Separation Of Church And State

“A hedge or wall of separation between the garden of the church and the wilderness of the world.” – Roger Williams, 1644. As long as there has been a state, there has been an ongoing struggle to determine the proper balance between government and religion. The two often clash; one reason being that government and religion are so similar, for both can be used to control large groups of people. Currently, the United States is one of the most religiously diverse countries in the world. Thus, making the question of how to determine a definitive line between church and state an even more difficult question to answer. So, how do you balance religious moral codes in a complex society and govern that society equally? For two-hundred plus years,

The extent to which the separation of church and state should be enforced is complex and ever-changing. Therefore, resulting in more supreme court decisions now than ever before. While these decisions may not always be popular with everyone, they need only to look back a few hundred years to a time when that wall/hedge of separation did not exist. Our current wall/hedge of separation is more than adequate and the decisions rendered by our supreme court will continue to reflect our ever-changing society. (235) During the sixteenth century, in most of Europe, the state and church were one; with the state having absolute control over the church and people. Martin Luther’s Protestant Reformation in 1517 brought about a change. Luther’s ideas spread rapidly throughout the sixteenth century. Many started to question the government authority and the church’s legitimacy. Luther’s disagreements with the Catholic church eventually led him to branch out and create his own church, the Lutheran church. In addition, Luther translated the New

The allowing of student initiated and led prayer at graduation while no one can pray at a public-school sporting event. It is unconstitutional to teach creation science in schools, but evolution is okay. The ten commandments as well as nativity scenes have been banned from government facilities. In Lemon v. Kurtzman, the supreme court established the three-part test for determining if an action of government violates the first amendments separation of church and state; 1.) the government action must have a secular purpose; 2) Its primary purpose must not be to inhibit or to advance religion; 3) There must be no excessive entanglement between government and religion. It seems ironic that so many court cases dealing with separation of church and state involve schools, while our founding fathers believed in the importance of learning to read the Bible as their foundation for building their children’s moral