"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof . . ."
—Bill of Rights, Amendment 1

". . . 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 therof,' thus building a wall of separation between Church & State."
& #8212;Thomas Jefferson, letter to the Danbury Baptist Committee, January 1, 1802

    When Supreme Court Justice Hugo Black invoked Thomas Jefferson's compelling metaphor of a wall to separate the religious and governmental spheres, he sparked a national furor which continues to rage. In the 1947 Everson v. Board of Education majority opinion, Black declared, "In the words of Jefferson, the [First Amendment] clause against establishment of religion by law was intended to erect 'a wall of separation between church and State.' . . . That wall must be kept high and impregnable. We could not approve the slightest breach." Ironically, in the case that set off the whole controversy, the Court decided that the Board of Education (New Jersey's Ewing Township) had not in fact violated the First Amendment as accused. Even so, the wall image entered judicial and societal language, irrevocably changing both.

    The language of the First Amendment seems clear enough—government cannot appoint a national church or hinder religious liberty—but judicial interpretation and changing societal norms have muddied the waters. Much of the present tension surrounding church and state separation concerns the wall that Black built rather than the one that Jefferson embraced. American University professor Daniel Dreisbach says, "Whereas Jefferson's 'wall' explicitly separated the institutions of church and state [federal government], Black's wall, more expansively, separates religion and all civil government."

    The drafters of the Bill of Rights hoped to avoid, on a federal level, the considerable difficulties associated with government-supported churches. (Because individual sovereignty allowed them to do so, some states had actually created a government-supported church, which inevitably began to dominate public life in the state.) The two institutions would be stronger if neither could interfere with the other. This was not a matter of relegating the church to a sideline position in public life, but rather an affirmation that the individual—not the government—was best equipped to make church-related decisions.

    The wall that Black built sent religion and civil government—federal, state, and local—to their respective corners as if they had been bloodied pugilists in a ring rather than cordial gentlemen. Instead of protecting the church from state interference, Black's use of the wall metaphor enclosed the church to prevent it from informing or influencing civil life. The result has been a stream of attempts to strip the public square of any kind of Christian symbol or practice—not in the name of religious liberty or in the name of anti-establishment, but with the cry of "separation!"

    The polarizing effect of the wall metaphor is this: critics believe that it oversimplifies and even redefines the actual language of the First Amendment; separationists conversely argue the First Amendment implies distinctive spheres for church and government. Judicial interpretation frequently supports the second opinion, although several justices have been uncomfortable with or even antagonistic to the metaphor as a constitutional principle.

    But the Supreme Court concedes that a perfect separation is impossible to sustain. If the division were absolute, as Justice William Douglas explained in 1952's Zorach v. Clauson decision, "prayers in our legislative halls; the appeals to the Almighty in the messages of the Chief Executive; the proclamations making Thanksgiving Day a holiday; 'so help me God' in our courtroom oaths—these and all other references to the Almighty that run through our laws, our public rituals, our ceremonies would be flouting the First Amendment."

    In addition, Justice Douglas illustrated the ridiculousness of institutional isolation. Strict separation, he maintained, would require that police and fire-fighting services be legally denied to religious groups, and even "policemen who helped parishioners into their places of worship would violate the Constitution."

    Times change. Societies must evolve, supporters of the wall tell us, and they want us to change with them. Unfortunately, the evolution proposed by separationists—a secular public sphere with religion relegated to private worship only—is dangerous. If we look around the world, we can see the disastrous effects of withdrawing moral influence from civil life. In the February 7, 2004, World magazine, Andree Seu gives a brutal but honest assessment of France's drive for a secular nation: "The problem is that Secularism is Nothingism. As a negation of all religion, it is a vacuum—and nature abhors a vacuum . . . the house swept clean of a demon but not refilled with God will attract seven worse demons (Matthew 12:43-45)."

    The true nature of the relationship between church and state in the United States is richly complex and integrated. Alexander Meiklejohn, a scholarly advocate of First Amendment freedoms, compared Jefferson's separation of church and state to the organic nature of circulation in the human body. "That bloodstream must be kept separate by the walls of the circulatory system. A break in them is disastrous," he noted in a 1949 article, "and yet the blood performs its living function only as it nourishes the whole body, giving health and vigor to all its activities." (Dreisbach, Thomas Jefferson and the Wall of Separation Between Church and State) Meiklejohn points out that the separationist interpretation of the wall supposes it to be made of "brick or stone or steel." He explains that "by so doing they cut off our spiritual education from its proper field of influence. They make 'private' a matter of supreme 'public' importance. And the effect of that operation corresponds closely to what would happen if we should substitute for the living tissues which enclose the cortex, or the nerves, or the blood, casings of impenetrable steel." As Christians, we are the lifeblood of a nation that has historically recognized a Supreme Being.

    Meiklejohn's response is one of faith mixed with reason. His calmly rational attitude is an important one for Christians to emulate. We are often accused of developing a "the sky is falling!" mentality toward the separation adage. Certainly there are those who wish to silence the Christian voice in the public square, but a careful study of the issue (and the Supreme Court cases surrounding it) shows that our right to religious expression is still intact. We may not be a "Christian" nation, but we are one built on scriptural principles. This includes the right to freely exercise our faith. We call it free will. In order to use our liberty and take a stand against separation, we must recognize our personal responsibility to be salt and light to our country.

by Tracy Hillwig