Separation Between Church and State

There have been many quarrels on the phrase “separation between church and state”. It has been a common metaphor used all around meaning that the state staying out of the church’s business and church staying out of the state’s business. This phrase has been very common that many begin to believe that it was found in our Constitution. The “wall of separation” was created by Thomas Jefferson in a letter to the Danbury Baptists in 1802 (Jefferson). It has grown to become part of the organic law of the United States. We have adopted it into our political system. The Constitution’s First Amendment has allowed the citizens to accept any religious belief and engage in religious activity and prohibited the government from favoring a specific religion by passing legislation to establish a national religion. Although the Declaration of Independence includes the words “Nature’s God” and the “Creator”, the Constitution made no reference to Christianity and included that the establishment of any church or creed is forbidden in the First Amendment. The Founding Fathers insisted that religion ought to be a private matter in which the state should not interfere. In the modern world, religion does not play a role in our everyday lives. The Constitution has helped confirm the separation between the two and to keep them out from each other’s business as much as possible. The founders did consider religion an important source of social morality, but they also knew that religious broils could destabilize government. “In the late eighteenth century many people believed that without a close alliance between church and state a nation would be too unstable to survive” (American Eras Vol.4 pg. 329). At the time of constructing the Constitution, the founders, along with many other Americans, saw that separating the two was not an easy process for Americans, even with their willingness that they could strive without a state church. The free exercise clause and the