A woman I know who lives in Southeast Georgia was preparing last summer to have Vacation Bible School classes, and because the church she belonged to was so small, she asked a local school official if she could use the school lunchroom.  The school official smiled sweetly and shook her head.
   

"Separation of Church and State." She quipped.  Where did this "separation of Church and State" garbage come from?  It's not in the Constitution, the Bill of Rights, or the Declaration of Independence.  The First Amendment is often cited by the proponents of "Separation of Church and State" as their basis for pushing this evil ideology.  What is the exact text of the First Amendment?  Let's have a look at it:

    "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances."

    Do you see "Separation of Church and State" anywhere in the First Amendment?  Nobody who can read sees those words there.  So where this phrase come from?  It comes from the pen of a man who wasn't even there when the First Amendment (or any of the other ten Amendments we call the "Bill of Rights") was debated.  As a matter of fact, he was three thousand miles away in France.  Thirteen years after the First Amendment was drafted and ratified, Thomas Jefferson wrote a personal memo to the pastorate of Danbury Baptist church in Connecticut and coined the phrase, but it has since been taken totally out of context; his post to that church wasn't a legal document, it was only a letter, yet the Supreme Court managed to pull it into the legal arena by quoting it totally out of context.  

While the founding fathers who framed the Bill of Rights debated the wording of this Amendment for three months to protect the free exercise of religion in these United States,  they obviously never intended to separate God from government.  Thomas Jefferson was not among those who signed the Constitution, although he did sign the Declaration of Independence, which directly mentions God four times.  Since Jefferson was in France (serving as ambassador) when the First Amendment was debated and drafted, his personal letter to the Danbury Baptist Church is actually a third party reflection of what the framers of the Amendment said.  Third party information is inadmissible in a court of law, yet in this case it has been embraced as the law of the land.
   

A study of the congressional journal of the three months the Amendment was debated reveals the fact that James Madison, in introducing the First Amendment, was concerned that a government-forced denomination would fall into place as in England, Switzerland, and Germany.  They never intended the First Amendment as a protective springboard for pornographic smut.
  

  Religion was mentioned very little in the Constitution, although the document is laced with Biblical quotes and ideas.  As a matter of fact, the Bible is quoted in the Constitution four times more often than any other source.  The framers of our Constitution were somewhat afraid that they were creating a monster when they established the Federal Government; they had just won their Independence from the  British Empire and King George III.  The reason religion is mentioned so sparsely is that the State Governments were to have jurisdiction over religion. Some of those gentlemen who wrote the U.S. Constitution went back to their home states afterward and included many references to religion in the new State Constitutions they drafted.   As a matter of fact, all 50 states have acknowledgments of God in the preambles to their respective Constitutions.  Examples?

    "We the people of Pennsylvania, grateful to Almighty God for the blessings of civil and religious liberty and humbly invoking His guidance..."
      Preamble to the Pennsylvania                     Constitution, 1776
   

New York's Constitution, drafted in 1838 states:

    "We the people of the State of New York, grateful to Almighty God for our freedom..."

     State mottoes indicate that religion  was embraced by state governments. Florida's state motto, adopted in 1846 states: "In God We Trust."
   

Arizona: "God enriches."
   

Colorado: "Nothing without God."
   

South Dakota: "Under God the people rule."
   

Ohio: "With God all things are possible."  There are many others.
   

What about State oaths of office?

Delaware's adopted oath of office, drafted in that state's infancy, states:
   
    "Every person who shall be chosen a member of either house... must make the following declaration: 'I do profess faith in God the Father, in Jesus Christ His only Son, the Holy Ghost One God blessed forevermore, and I do acknowledge the Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments to be given by divine inspiration.'" 
   
    Thus the person who aspired to hold office in that state had to believe in the Trinity and the infallibility of the Scriptures just to hold office!  Thus the Federal Constitution was designed to leave religious jurisdiction to the State Governments, and Religion was (and is) intended to be very much a part of the State Governments.  How did it change?
   

After the South lost the Civil War, the Federal Government began to render the State Constitutions less significant and to usurp the authority of the State governments.  In much the same way, the United Nations, aided by Executive Orders from Bill Clinton and even George Bush, are eroding the significance of the United States Constitution.
   

Men like Patrick Henry and Samuel Adams resisted the U.S. Constitution until the Bill of Rights was in place to handcuff the power of the Federal Government.  Since Laws are supposed to be drafted and passed by Congress (not by Executive Order of the President, or by liberal judges as is happening today), thus Congress was restricted in the making of laws that would restrict religious freedom.

    "For the Lord is our Judge, the Lord is our Lawgiver, the Lord is our king; He will save us."                  Isaiah 33:22

    "The heart is more deceitful than all else and is desperately sick; who can understand it?
          Jeremiah 17:9

    Our government's balance of powers is based on these two Scriptures, acknowledging that God is our Judge and mankind is depraved.  France tried to build a democracy on the New Age idea that man is basically good.  That endeavor ended in a blood bath.  France has gone through over a dozen different forms of government during the time that our government has been in power.  Italy has gone through thirty eight!  As a result of governmental turnovers in Sicily, the Mafia was born.
   

The United States government has survived because it was built on the idea of the Sovereignty of God and the inability of man to govern himself apart from God.  Thus our government's balance of powers to prevent rapid governmental corruption and greed.  James Madison said     "All men having power ought to be distrusted."  Someone else has said:
   

"Absolute power corrupts absolutely."
   

These two ideas are supported by the Jeremiah 17:9 passage above.  Government will not work when acknowledgement of God is removed from it.  Period. 

"Separation of Church and State" is not a law, it's just a misguided phrase. We all need to see that more clearly and work to put the foolish arguments of the American Civil Liberties Union aside and send those ideas back to satan where they came from.  It's the only way we'll survive as a nation.             R.W.M.