LETTER: Jefferson was no enemy of religion

Several readers have written in support of religious freedom and expressed confusion about the meaning of Thomas Jefferson’s famous metaphor “wall of separation between church and state.” Carl Asszony’s op-ed correctly states that this phrase was taken out of context and misapplied by the courts. However, to understand the full context, we need to understand its history. In simple terms it supports the notion that government cannot infringe on the freedom to express and practice religious beliefs. The First Amendment only limits government, not the people.

When Jefferson became president, John Adams’ Federalists-Congressionalist church was an established state religion in Massachusetts/Connecticut that persecuted the minority Danbury Baptists who supported Jefferson. In response to a congratulatory letter for winning and advocacy for religious liberty, Jefferson responded: “Believing with you that religion is a matter which lies solely between Man & his God, that he owes account to none other for his faith or his worship, that the legitimate powers of government reach actions only, & 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 & State.” This letter addressed governmental religious restrictions.

Although Jefferson’s Danbury letter is thought of as the constitutional relationship between church and state, it was a political statement written to reassure Baptists that Jefferson was indeed a friend of religion and to strike back at the Federalist-Congregationalist establishment for vilifying him as an ‘infidel and atheist’ in the campaign.

Throughout his presidency Jefferson pursued policies incompatible with current court rulings attributed to him. He endorsed using federal funds to build churches and to support Christian missionaries. It is absurd that courts and commentators would believe that Jefferson pursued policies that violated his own “wall of separation.”

Church and government coexisted in accordance to the First Amendment until 1947 when the Supreme Court under guidance from the ACLU took the metaphor out of context to make it an unconstitutional part of the First Amendment, as a substitute for the text of the Amendment. It is being used today by courts and groups to suppress freedom of religious practice. The religion provisions were added to the Constitution to protect religion and religious institutions from interference by the federal government and not to protect the state from religion.

John Skoufis

DENVILLE