The Separation of Church and State




U.S. history is filled with misconceptions about the role of the church and government. I first became interested on this topic while teaching AP US history (APUSH) to 9th grade students in a gifted program in Pennsylvania. 

This is a work in progress, and I will ask friends to help me along the way. I am completing research from the following sources that I will draw from to create these posts.


  • The Aeneid, Virgil (Is there a parallel between ancient and modern church history?) 
  • City of God, Augustine (Ancient politics and church government) 
  • America's History, Henretta  (my textbook in APUSH) 
  • Jargal a novel Victor Hugo  (The myth of the noble savage) 
  • God Bless America, Dean C. Coddington (Traditional views) 
  • A Religious History of the American People, By Sydney E.Ahlstrom, (A criticism of traditional views)
  • Religious Affections, Jonathon Edwards (First Great Awakening) 
  • John Wesley, Albert C. Outer (First Great Awakening) 
  • The Autobiography of Charles Finney (The Second Great Awakening) 
  • The Anxious Bench – John Williamson Nevin (Criticism of the Second Great Awakening) 
  • The Azusa Street Mission and Revival, Cecil M. Roebeck (The Third Great Awakening) 
  • How should we then live?, Francis Schaeffer (The Jesus movement) 
  • Francis Schaeffer and the Shaping of Evangelical America, Barry Harkins (Criticism of the Jesus movement) 
Today's post is about the separation of church and state. The origin of this phrase came from President Thomas Jefferson's correspondence with the Danbury Baptists. In his letter he stated that there should be a great wall separating church and state. He is stating this to comfort the Danbury Baptists who were concerned about government interference in their churches. The Baptist taught believers baptism. The traditional view was that babies entered the church as infants through baptism.
    However, the idea of a separation between church and state had a deeper history. During the first great awakening before the American Revolution, there was friction between the new lights and old lights. The old lights were churches made up of traditional clergy who were usually supported by colonial taxes. The new lights were men like Charles Whitefield, and John Wesley who preached in open air settings in the 1730's and 40's. The old lights of the north were those in established churches like the Anglicans, Puritans Presbyterians, and Quakers. They did not approve of these open air, and unorthodox churches. In the southern colonies Anglicanism and Catholicism were the prevalent old lights. One of the things the new lights were protesting was for the choice to give money to the church of their choice. Connecticut kept its government established church until 1818; and, Massachusetts did not abandon its state support for Congregationalism until 1833, despite the prohibition in the establishment clause of the first amendment which was ratified in 1788.
      Most protestants in America did not side with Catholicism and Anglicanism which placed an emphasis on the sacraments. Congregational churches like Presbyterians, Baptists, Methodists, and Quakers, were reconciling faith and reason in the context of the enlightenment. The winds of a republican government had an impact on the protestant church. This divided them into four major camps. The first camp was the sacramental division which included Roman Catholics, Anglicans, Episcopalians, and Lutherans. They believed that practicing the sacraments (like baptism and communion) were the basis for a saving faith. The second camp was comprised of churches who believed in the theology of predestination, which included Puritans, Presbyterians, and Methodists who followed the revivals of George Whitefield. Predestination teaches that individuals are elected by a sovereign God and do not choose their own eternal salvation. The third camp were congregational Armenians. Armenians believe that individuals choose a personal God who saves them from eternal damnation. They were the Wesleyan Methodists, and Baptists including the Danbury Baptists of Connecticut. The final division were the Quakers, Amish, and Mennonite, who believed in a inner light of revelation about a personal God and His eternal salvation.

      Part Two



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