Exploring Superstitions Behind Separation of Church & State

The civic catechisms of our day still celebrate Thomas Jefferson’s experiment in religious liberty. To end a millennium of repressive religious establishments, we are taught, Jefferson sought liberty in the twin formulas of privatizing religion and secularizing politics. Religion must be “a concern purely between our God and our consciences,” he wrote in 1802. Politics must be conducted with “a wall of separation between church and state.” “Public religion” is a threat to private religion, and must thus be discouraged. “Political ministry” is a menace to political integrity and must thus be outlawed.These Jeffersonian maxims remain for many today the cardinal axioms of a unique American logic of religious freedom to which every patriotic citizen and church must yield.

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