Many of us use phrases in our speech, but the origin is unknown to us. For example, how many of us know the “wrong side of the tracks” refers to being downwind of the black exhaust of coal locomotives, or that a “big wig” is a reference to the powdered wigs worn by government officials and justices of the 18th century?

In these examples, the circumstances that gave rise to the phrase are gone. The phrase remains, and is used or transformed as men see fit. Such is also the case with the phrase, “separation of church and state.”The phrase was penned by Thomas Jefferson, writing to the Danbury Baptist Association, which had sent him a 1,000-pound cheese to celebrate his inauguration. He wrote assuring them that he “believed in an absolute wall of separation between church and state” — his short summary for the meaning of the First Amendment.

The phrase in the First Amendment to the Constitution reads: “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; ... .” This is a clause directed at the federal Congress and not the states or the people.

It was inserted into the Constitution at a time when each of the 13 states had either official religious establishments, or some form of settlement on religion which had been legislated. It was prohibition on the national government, in light of the abuses of the Tudor and Stewart monarchs.

The English church/state relationship had its origins in Henry VIII’s separation from the church at Rome. Henry desired a male heir, and Catherine of Aragon was aging and had given him only feeble children. Only one daughter had survived infancy.

Henry asked the pope for a divorce from Catherine, so he could pursue a younger bride. But Catherine was Spanish nobility, and the pope was politically connected to the Spanish. When he refused Henry’s request, Henry declared the English church independent of the pope, and himself as king to be “head of the English church.”This was a return to the ancient principle of political organization, whereby the church was a department of state. The English thus combined the supposed spiritual ministry of God’s word with the power of the physical sword. Both Tudor and Stewart monarchs imprisoned, tortured and executed those who dissented from the official doctrine of the English church.

James I was quoted, when the Puritans brought to him the Millenary Petition (so- called because it was said to be subscribed by 1,000 signatures), “They will conform or I will harry them out of the land.” Our forefathers had experienced what this meant. The Pilgrim colonists of New England had been intercepted and arrested by the king’s army for attempting to leave England. Some of their wives and children had been imprisoned.

The Scotch Irish are so-called because they were Scottish refugees driven out of Scotland by the demand to conform. All across Europe, there had been religious persecution — all of which could be laid at the feet of the church being a department of state, and the king having authority in it.

One of the varied causes of the War for Independence was the attempt on the part of the Anglican church to have installed a bishop over the colonies. Known as the Episcopal Controversy, the attempt reached its climax at the time of the Stamp Act.

John Adams noted that this “contributed ... as much as any other cause, to arouse the attention ... to close thinking on the constitutional authority of parliament over the colonies.”

The colonists knew what was at stake: forced uniformity in religion, forced attendance in approved Anglican meetings, taxation to support the church and the denial of the right to assemble for meetings of the “dissenters.”

It should be pointed out that the Anglican church in the colonies wanted no part of the scheme, either. They were used to being ruled by their vestries, and did not want state interference.

As Richard Bland wrote: “... I profess myself a sincere son of the established church,

but I can embrace her doctrines without approving of her hierarchy, which I know to be a relic of the papal encroachments upon the common law.”

In light of this history, we can see clearly the intent of the establishment clause of the First Amendment. The separation of church and state which it countenances is a prohibition on the federal government.

It prohibits Congress from bowing to some religious faction, and trumping all of the others from the vantage of the federal government. At the same time, it was to leave the states and the people free to exercise the Christian faith as they saw fit.

Transformation of the establishment clause began at the point of the bayonet, after the Civil War. Congress passed the 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution and sent it to the states. All the Southern states refused to ratify it.

The Union then passed the Reconstruction Act of March 2, 1867, declaring “no legal state government” existed in the Southern states. Passing the 14th Amendment was made requisite for admission to the national legislature.

The effect of the 14th Amendment has been the destruction of Christian influence, and the liberties we once enjoyed through the creation of a new judicial doctrine.

John Whitehead explains, “The issue to keep in mind is that the Bill of Rights was ‘nationalized’ and thus became a restriction on the states, whereas before it restricted the federal government only .... By the process of liberal relativistic interpretation, the Court has taken the word ‘liberty’ found in the due process clause to refer to ‘freedoms’ of the Bill of Rights.”

Beginning with the Warren Court, there has been transformation of both the establishment and free-exercise clauses. It is now the states that are held in check. Any activity involving the Christian faith is to be expunged from the public sphere, in the name of the establishment clause. Any activity involving rival religions or philosophies is to be protected in the name of free exercise.

Thus, a clause prohibiting federal involvement with religion has been made a pretense for the overthrow of the inalienable rights it was designed to protect. The big wigs