The 4th of July makes us think of our independence and freedoms. And recent legal battles over religious liberty in the U.S.A. raise serious questions about the freedom to worship in America. So when our Founders came up with the First Amendment, were they trying to keep the government free from religion, or religion free from government?
These days, the phrase “wall of separation between church and state” has come to mean keeping God or His believers from having a big effect on government and public life. But that’s far, far from what the Founding Fathers were thinking of when they were separating church and state.
Fear of an All-Powerful State Church Wed to the Power of the Government
They were afraid of what so many of the Old World countries had: a religion established by the state as its one true religion, that would tyrannically rule over the faith and conscience of every citizen.
As the Providence Forum’s Peter Lillback put it, “They recognized having a monolithic church was a dangerous thing.” That’s because it made the king not only their physical sovereign but also their all-powerful spiritual ruler.
Before the Pilgrims fled England, Wallbuilders’ David Barton recalled, “The Pilgrims’ pastor was executed because he made the statement
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