|
Jack Reynolds
Republican
United
States Congress |
Separation
of Church & State
The
term “separation of church and state” is not in the US Constitution!
The
term appeared in a letter sent by Thomas Jefferson to the Danbury Baptist
Association, in which Jefferson opposed setting up one church denomination
to which all people had to pay a tithe.
The
First Amendment to the US Constitution says in part (“...Congress shall
make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free
exercise thereof....”).
Fisher
Ames was a delegate from Massachusetts to the Constitutional Convention that
created our Constitution. He
introduced the First Amendment at the convention.
Yet, Ames said Bible teaching should be in public schools (B.
Schwartz, The
Great Rights of Mankind
(New York: Oxford Press, 1977), 180; Fisher Ames, Works
of Fisher Ames,
ed. Seth Ames, vol 2 (Boston:
Little, Brown, 1854), 405-406.
The
above example shows how you have been lied to by your pastors, teachers,
entertainers, news anchors, and others who tell you the Constitution says we
cannot use federal tax money to pay for Christian instruction in the public
schools.
This
means the federal government and state and local governments can teach
non-sectarian Christianity to children and others with federal, state and
local taxes.
Examples
of Constitutional Christianity-State Cooperation
Until
the early 1960s most states either required Bible teaching in public
schools, or left the decision up to the local school board.
In
the early 19th century the federal government paid for missionaries to teach
Christianity to Native Americans at government-sponsored missions.
After
the Civil War, President Grant gave control of Indian reservations to
Christian denominations.