{"id":42744,"date":"2026-07-02T07:15:00","date_gmt":"2026-07-02T14:15:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/?p=42744"},"modified":"2026-07-03T08:44:12","modified_gmt":"2026-07-03T15:44:12","slug":"from-augustine-to-jefferson-the-idea-of-separating-church-and-state-has-deep-religious-and-secular-roots","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/from-augustine-to-jefferson-the-idea-of-separating-church-and-state-has-deep-religious-and-secular-roots\/","title":{"rendered":"From Augustine to Jefferson, the idea of separating church and state has deep religious and secular roots"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Steven K. Green<\/a>, Willamette University<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Trump administration\u2019s Religious Liberty Commission released its report on June 26, 2026, on the state of religious freedom in the United States, declaring it to be under attack<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The commission was established in May<\/a> 2025 to identify and report on \u201cemerging threats to religious liberty, uphold Federal laws that protect all citizens\u2019 full participation in a pluralistic democracy, and protect the free exercise of religion.\u201d Despite those altruistic goals, from the beginning, the commission faced criticism that the composition and agenda of the body were slanted toward a conservative Christian perspective<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The commission conducted seven hearings over the course of a year, taking testimony from approximately 100 witnesses.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The draft report recounts numerous incidents of reputed bias and mistreatment of people based on their religious faith, and it places the blame on bureaucrats who exhibit a disdain for demonstrations of religious conviction. The report attributes much of this to the use of \u201cthe metaphor \u2018wall of separation of church and state\u2019<\/a> to justify excluding religious Americans from equal participation in the public square.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As author of the book \u201cSeparating Church and State: A History<\/a>,\u201d I argue that the commission\u2019s broadside on the concept of separation of church and state is misplaced, but not new. Critics have portrayed the idea as anti-religious and ahistorical ever since the Supreme Court embraced it in 1947.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Jefferson\u2019s \u2018wall of separation\u2019<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

In the 1947 landmark case of Everson vs. Board of Education, involving public financial aid for religious education, the justices announced that they would use the concept of church-state separation as a guide for interpreting the religion clauses of the First Amendment<\/a> to the Constitution. Those clauses state \u201cthat Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In that same decision, the justices also employed the metaphor of \u201ca wall of separation between church and state,\u201d a phrase borrowed from an 1802 letter from President Thomas Jefferson<\/a> to an association of Baptist churches in Connecticut. At the time, the Baptists were a minority in a state that still maintained a religious establishment. Jefferson sympathized with their plight, employing the wall of separation metaphor to emphasize that \u201creligion is a matter which lies solely between man and his God\u201d and not to \u201cthe legislative powers of government.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Tradition of separation<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

The idea of separate spheres of spiritual and secular functions and authority was advanced by religious and secular thinkers to benefit both religion and the state.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In his fifth century work \u201cCity of God,\u201d St. Augustine advanced the model of two entities<\/a>, one spiritual and the other temporal or earthly, each with separate authority and functions. Augustine went so far as to use an image of two walled cities separated from each other as a means to protect the purity of the church.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

During the Protestant Reformation<\/a> of the 16th century, both Martin Luther and John Calvin distinguished spiritual from earthly authority and called for a division of labor between the two. Luther distinguished \u201ctwo kingdoms\u201d \u2013 a spiritual kingdom and a temporal kingdom that had separate authority.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Similarly, Calvin wrote that \u201cChrist\u2019s spiritual Kingdom and the civil jurisdiction are things completely distinct\u201d and, as such, \u201cmust always be considered separately\u201d because of the great \u201cdifference and unlikeness \u2026 between ecclesiastical and civil power.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The metaphor of a \u2018wall of separation\u2019<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

At the same time, religious reformers were employing concepts of walls, hedges or other barriers to ensure that the secular and religious realms remained apart.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Protestant Anabaptists \u2013 Mennonites, Hutterites, Brethren \u2013 took the theological idea of separationism to heart, seeking to keep their communities apart<\/a> from what they saw as the corruptions of the fallen world. They were declining to swear oaths of allegiance to civil authorities or otherwise participate in civic functions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The early leader of the Mennonites, Menno Simons, used the term a \u201cseparating wall\u201d to illustrate the degree of separateness their faith required from civil authority.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Finally, Roger Williams, the Puritan-turned-Baptist founder of Rhode Island, advocated for complete religious liberty<\/a>. He called for maintaining a \u201chedge, or wall of separation, between the garden of the church and the wilderness of the world.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Enlightenment figures, such as John Locke, also advanced notions of separation of church and state. In 1689, Locke wrote<\/a> that the church must be \u201cabsolutely separate and distinct from the commonwealth and civil affairs. The boundaries on both sides are fixed and immovable.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Influential British writer James Burgh called for building<\/a> \u201can impenetrable wall of separation between things sacred and civil \u2026 the less the church and state had to do with one another, it would be better for both.\u201d Scholars believe that this was likely one source for Jefferson\u2019s famous 1802 letter<\/a> to the Connecticut Baptists where he used the same metaphor.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A familiar concept<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Thus, members of the America\u2019s founding generation were familiar with the concept of distinct spheres of authority between religion and government and the necessity of keeping those functions separate.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Even though Jefferson used the wall metaphor only once, he worked assiduously throughout his life to advance religious freedom<\/a> via church-state separation. James Madison employed similar imagery, such as calling for \u201ca great barrier<\/a>\u201d between the two.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Church-state separation wasn\u2019t just an imagery idea; it was a concept that many people embraced. As Madison wrote, \u201creligion & Govt. will both exist in greater purity<\/a>, the less they are mixed together.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As a result, to this day, many denominations and religiously affiliated groups, such as many Baptists<\/a>, Seventh-day Adventists<\/a> and members of Reform Judaism<\/a>, among others, support the separation of church and state as essential for maintaining religious freedom.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And church-state separation continues to receive popular support. According to the Pew Research Center, in 2026, 54% of Americans<\/a> say the government should enforce church-state separation \u2013 a consistent percentage \u2013 whereas only 13% believe it should stop enforcing it, down from 19% in 2021.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Narrow view<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Despite this pedigree, the Religious Liberty Commission\u2019s report expresses particular disdain for the \u201cwall\u201d metaphor, stating that \u201cthe \u2018wall of separation\u2019 phrase does not appear in the First Amendment or anywhere else in the Constitution.\u201d The report calls it a \u201cbelabored metaphor\u201d that \u201ccan wrongly imply that church and state are opposed to one another and must remain completely separate.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The report also takes a narrow view of what is prohibited by the religion clauses: \u201cthat the government may not officially prefer one religion over another, take over the functions of a church, or coerce religious observance,\u201d which would otherwise allow for other types of church-state intermixing<\/a> such as government funding of religious education.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In her final opinion as a Supreme Court justice in 2005, Sandra Day O\u2019Connor \u2013 a judicial conservative \u2013 reflected on the importance of church-state separation<\/a> to guarantee full religious freedom.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe First Amendment expresses our Nation\u2019s fundamental commitment to religious liberty by means of two provisions \u2013 one protecting the free exercise of religion, the other barring establishment of religion.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

She concluded with a challenge: \u201cThose who would renegotiate the boundaries between church and state must therefore answer a difficult question: Why would we trade a system that has served us so well for one that has served others so poorly?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That the commission\u2019s report ignores the benefit of church-state separation to American society is troubling.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Steven K. Green<\/a>, Director of the Center for Religion, Law & Democracy, Willamette University<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

This article is republished from The Conversation<\/a> under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Steven K. Green, Willamette University The Trump administration\u2019s Religious Liberty Commission released its report on June 26, 2026, on the state of religious freedom in the United States, declaring it to be under attack. The commission was established in May 2025 to identify and report on \u201cemerging threats to religious liberty, uphold Federal laws that […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":56,"featured_media":42745,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[5,8025,46,10,296,36,4,2450,38],"tags":[17896,787,2618,2254,5381,885,891,886,860,6610,1942,10982,3617,1602],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42744"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/56"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=42744"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42744\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":42746,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42744\/revisions\/42746"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/42745"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=42744"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=42744"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=42744"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}