The phrase “separation of church and state” had actually appeared in less than a dozen cases in U.S. courts, up until the time that it was first invoked in the case of Everson v. Board of Education in 1947. Throughout America’s first 150 years, no court decision had ever supported the separation ideology. But this 1947 decision was instrumental in the advent of our nation’s corrosion from within that has followed in subsequent court decisions for the last 58 years. After 1947, this Jefferson phrase has appeared in courts in literally thousands of cases.

The 1947 Supreme Court forfeited the original intent of the Constitution (of which they were sworn to uphold, and Jefferson, himself had supported) to their own political and personal philosophies. Study of the original intentions of the whole of the original statesmen was thrown aside, and Jefferson’s warning was not heeded:

“On every question of construction, carry ourselves back to the time when the Constitution was adopted, recollect the spirit manifested in the debates, and instead of trying what meaning may be squeezed out of the text, or invented against it, conform to the probable one in which it was passed.” #65

The Court’s 1947 Everson decision coupled the First Amendment with the Fourteenth Amendment, an amendment that was implemented in 1868 in order to guarantee state citizenship to former slaves. Strangely enough, the Everson Court combined these two amendments to remove the states’ autonomy with regard to religious practices and subvert them to the jurisdiction of the Federal Government. (Neither the First or Fourteenth Amendments original intent was to generally embolden the power of Federal Government and/or subvert states’ rights.)

Nevertheless, at the same time, the Court discarded the historical case law, constitutional law, and common understanding of the First Amendment (which was to protect free expression of religion from Federal government tampering) and rather interpreted it, without precedent, to separate government and religion, stating that …

…The First Amendment has erected a wall between Church and State. That wall must be kept high and impregnable. We could not approve the slightest breach.” #66

And yet there had been breaches by the hundreds and thousands for the previous 150 years, if this new interpretation was in any was correct! This Court decision created a quagmire in which thousands of previously legal religious practices were now in question. And while many court decisions after 1947 continued to uphold and even encourage the original intent of the First Amendment, a few decisions began to invoke the separation idiom, including the 1962 Engel v. Vitale case, which, without citing a single precedent, removed voluntary prayer from schools, claiming that a simple nondenominational prayer in New York schools established “an official state religion”, breaching the “constitutional wall of separation of church and state”.#67 In this case, Justice Potter Stewart was the beacon of common sense when he proposed his dissent:

“The Court today says that the State and federal governments are without constitutional power to prescribe any particular form of words to be recited by any group of the American people on any subject touching religion. One of the stanzas of “The Star-Spangled Banner,” made our National Anthem by Act of Congress in 1931, contains these verses:

‘Blest with victory and peace, may the heav’n rescued land Praise the power that hath made and preserved us a nation! Then conquer we must, when our cause it is just, And this be our motto ‘in God is our Trust.’

In 1954, Congress added a phrase to the Pledge of Allegiance to the Flag so that it now contains the words “one Nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all” …. Since 1865 the words “In God We Trust” have been impressed on our coins. Countless similar examples could be listed, but there is no need to belabor the obvious …I do not believe that this Court, or the Congress, or the President has by the actions and practices I have mentioned established an “official religion” in violation of the Constitution. And I do not believe the State of New York has done so in this case. What each has done has been to recognize and to follow the deeply entrenched and highly cherished spiritual traditions of our Nation – traditions which come down to us from those who almost two hundred years ago avowed their “firm reliance on the Protection of divine Providence.”

In addition, he added …

“With all respect, I think the court has misapplied a great constitutional principle. I cannot see how an “official religion” is established by letting those who want to say a prayer say it. On the contrary, I think that to deny the wish of these school children to join in reciting this prayer is to deny them the opportunity of sharing in the spiritual heritage of our Nation ….For we deal here not with the establishment of a state church, which would, of course, be constitutionally impermissible, but with whether school children who want to begin their day by joining in prayer must be prohibited from doing so.” #68

Then came the 1963 School District of Abington Township v. Schempp case, which abolished volunteer Bible reading in Pennsylvania schools, claiming that religious activities must remain home or in private schools. Again, Justice Potter’s dissent:

“It might be argued here that parents who wanted their children to be exposed to religious influences in school could … send their children to private or parochial schools. But the consideration which renders this contention too facile (simplistic) to be determinative (a factor) has already been recognized by the Court: “Freedom of speech, freedom of the press, freedom of religion are available to all, not merely to those who can pay their own way.” Murdock v. Pennsylvania, 319 U.S. 105, 111. It might also be argued that parents who want their children exposed to religious influences can adequately fulfill that wish off school property and outside school time. With all its surface persuasiveness, however, this argument seriously misconceives the basic constitutional justification for permitting the exercises at issue in these cases. For a compulsory state educational system SO STRUCTURES A CHILD’S LIFE that if religious exercises are held to an impermissible activity in schools, , religion is placed at an artificial and state-created DISADVANTAGE. Viewed in this light, permission of such exercises for those who want them is necessary if the schools are TRULY TO BE NEUTRAL in the matter of religion. And a refusal to permit religious exercises thus is seen, not as the realization of state neutrality, but rather as the ESTABLISHMENT OF A RELIGION OF SECULARISM.” #69 (emphasis added)

Indeed, it IS a regrettable fact that removing God, prayer, and Christian principles from American governmental institutions is, by default, an establishment of Atheism and/or Secular Humanism as national policy … not by word, perhaps, but certainly by deed! Most every group, essentially, is permitted free speech in public schools (within reason) … except traditional religionists, and especially, Christians. For a nation who has prided itself in its promotion of free speech and an unprecedented free flow of ideas … our government, and it’s liberal proponents have become masterful at censoring the one idea that they (curiously) find repellant …. that is, the idea of Christianity.