonment of the public arena by conservative and evangelical churches in the late 1800s and early 1900s, many mainline churches felt the effects of a loss of cultural authority as secular humanism advanced on the coattails of science and rationalism. In order to retain a measure of cultural authority and acceptance in the face of humanism’s onslaught, mainline Protestant leaders began embracing secular human sciences to lend credibility and cultural relevance to the tenets of their religion.[12] But such acceptance brought compromise of its creedal doctrines which resulted in a profane and powerless church that had lost its saltiness, “…no longer good for anything except to be thrown out and trodden under foot by men.” [Matthew 5:13b. RSV] And because of the church’s abandonment of society or the compromise of its message, the humanistic worldview reigned supreme and subsequently spread into every facet of culture.

The leaders and many of their bureaucratic subordinates in the institutions of American life now present what appears to be the face of an almost invincible monolithic humanism. In the presence of such a daunting challenge, Christians and others in America may ask how society can return its laws and Constitution to reliance on the original intent of the Founders when the rules for interpreting and enforcing those laws and the Constitution are made up by judges as they see fit to protect and promote their humanistic worldview. Our first priority is to correctly identify our adversary. The Apostle Paul paints a vivid picture of the enemy and his lair. “For we are not contending against flesh and blood, but against the principalities, against the powers, against the world rulers of this present darkness, against the spiritual hosts of wickedness in heavenly places.” [Ephesians 6:12. RSV]

Even though it is a spiritual battle in this life and the heavenlies, we are not meant to be mere uninvolved spectators banished to the sidelines by a hostile society. In this earthly life, Christians are His “boots on the ground,” and our marching orders are to actively spread salt and light into all arenas habited by a lost and dying world.

Larry G. Johnson

Sources:

[1] John Eidsmoe, Christianity and the Constitution-The Faith of Our Founding Fathers, (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Baker Books, 1987), pp. 392-393.
[2] Ibid., p. 393.
[3] Ibid., p. 394
[4] Ibid.
[5] Larry G. Johnson, Ye shall be as gods – Humanism and Christianity – The Battle for Supremacy in the American Cultural Vision, (Owasso, Oklahoma: Anvil House Publishers, 2011), p. 392.
[6] William Blackstone, Commentaries on the Laws of England, Vol. 1-Book I & II. (Philadelphia, Pennsylvania: J. B. Lippincott Company, 1910) p. 27.
[7] Eidsmoe, p. 390. Quoting: Woodrow Wilson, The New Freedom, (New York: 1914), pp. 44-48.
[8] Ibid., pp. 395-397.
[9] David Barton, Original Intent – The Courts, the Constitution, & Religion, (Aledo, Texas: Wallbuilder Press, 2008), p. 195.
[10] Eric Metaxas, Bonhoeffer, (Nashville, Tennessee: Thomas Nelson, 2010), p. 85.
[1] Eidsmoe, p. 407.
[12] Johnson, p. 252.

1947 was a busy, exhilarating, and optimistic year in America. The final days of World War II ended sixteen months earlier with the defeat of the Japanese Empire. Miracle on 34th Street was playing in the movie houses across the nation, and a solid-state semi-conductor called a transistor was invented in the Bell Laboratories. An unknown object crashed in the desert near Roswell, New Mexico. Thousands of former soldiers and sailors were in their second year of a G.I. Bill-financed college education, and the first Boomer generation children were barely over a year old.

But in 1947, many Americans also sensed an increasing undercurrent of unease and foreboding. The post war euphoria was short-lived as 1947 was the beginning of the four-decade long Cold War with the Soviet Union. The two superpowers were now separated by the “Iron Curtain,” so labeled in March 1946 by Winston Churchill in his famous speech at Westminster College in Fulton, Missouri. The West was being challenged by an aggressive Soviet Union and a monolithic block of “satellite” states under soviet domination, eastern European countries formerly under the control of Nazi Germany. The House Un-American Activities Committee held nine days of hearings into alleged communist influence and propaganda within the Hollywood motion picture industry.

Amidst the tumultuous events of 1947 there was also one little-noticed occurrence—a seemingly insignificant ruling by the U.S. Supreme Court that would eventually have a monumental impact on the course of religious liberty and freedom of speech for almost seven decades lasting to the present day. Known as Everson v. Board of Education, the case revolved around the authorization by the Ewing Township School Board for reimbursement of parents for fares paid for the transportation by public carrier of children attending public and Catholic schools. The school board made the authorization pursuant to a New Jersey statute authorizing district boards of education to make rules and contracts for the transportation of children to and from schools other than private schools operated for profit. Therefore, parents of children attending not-for-profit Catholic schools qualified for reimbursement under the New Jersey statute.[1]

In a 5-4 opinion, Justice Hugo Black spoke for the majority of the Court in their finding that upheld the New Jersey Court of Errors and Appeals’ decision which struck down the New Jersey statute:

No tax in any amount, large or small, can be levied to support any religious activities or institutions, whatever they may be called, or whatever form they may adopt to teach or practice religion. Neither a state nor the Federal Government can, openly or secretly, participate in the affairs of any religious organizations or groups, and vice versa. In the words of Jefferson, the clause against establishment of religion by law was intended to erect “a wall of separation between church and State.” Reynolds v. United States, supra, at 98 U. S. 164.

… 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. New Jersey has not breached it here.[2] [emphasis added]

The particulars of the case were relatively unimportant except to Plaintiff Everson and the citizens of Ewing Township, New Jersey, but the larger ramifications of the decision would spread into almost every facet of American society by overturning one-hundred fifty years of legal precedent, legislative actions, and its citizens’ quiet enjoyment of their religious liberties. The Court’s decision was contrary to the intent of the Founders with regard to the Establishment Clause and the meaning of Jefferson’s metaphor in his January 1, 1802 letter to the Danbury Baptists.

The Establishment Clause derives its name from the First Amendment to the Constitution of the United States.

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or of the right of people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.[3]

The First Amendment protections for religious liberty were extremely important to the citizens of the newly-formed nation. In England, the established state church had been an onerous foe of those whose religious beliefs differed. Facing religious oppression in Europe, the original colonies were primarily founded by those seeking religious liberty. By the 1760s, the colonists had experienced this freedom of religion for almost one-hundred fifty years, but in those final years before the Revolution, they received a rude reminder of former times of religious oppression by one denomination over another when King George III appointed an Anglican bishopric to oversee the religious affairs of Puritan New England—the very reason the Puritans had left their homeland.[4]

At the time of the writing of the Constitution in 1789, although the states encouraged Christianity, no state allowed an exclusive state-sponsored denomination. A dozen years after the drafting of the Bill of Rights which included the First Amendment, rumors still circulated that the new American government would designate a state-authorized denomination. These rumors were so prevalent that the Danbury Baptist Association wrote to President Jefferson about their concern that a particular denomination would be established as the official denomination. It was in this context that Jefferson wrote to the Baptists at Danbury, Connecticut, to assure them that the rumor had no basis in fact. In an attempt to assuage their fears, he said,

Believing with you that religion is a matter which lies solely between man and his God; that he owes account to none other for his faith or his worship; that the legislative powers of the government reach actions only, and 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 and State.[5] [emphasis added]

Jefferson’s belief that the First Amendment had been enacted only to prevent the federal government’s establishment of a national denomination is confirmed by his letter to Dr. Benjamin Rush, a fellow-signor of the Declaration of Independence.

[T]he clause of the Constitution which, while it secured the freedom of the press, covered also the freedom of religion, had given the clergy a very favorite hope of obtaining an establishment of a particular form of Christianity through the United States…especially the Episcopalians and Congregationalists. The returning good sense of our country threatens abortion to their hopes and they believe…any portion of power confided to me will be exerted in opposition to their schemes. And they believe rightly.[6] [emphasis added]

Jefferson’s metaphor of “a wall of separation” meant only the establishment of one particular denomination as the state-authorized denomination. Also, Jefferson’s wall was intended to be a one-way wall to protect the church from the state and not the other way around. But modern court rulings have perverted the original intent of the Establishment Clause to allow, in their own words, the construction of a “high and impregnable” wall between church and state.

The Supreme Court’s Everson decision divorced the First Amendment from its original intent and “…reinterpreted it without regard to either historical context or previous judicial decisions.”[7] In effect, the Supreme Court took eight words from Jefferson’s letter to the Baptists out of context and used them without support of sound judicial precedent to dramatically diminish religious freedom in the United States. Subsequently, the ruling has been used for additional judicial chicanery by the proponents of a humanistic worldview to systematically and completely remove religion and especially Christianity from all spheres of American public life.

Jefferson would have strenuously objected to the 1947 Supreme Court’s departure from original intent with regard to the First Amendment as can be seen in his admonishment to Supreme Court Justice William Johnson.

On every question of construction, carry ourselves back to the time when the Constitution was adopted, recollect the spirit manifested in the debates, and instead of trying what meaning may be squeezed out of the text, or invented against it, conform to the probable one in which it was passed.[8]

James Madison’s regard for the importance of original intent also mirrored Jefferson’s beliefs.

I entirely concur in the propriety of resorting to the sense in which the Constitution was accepted and ratified by the nation. In that sense alone it is the legitimate Constitution. And if that be not the guide in expounding it, there can be no security for a consistent and stable, more than for a faithful, exercise of its powers…What a metamorphosis would be produced in the code of law if all its ancient phraseology were to be taken in its modern sense.[9] [emphasis added]

In 1947, the Supreme Court produced Madison’s dreaded metamorphosis as original intent was dumped for modern invention. As the Establishment Clause has been reconstructed by the Court’s Constitutional revisionists, the illegitimate modern interpretation of Jefferson’s wall of separation produces the same consequences as Churchill’s infamous Iron Curtain—the suppression and ultimate destruction of religious liberty.

Larry G. Johnson

Sources:

[1] The U.S. Supreme Court, Everson v. Board of Education, 330 U.S. 1 (1947). Everson v. Board of Education of Ewing Township, No. 52. Decided February 10, 1947.
https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/330/1/case.html (accessed February 5, 2015).
[2] Ibid.
[3] The Constitution of the United States of America, (Washington, D. C.: National Archives and Records Administration).
[4] M. Stanton Evans, The Theme is Freedom, (Washington, D.C.: Regnery Publishing, Inc., 1994), p. 217.
[5] David Barton, Original Intent – The Courts, the Constitution, & Religion, (Aledo, Texas: Wallbuilder Press, 2008), pp. 51-52.
[6] Ibid., p. 51.
[7] Ibid., p. 27.
[8] Ibid, p. 28.
[9] Ibid., p. 28.

Ask the average American to define the meaning of the oft-repeated phrase of “separation of church and state” and usually you will receive a blank stare. Following a brief pause, they may start giving examples like: “It means we can’t have prayer in schools.” “The government can’t sponsor any event that is connected with a church.” or “The Founders wanted to keep church and faith out of government.” If one follows up with a question as to the origins of “separation of church,” answers will include: “It was invented by Thomas Jefferson.” “It is part of the Declaration of Independence.” “It was established by the Supreme Court.” And a few will identify its source as the U.S. Constitution.

Not only are most Americans substantially ignorant of our nation’s history, they are grossly uninformed about the form and operation of American government. What little understanding of government they have usually originates from listening to the nightly news, political pundits, Hollywood and media celebrities, Internet headlines and sound bites, and an educational system vehemently opposed to the central cultural vision of the Founders. Few concepts within American governance are so important and so misunderstood as that of separation of church and state.

The original Constitution was signed by Congress on September 17, 1787 and subsequently ratified by the states. The Bill of Rights was adopted by Congress on September 26, 1789 and became part of the Constitution when Virginia became the tenth state to ratify the Amendments on December 15, 1791.[1] The First Amendment reads as follows:

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or of the right of people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.[2]

The Founders were strong proponents of separation of church and state. But the confusion as to its meaning over the last seventy years derives from the modern revisionists’ misrepresentation of the Establishment Clause as opposed to those who argue for the original intent of the Founders that had been observed by custom and the courts for over 150 years.

It is clear from the words and actions of the Founders that the intent of the Establishment Clause was to prohibit government from establishing one denomination as the official or preferred church. Modernists have reinterpreted the Establishment Clause to be a separation clause that effectively purges any hint of religious activity and influence in the public square which has come to mean any of the spheres of American life.

To understand the concept of separation of church and state and why the Founders so valued it, we must look back in history. The idea that a group of people bound by a religious allegiance with its own history, beliefs, and traditions could exist within a society but remain independent of the governing political entity was a concept unknown to the ancients. This radical concept that a distinction must be made between the roles of church and state arose from Christianity at its very birth.[3] It was evident in Christ’s challenged to the politically-connected religious leaders (Pharisees and Herodians) when they attempted to entrap Him with questions as to man’s loyalty to man or God. “Then he said unto them, ‘Render therefore to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and to God the things that are God’s.’” [Matthew 22:21a. RSV]

For the next three hundred years the church fathers maintained this separation but endured severe persecution as a consequence. In 313 AD, Roman Emperor Constantine legalized Christianity, but he soon began intruding in church affairs. In 353-356, Hosius, bishop of Cordoba, Spain, reprimanded one of Constantine’s three sons (Emperor Constantius II) for intruding in church affairs by attempting to get Western bishops to oppose Athanasius of Alexandria for supporting those who rejected the Arian heresy. Hosius invoked Christ’s words in Matthew 22:21 which were preceded by a warning to the Emperor. “Intrude not yourself into ecclesiastical affairs…God has put into your hands the [secular] kingdom; to us [bishops] He has entrusted the affairs of His church.”[4]

Because of Constantine’s legalization of Christianity and in spite of the church’s early resistance to government interference, the church began a thousand year period in its history when church and state were intertwined to varying degrees. At the beginning of this period, government attempted to interfere with and bend the church to its will. However by the Middle Ages, it was the church who attempted to bend government to the will of the church. This was a corruption of God’s design for each realm.[5]

Out of the mixing of church and state came abuses such as the Crusades and the Inquisition. In spite of their motives to further His kingdom, the church had violated God’s plan because Christianity is not a religion that can coerce faith for it is a matter of the heart.[6] This intermingling of the spiritual and secular realms corrupted the roles of both church and state. A few men such as John Wycliffe and John Huss in the fourteenth and early fifteenth centuries recognized this corruption and called for changes in the church which was in dire need of fundamental reform. They also recognized that such reform would only occur with the recognition that the Bible was the final arbiter of faith and not the church.[7] These early stirrings of reformation exploded in the early sixteenth century when Martin Luther nailed his ninety five theses to the door of the Wittenberg church. The turmoil within the church produced one of the doctrinal pillars of Protestantism–the priesthood of the believer.

Alvin Schmidt presents an excellent summation of Martin Luther’s understanding of the distinct roles of the two realms in the early sixteenth century.

He [Luther] especially criticized the papacy’s role in secular government, seeing it as violating what he called the concept of the two kingdoms (realms). It was the church’s task solely to preach and teach the gospel of Jesus Christ…the government’s task was to keep peace and order in society by restraining and punishing the unlawful. The secular government can only compel people to behave outwardly; it can never make a person’s heart spiritually righteous. Only the preaching of the Gospel (the spiritual realm) can do that. In the spiritual realm the Christian functions as a disciple of Christ; in the secular realm he functions as citizen. Although the two realms are separate, the faithful Christian is active in both because God is active in both. In the spiritual realm he is active in proclaiming the gospel, whereas in the secular kingdom he is active by means of the law and the sword, or government.[8]

The early colonists and their descendants still had fresh memories of the church-state conflagrations that swept Europe in the century prior to their first arrivals on the eastern shore of America. They well understood the need for separation of church and state, but that separation was a freedom of religion and not a freedom from religion as interpreted and imposed by modern Constitutional revisionists. For the colonists and Founders, separation of church and state was an institutional separation and not an influential separation. Institutional separation meant that government has certain roles and duties in which the church must not interfere (keeping peace and order in society by restraining and punishing the unlawful by means of the sword). Yet, the church has every right and duty to influence government. Likewise, the government does not have the right to interfere with the roles and duties of the church (teaching and preaching the gospel and influencing society).

There are numerous documents that attest to the Founders’ sentiments of the right of the church to influence society. Perhaps one of the best examples of the attitude of the Founders was expressed by Supreme Court Justice Joseph Story (appointed by James Madison, the fourth president and delegate to the Constitutional Convention which speaks volumes about Story’s understanding of the Founders’ meaning and intent with regard to the Constitution and its Amendments). Speaking specifically of the Establishment Clause, Story wrote:

…We are not to attribute this prohibition of a national religious establishment to an indifference to religion in general and especially to Christianity which none could hold in more reverence than the framers of the Constitution…Probably at the time of the adoption of the Constitution and of the Amendments to it, the general, if not universal, sentiment in America was that Christianity ought to receive encouragement from the State…An attempt to level all religions, and to make it a matter of state policy to hold all in utter indifference, would have created universal disapprobation (condemnation), if not universal indignation.[9]

To confirm the continuing existence of this strong religious sanction that still held sway over the nation forty years after the Constitutional Convention, we look to the words of Alexis De Tocqueville’s 1835 Democracy in America, one of the most influential political texts ever written about America.

Americans so completely identify the spirit of Christianity with freedom in their minds that it is almost impossible to get them to conceive the one without the other…

In France I had seen the spirit of religion moving in the opposite direction to that of the spirit of freedom. In America, I found them intimately linked together in joint reign over the same land.[10]

Tocqueville went on to say that the peaceful influence exercised by religion over the nation was due to separation of church and state.[11] Unlike the modernists’ separation of church and state, Tocqueville’s separation was a separation of the spheres of power and not a separation of government from ethics and moral guidance supplied by the moral suasion of Christianity and the church.

The Founders did not prohibit but encouraged the church’s influence upon government, and for one hundred fifty years the church played a vital role in helping the state be the state by continually asking if the state’s actions were justified as a legitimate fulfillment of its role. Since 1947, the courts have sided with the modern Constitutional revisionists who deny the church has a right to influence the state and society in the public square. This denial is the subject to be discussed in Part II.

Larry G. Johnson

Sources:

[1] Michael Kammen, ed., The Origins of the American Constitution – A Documentary History, (New York: Penguin Books, 1986), p. xxix.
[2] The Constitution of the United States of America, (Washington, D. C.: National Archives and Records Administration).
[3] Alvin J. Schmidt, How Christianity Changed the World, (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Zondervan, 2004), pp. 265-266.
[4] Ibid.
[5] Ibid., p. 266.
[6] David Barton, Original Intent – The Courts, the Constitution, & Religion, (Aledo, Texas: Wallbuilder Press, 2008), p. 86.
[7] B. K. Kuiper, The Church in History, (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 1964), pp. 143-145.
[8] Schmidt, p. 266.
[9] David Barton, The Myth of Separation, (Aledo, Texas: Wallbuilder Press, 1989), p. 32.
[10] Alexis De Tocqueville, Democracy in America, Gerald E. Bevan, Trans., (London, England: Penguin Books, 2003), pp. 343, 345.
[11] Ibid, p. 345.