The Founders envisioned a profound intertwining of church and state

The naturally uneasy relationship between our government and religion has existed since our founding. The founders recognized both the importance of religious morality to the government and the necessity of keeping religious institutions separate from the state. America was run on those principles for a very long time but those days are over, which operates to our detriment.

After 1791, the American people were no longer under the godlike moral authority of a sovereign king and his dictates, for the framers had created a separate government with its sovereign authority vested in its people. However, the people had the responsibility to maintain morality learned mostly from their religious practice and education. Moral people would maintain a moral government.

Image: A 1954 stamp with America’s motto, “In God we trust” on it.

The beginning of the Bill of Rights shows the importance given to moral training independent of government:

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof;

Thomas Jefferson famously wrote to The Danbury Association of Baptists about this “wall of separation” created between church and state:

I contemplate with sovereign reverence that act of the whole American people which declared that their legislature should “make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof,” thus building a wall of separation between Church & State.

After honoring this separation, Jefferson also wrote about the progress of natural rights:

Adhering to this expression of the supreme will of the nation in behalf of the rights of conscience, I shall see with sincere satisfaction the progress of those sentiments which tend to restore to man all his natural rights, convinced he has no natural right in opposition to his social duties.

Jefferson first states that there is a wall of separation but follows that with the desire that the nation restore the natural or inalienable rights as given by God.

Government is connected to God-given rights through the people. The first clause establishes separation and independence of religion but also assumes that the people would participate in religion’s teaching and practice. According to John Adams, the Constitution required it. “Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people.”

The last part of the First Amendment calls for freedom of action. Moral people would have an unrestricted right to speak and write of the things they had learned to join together peaceably to ask the government to correct its failings. The people would become both the “wall of separation” and the connection of morality to government policy:

Congress shall make no law…abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for redress of grievances.

In one remarkable statement, the framers had recognized the supremacy of Judeo-Christian morality, its application to the processes of government through the people, and the requirement that the government separate itself from religion. The First Amendment also explicitly implies that the flow of morality is one way, from religious practice to government. A Venn Diagram of the relationship might look like this:

The people’s morality was always to be reflected in law. The Constitution uses moral order to administer justice and protect private. The government is granted the authority to institute laws to maintain a moral social order. Government policies would incorporate precepts taken from the same moral teachings.

Law is the legislation of this morality. It has always been illegal to steal¹ and to murder². It is against the law to lie under oath³. While it is not illegal to desire the things that others own, the government has an obligation to provide economic stability so that people can provide for themselves without an immoral desire to have the possessions of others⁴.

The morality in personal relationships would be encompassed in the government recognition that the traditional family is an ideal structure for the foundation of a stable society⁵. The programs and policies of government would promote this moral stability. Family stability is also strengthened by the recognition that older citizens have value to families and society⁶. The wisdom of age is as valuable as the enthusiasm of youth.

A government that depends on the morality of the people will encourage citizens to participate in moral education⁷. A moral government would not supersede religious teachings, nor would it close religious institutions, even in times of national emergency.

A moral government that derives its authority from moral people would not create for itself a new, inferior morality based on an imperfect definition of morality⁸. A moral government by the people would not encourage alternate moral authority created by men⁹. It certainly would not make itself into the ultimate sovereign moral authority and reduce traditional moral teaching to a role of a servant to government¹⁰.

If our government is failing in its moral obligations, there is a lot of blame to go around. Yes, the government does not protect the rights of the people to morally guide government, but the people may have also abandoned a morality worthy of guidance.