The Truth on "Separation of Church and State"
National Reality Check: In the Pledge of Allegiance, we humbly state that we are "one nation under God". Think about the importance of that statement: We acknowledge that our rights come from the Lord --not from man. The historical facts prove that the United States was created as a Christian nation. This meant that the USA folded her hands before God and then opened her arms to all people equally. Further, being a Christian nation meant that the United States could offer opportunities for life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness for all.
While we're on the topic, allow us to kill a couple of rumors purported by anti-Christian agendas: Being a Christian nation does not mean that the nation desires to force people to convert to Christianity. Rather, it means that the nation is founded on Judeo-Christian beliefs which allow freedom and justice for all. Being a true Christian can never be forced. Becoming a Christian involves each person individually making a decision of his or her own free will: Everyone must choose to accept or reject the gift of salvation through Christ Jesus our Lord. To be a Christian nation is a very, very good thing for all. (And that's putting it mildly.) Psalm 33:12 declares, "Blessed is the nation whose God is the LORD, the people whom he has chosen as his heritage!"
Another rumor widely believed is that "separation of church and state" is in Constitution. This edition of Unite the USA sheds light on the fallacy of the "separation of church and state" belief and reveals how this erroneous notion began. We are so happy to share an article by respected scholar Thomas Sowell called "Forgetting the Constitution". In that article he explains why "separation of church and state" is false and that it has never been in the Constitution. Instead, our Constitution welcomes and protects our religious freedoms.
Alongside this fact, historian David Barton effectively said, "Without a public and official recognition of God, there is no hope of limited government, for rights come only from God... If rights come from God, then we can require man to protect those rights - as we did in the Declaration, Constitution, and Bill of Rights."
It's up to us to keep praying and working hard to protect and defend our rights. Each generation is entrusted with that responsibility. We believe the words of President Ronald Reagan continue to reverberate: Freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction. We didn't pass it to our children in the bloodstream. It must be fought for, protected, and handed on for them to do the same, or one day we will spend our sunset years telling our children and our children's children what it was once like in the United States where men were free. In fact, when a person thinks about it, it all can be summarized in one statement: "One nation, under God" actually creates liberty and justice for all... God bless you always, Carrie and Stacie
While we're on the topic, allow us to kill a couple of rumors purported by anti-Christian agendas: Being a Christian nation does not mean that the nation desires to force people to convert to Christianity. Rather, it means that the nation is founded on Judeo-Christian beliefs which allow freedom and justice for all. Being a true Christian can never be forced. Becoming a Christian involves each person individually making a decision of his or her own free will: Everyone must choose to accept or reject the gift of salvation through Christ Jesus our Lord. To be a Christian nation is a very, very good thing for all. (And that's putting it mildly.) Psalm 33:12 declares, "Blessed is the nation whose God is the LORD, the people whom he has chosen as his heritage!"
Another rumor widely believed is that "separation of church and state" is in Constitution. This edition of Unite the USA sheds light on the fallacy of the "separation of church and state" belief and reveals how this erroneous notion began. We are so happy to share an article by respected scholar Thomas Sowell called "Forgetting the Constitution". In that article he explains why "separation of church and state" is false and that it has never been in the Constitution. Instead, our Constitution welcomes and protects our religious freedoms.
Alongside this fact, historian David Barton effectively said, "Without a public and official recognition of God, there is no hope of limited government, for rights come only from God... If rights come from God, then we can require man to protect those rights - as we did in the Declaration, Constitution, and Bill of Rights."
It's up to us to keep praying and working hard to protect and defend our rights. Each generation is entrusted with that responsibility. We believe the words of President Ronald Reagan continue to reverberate: Freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction. We didn't pass it to our children in the bloodstream. It must be fought for, protected, and handed on for them to do the same, or one day we will spend our sunset years telling our children and our children's children what it was once like in the United States where men were free. In fact, when a person thinks about it, it all can be summarized in one statement: "One nation, under God" actually creates liberty and justice for all... God bless you always, Carrie and Stacie
How To Know Jesus
Question: How do Stacie and Carrie know they'll go to Heaven?Answer: It's not because of what they've done or who they are. It's because Jesus lives in them.
Anything good in them is because of Jesus in them. They know God and His love in a personal way. They've followed what God said in His book: the Bible. They invited Jesus to be their Savior and Lord. You, too, can know God. Yes, He really does love you!
Take His Word for it:
For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life. -John 3:16 (NKJV)
For all have sinned; all fall short of God's glorious standard.-Rom. 3:23 (NLV)
For God sent Jesus to take the punishment for our sins and to satisfy God's anger against us. We are made right with God when we believe that Jesus shed his blood, sacrificing his life for us... -Rom. 3:25 (NLV)
That if you confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus and believe in your heart that God has raised Him from the dead, you will be saved. -Rom. 10:9 (NKJV)
Understand that God loves you with infinite love! God is good, holy and righteous and we fall short of His perfection. So we need a Mediator, Jesus, who lovingly took our punishment for all our mistakes.
Believe that Jesus is God's Son that took your punishment. He took your punishment for all your sins (anti-God ways) and that He rose from the dead for you, __________.
Repent (turn away from) your sins (anti-God ways) and submit yourself to Him as your Lord.
Receive Jesus as your personal Savior and Lord. Talk to God and give your life to Jesus.
Pray from your heart. If it helps, pray something like this:
God,
I understand now...You sent Jesus to share Your love and make it possible for me to be Yours. Please forgive me for all my sins. Jesus, I believe you took my punishment on the cross and that you rose from the dead for me personally. I turn away from doing things "my way" and ask that You rule my life, Jesus. I receive You as my Savior and Lord. I put my trust in You not in the things I do. I love You.
In Jesus' Name,Amen.
Welcome into God's family! You are now His! Get connected with a loving, Bible-based church, enjoy the supreme joy of being baptized, and savor the Savior's love forever! Read the Bible. (If you don't have one, start reading the Gospel of John by clicking here.)
He'll never divorce you. He'll never die. He'll never change. He loves you! Enjoy loving and obeying Jesus and experiencing His love forever and ever! If you'd like prayer or more information, e-mail us anytime.
Anything good in them is because of Jesus in them. They know God and His love in a personal way. They've followed what God said in His book: the Bible. They invited Jesus to be their Savior and Lord. You, too, can know God. Yes, He really does love you!
Take His Word for it:
For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life. -John 3:16 (NKJV)
For all have sinned; all fall short of God's glorious standard.-Rom. 3:23 (NLV)
For God sent Jesus to take the punishment for our sins and to satisfy God's anger against us. We are made right with God when we believe that Jesus shed his blood, sacrificing his life for us... -Rom. 3:25 (NLV)
That if you confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus and believe in your heart that God has raised Him from the dead, you will be saved. -Rom. 10:9 (NKJV)
Understand that God loves you with infinite love! God is good, holy and righteous and we fall short of His perfection. So we need a Mediator, Jesus, who lovingly took our punishment for all our mistakes.
Believe that Jesus is God's Son that took your punishment. He took your punishment for all your sins (anti-God ways) and that He rose from the dead for you, __________.
Repent (turn away from) your sins (anti-God ways) and submit yourself to Him as your Lord.
Receive Jesus as your personal Savior and Lord. Talk to God and give your life to Jesus.
Pray from your heart. If it helps, pray something like this:
God,
I understand now...You sent Jesus to share Your love and make it possible for me to be Yours. Please forgive me for all my sins. Jesus, I believe you took my punishment on the cross and that you rose from the dead for me personally. I turn away from doing things "my way" and ask that You rule my life, Jesus. I receive You as my Savior and Lord. I put my trust in You not in the things I do. I love You.
In Jesus' Name,Amen.
Welcome into God's family! You are now His! Get connected with a loving, Bible-based church, enjoy the supreme joy of being baptized, and savor the Savior's love forever! Read the Bible. (If you don't have one, start reading the Gospel of John by clicking here.)
He'll never divorce you. He'll never die. He'll never change. He loves you! Enjoy loving and obeying Jesus and experiencing His love forever and ever! If you'd like prayer or more information, e-mail us anytime.
Forgetting the Constitution
What Does Separation of Church and State Mean?
Nearly every American knows the phrase “separation of church and state.” Do you know where it's from? Here’s a hint: it’s not in the Constitution. John Eastman, professor of law at Chapman University, explains how and why this famous phrase has played such an outsized role in American life and law.
Featured Quote
"The constitutional freedom of religion [is] the most inalienable and sacred of all human rights."
-Thomas Jefferson, Virginia Board of Visitors Minutes, 1819
Featured Bible Verse
Unite the USA's
Featured Veteran of the Month: Bernard Fisher
Bernard Fisher, Medal of Honor, Vietnam War
About Thomas Sowell
Thomas Sowell is a Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution, Stanford University. For more than half a century, his writings have appeared in both popular and scholarly publications, on both sides of the Atlantic, and his books have been translated into a dozen foreign languages. After a career as an economist in the government, academia and the corporate world, he has since 1980 been a scholar in residence at the Hoover Institution, devoting his efforts to research and writing, on subjects ranging from the history and influence of intellectuals to education and social policies in countries around the world. His website is http://www.tsowell.com.
Get to Know Thomas Sowell
You can get to know Thomas Sowell more here. Check out this video of Professor Sowell sharing how working for the government cured his Marxism. He became an effective conservative scholar and has taught, written books, and spoken for decades.
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By Thomas Sowell
The assurance that “separation of church and state” is in the Constitution shows our elites’ ignorance. Politics is not the only place where some pretty brassy statements have been made and repeated so often that some people have accepted these brassy statements as being as good as gold.
One of the brassiest of the brass oldies is the notion that the Constitution creates a “wall of separation” between church and state. This false notion has been so widely accepted that people who tell the truth get laughed at and mocked.
[Several years ago] a New York Times piece said that it was “a flub of the first order” when Christine O’Donnell, [former] Republican candidate for senator in Delaware, asked a law school audience, “Where in the Constitution is the separation of church and state?” According to the New York Times, “The question draw gasps and laughter” from this audience of professors and law students who are elites-in-waiting.
The New York Times writer joined in the mocking response to Ms. O’Donnell’s question, though admitting in passing that “in the strictest sense” the “actual words ‘separation of church and state’ do not appear in the text of the Constitution.” Either the separation of church and state is there or it is not there. It is not a question of some “strictest” technicality.
The First Amendment to the Constitution of the United States begins, “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion.” There is absolutely nothing in the Constitution about a “wall of separation” between church and state, either directly or indirectly.
That phrase was used in a letter by Thomas Jefferson, who was not even in the country when the Constitution was written. It was a phrase seized upon many years later, by people who wanted to restrict religious symbols, and it has been cited by judges who share that wish. There was no mystery about what “an establishment of religion” meant when that phrase was put into the Constitution. It was not an open-ended invitation to judges to decide what role religion should play in American society or in American government.
The Church of England was an “established church.” That is, it was not only financed by the government, its members had privileges denied to members of other religions.
The people who wrote the Constitution of the United States had been British subjects most of their lives, and knew exactly what an “established church” meant. They wanted no such thing in the United States of America. End of story — or so it should have been.
For more than a century, no one thought that the First Amendment meant that religious symbols were forbidden on government property. Prayers were offered in Congress and in the Supreme Court. Chaplains served in the military and presidents took their oath of office on the Bible.
But, in our own times, judges have latched onto Jefferson’s phrase and run with it. It has been repeated so often in their decisions that it has become one of the brassiest of the brass oldies that get confused with golden oldies.
As fundamentally important as the First Amendment is, what is even more important is the question whether judges are to take it upon themselves to “interpret” the law to mean whatever they want it to mean, rather than what it plainly says.
This is part of a larger question, as to whether this country is to be a self-governing nation, controlled by “we the people,” as the Constitution put it, or whether arrogant elites shall take it upon themselves to find ways to impose what they want on the rest of us, by circumventing the Constitution.
Congress is already doing that by passing laws before anyone has time to read them and the White House is likewise circumventing the Constitution by appointing “czars” who have as much power as cabinet members, without having to go through the confirmation process prescribed for cabinet members by the Constitution.
Judges circumvent the Constitution by reading their own meaning into its words, regardless of how plain and unequivocal its words are.
The Constitution cannot protect us and our freedoms as a self-governing people unless we protect the Constitution. That means zero tolerance at election time for people who circumvent the letter and the spirit of the Constitution. Freedom is too precious to give it up in exchange for brassy words from arrogant elites.
The assurance that “separation of church and state” is in the Constitution shows our elites’ ignorance. Politics is not the only place where some pretty brassy statements have been made and repeated so often that some people have accepted these brassy statements as being as good as gold.
One of the brassiest of the brass oldies is the notion that the Constitution creates a “wall of separation” between church and state. This false notion has been so widely accepted that people who tell the truth get laughed at and mocked.
[Several years ago] a New York Times piece said that it was “a flub of the first order” when Christine O’Donnell, [former] Republican candidate for senator in Delaware, asked a law school audience, “Where in the Constitution is the separation of church and state?” According to the New York Times, “The question draw gasps and laughter” from this audience of professors and law students who are elites-in-waiting.
The New York Times writer joined in the mocking response to Ms. O’Donnell’s question, though admitting in passing that “in the strictest sense” the “actual words ‘separation of church and state’ do not appear in the text of the Constitution.” Either the separation of church and state is there or it is not there. It is not a question of some “strictest” technicality.
The First Amendment to the Constitution of the United States begins, “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion.” There is absolutely nothing in the Constitution about a “wall of separation” between church and state, either directly or indirectly.
That phrase was used in a letter by Thomas Jefferson, who was not even in the country when the Constitution was written. It was a phrase seized upon many years later, by people who wanted to restrict religious symbols, and it has been cited by judges who share that wish. There was no mystery about what “an establishment of religion” meant when that phrase was put into the Constitution. It was not an open-ended invitation to judges to decide what role religion should play in American society or in American government.
The Church of England was an “established church.” That is, it was not only financed by the government, its members had privileges denied to members of other religions.
The people who wrote the Constitution of the United States had been British subjects most of their lives, and knew exactly what an “established church” meant. They wanted no such thing in the United States of America. End of story — or so it should have been.
For more than a century, no one thought that the First Amendment meant that religious symbols were forbidden on government property. Prayers were offered in Congress and in the Supreme Court. Chaplains served in the military and presidents took their oath of office on the Bible.
But, in our own times, judges have latched onto Jefferson’s phrase and run with it. It has been repeated so often in their decisions that it has become one of the brassiest of the brass oldies that get confused with golden oldies.
As fundamentally important as the First Amendment is, what is even more important is the question whether judges are to take it upon themselves to “interpret” the law to mean whatever they want it to mean, rather than what it plainly says.
This is part of a larger question, as to whether this country is to be a self-governing nation, controlled by “we the people,” as the Constitution put it, or whether arrogant elites shall take it upon themselves to find ways to impose what they want on the rest of us, by circumventing the Constitution.
Congress is already doing that by passing laws before anyone has time to read them and the White House is likewise circumventing the Constitution by appointing “czars” who have as much power as cabinet members, without having to go through the confirmation process prescribed for cabinet members by the Constitution.
Judges circumvent the Constitution by reading their own meaning into its words, regardless of how plain and unequivocal its words are.
The Constitution cannot protect us and our freedoms as a self-governing people unless we protect the Constitution. That means zero tolerance at election time for people who circumvent the letter and the spirit of the Constitution. Freedom is too precious to give it up in exchange for brassy words from arrogant elites.