Separation of Church and state...what was the founders' intent?

Question

were they more concerned about protecting religion from government or protecting government from excessive influence by religion.

When they said, Congress shall make no law establishing........

Does it sound like its about one or the other?

But isn't protecting religion from government or a governmental religion the same as protecting government from religion? I mean, if religion is allowed to influence government, do we not then risk state religion? And do not minor things like nativity scenes or a cross in front City Hall, though not major in and of themselves not begin to take us down that path?

concerned Citizen has hit a homerun on this. They are one and the same.
its not about protecting religion only or about protecting government only its about both...if religion invades government than religion independence is threathened as well.

Answer 1

I believe, and several letters support the idea, that it was mainly to protect religion from government. I believe there was an intent to make sure the government wasn't run excessively by one religion but I think the peoples right to practice their faith freely was the over-riding intent.

The first amendment was concerned primarily with preserving individual rights not the government's protection.

Answer 2

Both. That's why it's a compound sentence.

"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion" means that laws should not be based on or give preference to any one religion, i.e. religion should be kept out of the government.

"...or prohibiting the free exercise thereof" means that the government cannot infringe on people'e rights to worship as they choose, i.e. the government should be kept out of religion.

I'm constantly amazed at the people who don't understand that freedom of religion and separation of church and state are one and the same thing. You can't have one without the other. If the state controlled the church or the church controlled the state, there would be no freedom of religion. Either way the end result would be a theocracy based on a single religion and making all others illegal. That's why church and state must be kept separate.

[edit]
I'm glad to see so many intelligent answers here. Maybe some of you should try to talk some sense into the extremists who seem to be gravitating to the question at the link below. I gave it a shot, but some other views on why separation is a good thing might be helpful.

Answer 3

They never wanted a Church of America to form like the Church of England did. They also wanted Americans to make the decisions for America and they wanted the one elected to do it. At the writing of the constitution the Pope could pretty much dictate world policy due to how many Catholics there were in the world. The founding fathers came from England were depending on your religion and who took the thrown it depended on the chances of you being herded out in the street and shot.

The main intent was they did not want the citizenry to be oppressed by the government for their religion like what was going on in some places in Europe at the time. Now there is a difference between being religious and being a church. Christianity is a religion, Baptist is a church. They always wanted the government to be religious, in fact you still swear on a bible in a court of law. They never wanted a church to be so powerful as to where the government would want to convert you or have a preacher have more say than the man elected.

Answer 4

Definitely both.

Not only did we not want to have people's religious freedoms trampled by a government that didn't agree with them, but we wanted religious leaders out of the government as well. It's unconstitutional to allow a tyranny of the majority. Just because there are more Christians than Muslims doesn't mean we can have a Christian Nation. We can have a nation made up of a lot more Christians and the national "identity" might be fundamentally Christian, but it ends there.

Also, if you recall, the Church of England was a very huge part of the government of Great Britain and was inseperable from the sovereign for all sorts of reasons (and still is, actually). The Queen's Coronation vows are witnessed by the Archbishop of Canterbury, for example, and this directly puts a religious figure directly in line to the succession of governmental authority, and that is something we definitely did not want in the US.

The influence the Church had over the governments of Europe was very big and very powerful. The concept is not conducive to liberty, and so it was put into the 1st Amendment in order to keep religious leaders' influence out of the politics of the nation and vice versa.

It was not meant to keep out religious ideals from government, since I think we can all agree that murder is very much a religious moral crime and we adopted it.

The influence of ALL religious morality is good to have provided that it makes scientific sense. Murder, lying and stealing...very bad. Taking the Lord's name in vain? Well...not going to get you into too much trouble in Congress, but it might in the Afterlife if there is such a thing. Not scientific, Move along.

Answer 5

They just came from the Church of England ruling over them so what do you think? They certainly didn't want government running the churches and telling the churches what to do because that was what happened in England with the Church of England being the government and having authority over the people. People were being persecuted for their political and religious beliefs. The Puritans had left England and were living in Holland and from there came to America. The Separatists established their own government and elected a governor of their colony. The law was made to protect the church. Government was not to be allowed in any church. You can't keep the church out of government because of people being religious. You can't keep government out of the church because of people being political. But you can keep government from making laws against anything religious. Churches don't make laws. They are governed by the laws of God and our forefathers knew it. They wanted the churches to remain under the laws of God.

Answer 6

The brilliance of the founding fathers was that they felt that a neighbor that followed any religion that promoted kindness and inclusiveness made a better neighbor than one that felt his or her religion was the only one. Sorry for the run on sentence. The founding fathers, in their outline for government, felt that religion and God were not one in the same. For instance one could recognize the existence of God without being a member or believer in religion. This is why having "In God we trust" on government writings etc. does not force one to accept a religion. If we stop humanizing God and accept it as an ideal that promotes humanity we will most likely stop killing each other. Even an atheist can accept a concept without being forced to ascribe to a religion. An atheist can recognize God as a natural and science based way of accepting our existence.

Answer 7

They were mostly concerned with keeping rulers from claiming they were ruling by Divine providence.

Many of them were also the descendants of the Pilgrims, originally called the Separatists, the first Christian religion since the first century Christians to advocate neutrality in politics and were just as interested in keeping government from forcing its will on any unpopular religion.

So, it was more about keeping religion out of politics, but also about letting religion alone as long as they are not harming anyone.

Answer 8

I have recently been examining all the known superstitions of the world, and do not find in our particular superstition (Christianity) one redeeming feature. They are all alike founded on fables and mythology.
Thomas Jefferson
I do not find in orthodox Christianity one redeeming feature.
Thomas Jefferson
Fix reason firmly in her seat, and call to her tribunal every fact, every opinion. Question with boldness even the existence of a God; because, if there be one, he must more approve of the homage of reason, than that of blindfolded fear.
Thomas Jefferson
In no instance have... the churches been guardians of the liberties of the people.
James Madison
Religion flourishes in greater purity, without than with the aid of Government.
James Madison

Religious bondage shackles and debilitates the mind and unfits it for every noble enterprise, every expanded prospect.
James Madison
Of all the animosities which have existed among mankind, those which are caused by a difference of sentiments in religion appear to be the most inveterate and distressing, and ought most to be deprecated.
GEORGE WASHINGTON, letter to Sir Edward Newenham, Oct. 20, 1792

Answer 9

It is more about protecting religion from government. Their intent even after reading Jefferson's famous letter is to not establish a state religion that would be over all other religions.

Answer 10

Read the entire First Amendment. The phrase "separation of church and state" does not appear in the Constitution.

The framers wanted to ensure that citizens of the US had the right to practice any religion they wanted. Most of the framers were English and wanted to get away from the English system where the Church of England was the required religion by law.