Church And State Quotes

In light of the unbroken record of invoking God's name in foundational documents throughout the world, throughout the colonies, and throughout history, the stubborn refusal of the US Constitution to invoke the Almighty is abnormal, historic, radical, and not accidental. But liberals miss a basic point, too: The framers of the Constitution were not contemplating the role of "government" in religion. They were debating the role of the national government in religion. ~ Steven Waldman

In Gladstone's mature years he lost faith not in God but in the ability of any government or state to act as the agent of God. ~ George F. Will

Everyone in the United States is so intense about maintaining a separation between Church and State when the real concern should be about keeping a separation between Corporations and State
because in America (and most of the rest of the Western World, for that matter) economics is the real religion. ~ Neale Donald Walsch

As the tension between the Protestants and the Church of Rome intensified, so did the desire for a third way among dissenting groups. Soon a new group emerged, though in some senses it was also an old group - one that felt it could trace its origins all the way back to the New Testament. Known collectively as the Radical Reformation, these persecuted groups often advocated a nonviolent ethic, the separation of church and state, and a desire for both personal and corporate holiness. The ideas of these radicals spread through Europe, and over the years the Amish, Mennonites and Anabaptists, and to a lesser degree the Covenanters and Quakers, emerged or were influenced by this movement. ~ David Holdsworth

I questioned the faithful of all communions; I particularly sought the society of clergymen, who are the depositories of the various creeds and have a personal interest in their survival ... all thought the main reason for the quiet sway of religion over their country was the complete separation of church and state. I have no hesitation in stating that throughout my stay in America I met nobody, lay or cleric, who did not agree about that. ~ Alexis De Tocqueville

The United States has adventured upon a great and noble experiment ... of total separation of Church and State ... The offices of the Government are open alike to all. No tithes are levied to support an established Hierarchy, nor is the fallible judgment of man set up as the sure and infallible creed of faith ... Such is the great experiment which we have tried, and ... our system of free government would be imperfect without it. ~ John Tyler

What is even more striking than the negational character of this political culture is the absence of robust and constructive affirmations. Vibrant cultures make space for leisure, philosophical reflection, scientific and intellectual mastery, and artistic and literary expression, among other things. Within the larger Christian community in America, one can find such vitality in pockets here and there. Yet where they do exist, they are eclipsed by the greater prominence and vast resources of the political activists and their organizations. What is more, there are few if any places in the pronouncements and actions of the Christian Right or the Christian Left (none that I could find) where these gifts are acknowledged, affirmed, or celebrated. What this means is that rather than being defined by its cultural achievements, its intellectual and artistic vitality, its service to the needs of others, Christianity is defined to the outside world by its rhetoric of resentment and the ambitions of a will in opposition to others. ~ James Davison Hunter

The bad preacher takes the ideas of our own age and tricks them out into the traditional language of Christianity. The core of his thought is merely contemporary; only the superficies is traditional. But your teaching must be timeless at its heart and wear modern dress. ~ C.S. Lewis

It is difficult to decide what you mean when you say any of these words and easy to claim that anyone else's meaning is (or is not) the right one. There is a built-in indeterminacy in our use of language that allows us to shift responsibility for actions in Paris away from a religion to a minor strand in a religion, or to the actions of only those who pulled the trigger. This is the universal problem of secularism, which eschews stereotyping. It leaves unclear who is to be held responsible for what. By devolving all responsibility on the individual, secularism tends to absolve nations and religions from responsibility. ~ George Friedman

Faith is either something that informs one at all times or it isn't anything at all, really. When the Chinese government tells its citizens that they can worship in a certain building on a certain day, but once they leave that building they must bow to the secular orthodoxy of the state, you have a cynical lie at work. They've substituted a toothless "freedom of worship" for "freedom of religion". ~ Eric Metaxas

One of the characteristics of early modern thought was a tendency to assume binary contrasts. In an attempt to define phenomena more exactly, categories of experience that had once co-inhered were now set off against each other: faith and reason, intellect and emotion, and church and state. ~ Karen Armstrong

The idea of separating church and state by the Founding Fathers of America was freedom from the domination of one form of religion, because many of them left England, because they were persecuted by the church, because they want to express their Christian faith in a different way. So it was a bit of warfare between Christians. ~ John Lennox

It can have a secular purpose and have a relationship to God because God was presumed to be both over the state and the church, and separation of church and state was never meant to separate God from government. ~ Roy Moore

US is a very religious country. Separation of church and state is part of our credo, but that it is hard to understand since our money says "In God we trust" and every President says "God bless America". ~ Madeleine Albright

An enforced uniformity of religion throughout a nation or civil state, confounds the civil and religious, denies the principles of Christianity and civility, and that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh. ~ Roger Williams

First of all, there's no separation of church and state in the Islamic world. They're one and the same. And so when President Bush or Senator Kerry or Prime Minister Blair says, "Look, adopt our secular democracy, look at how good we've done. We have a wonderful level of standard of living for our people," what many Muslims hear is, "Turn your back on God and follow what men say." ~ Michael Scheuer

I dont see we can have a separation of church and state in this government if you have to pass a religious test to get in this government. And I want to warn everyone in the press and all the voters out there: if you demand expressions of religious faith from politicians, you are just begging to be lied to. They wont all lie to you but a lot of them will. And itll be the easiest lie they ever had to tell to get your votes. So every day till the end of this campaign, Ill answer any question anyone has on government, but if you have a question on religion, please, go to church. ~ Alan Alda

To try to turn Iraq into a liberal democracy is absolutely crazy. Islam has no understanding of the separation between church and state because they don't understand Islam to be a church. ~ Stanley Hauerwas

Can any of us refute the wisdom of Madison and the other framers? Can anyone look at the carnage in Iran, the bloodshed in Northern Ireland or the bombs bursting in Lebanon and yet question the dangers of injecting religious issues into the affairs of state? ~ Barry Goldwater

Each of us has the choice to attend the church we want to, or none at all. Separation of church and state allows for religions to have their own set of rules as to whom they will accept and who they won't, and the practices they support and the ones they don't. They will continue to be able to do so. ~ Pauley Perrette

Both church and state claiming to be of divine origin have assumed divine right of man over woman; while church and state have thought for man, man has assumed the right to think for woman. ~ Matilda Joslyn Gage

The separation of church and state is extremely important to any of us who hold to the original traditions of our nation. To change these traditions by changing our traditional attitude toward public education would be harmful, I think, to our whole attitude of tolerance in the religious area. ~ Eleanor Roosevelt

Legitimate powers of government reach actions only, & not opinions, I contemplate with sovereign reverence that act of the whole American people which declared that their legislature should 'make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof,' thus building a wall of separation between Church & State. Adhering to this expression of the supreme will of the nation in behalf of the rights of conscience, I shall see with sincere satisfaction the progress of those sentiments which tend to restore to man all his natural rights, convinced he has no natural right in opposition to his social duties. ~ Thomas Jefferson

God is wrath and God is mercy. The State is the instrument of his wrath, the Church of his mercy ~ Martin Luther

The toleration of those that differ from others in matters of religion is so agreeable to the Gospel of Jesus Christ, and to the genuine reason of mankind, that it seems monstrous for men to be so blind as not to perceive the necessity and advantage of it in so clear a light. I will not here tax the pride and ambition of some, the passion and uncharitable zeal of others. These are faults from which human affairs can perhaps scarce ever be perfectly freed; but yet such as nobody will bear the plain imputation of, without covering them with some specious colour; and so pretend to commendation, whilst they are carried away by their own irregular passions. But, however, that some may not colour their spirit of persecution and unchristian cruelty with a pretence of care of the public weal and observation of the laws; and that others, under pretence of religion, may not seek impunity for their libertinism and licentiousness; in a word, that none may impose either upon himself or others, by the pretences of loyalty and obedience to the prince, or of tenderness and sincerity in the worship of God; I esteem it above all things necessary to distinguish exactly the business of civil government from that of religion and to settle the just bounds that lie between the one and the other. If this be not done, there can be no end put to the controversies that will be always arising between those that have, or at least pretend to have, on the one side, a concernment for the interest of men's s ~ John Locke

I believe that prayer in public schools should be voluntary. It is difficult for me to see how religious exercises can be a requirement in public schools, given our Constitutional requirement of separation of church and state. I feel that the highly desirable goal of religious education must be principally the responsibility of church and home. I do not believe that public education should show any hostility toward religion, and neither should it inhibit voluntary participation, if it does not interfere with the educational process. ~ Gerald R. Ford

I don't know that the Libertarian Party has an official position on the separation of church and state. ~ Michael Badnarik

This doctrine ['that the condition of man cannot be ameliorated, that what has been must ever be, and that to secure ourselves where we are we must tread with awful reverence in the footsteps of our fathers']is the genuine fruit of the alliance between Church and State, the tenants of which finding themselves but too well in their present condition, oppose all advances which might unmask their usurpations and monopolies of honors, wealth and power, and fear every change as endangering the comforts they now hold. ~ Thomas Jefferson

When cerebral processes enter into sports, you start screwing up. It's like the Constitution, which says separate church and state. You have to separate mind and body. ~ Bill Lee

The equality that we are all entitled to, as citizens of this democracy, can't be avoided by some religious dogma of a President who's is supposed to believe in the notion of separation of church and state. And he frankly doesn't. ~ Rosie O'Donnell

But a short time elapsed after the death of the great reformer of the Jewish religion, before his principles were departed from by those who professed to be his special servants, and perverted into an engine for enslaving mankind, and aggrandizing their oppressors in Church and State. ~ Thomas Jefferson

Becoming a modern society is about industrialization, urbanization, and rising levels of literacy, education, and wealth. The qualities that make a society Western, in contrast, are special: the classical legacy, Christianity, the separation of church and state, the rule of law, civil society. ~ Samuel P. Huntington

I believe in the separation of church and state, absolutely. But I don't believe in the separation of public life from our values, our basic values, and for many of us, our religious values. ~ Jim Wallis

Church and State are both rent, by the tugging of the demonic and the Divine ~ Martin Luther

God Bless America started to become an almost ritualistic incantation at the end of political speeches really with Ronald Reagan. It appears occasionally before, but it was not that common. And of course since it was a song that wasn't written by Irving Berlin until the 20th century (laughter), none of the 19th century presidents said God Bless America at the end of speeches, either. I think that the symbolism which suggests that everybody is religious and that even presidents who believe in church and state feel obliged to do this ... ~ Susan Jacoby

Nothing is taken at face value anymore, everything must be dissected. Perhaps it is the rise of advertisement over church and state. Things once spoken were spoken with strength and authority. Now they are spoken with stealth and with guile. They are spoken not to the rational mind but to the sub-conscious, the mind within the mind. ~ James Rozoff

I talk about a Christianity that is enlightened enough to separate spirituality from the rest of life. Not just church and state, but knowledge and church. ~ Ayaan Hirsi Ali

Force was the factor in the government of the world when Christ was born, and force was the source and exercise of authority both by Church and State when Columbus sailed from Palos. The Wise Men traveled from the East toward the West under the guidance of the Star of Bethlehem. The spirit of the equality of all men before God and the law moved westward from Calvary with its revolutionary influence upon old institutions, to the Atlantic Ocean. Columbus carried it westward across the seas. ~ Chauncey Depew

I think very few people realize how much the separation of church and state has to do with the fact that Americans are not only more religious than a lot of other people in the world but that conversions are much more common here. ~ Susan Jacoby

I call'd the devil, and he came, And with wonder his form did I closely scan; He is not ugly, and is not lame, But really a handsome and charming man. A man in the prime of life is the devil, Obliging, a man of the world, and civil; A diplomatist too, well skill'd in debate, He talks quite glibly of church and state. ~ Heinrich Heine

For in politics, as in religion, it is equally absurd to aim at making proselytes by fire and sword. Heresies in either can rarely be cured by persecution. And ~ Alexander Hamilton

Church and State, will, of course, go on for ever, in spite of the fact that it is impossible for them to mingle, and that the confusion of these elements cannot lead to any consistent or even normal results, for there is falsity at the very foundation of it. Compromise between the Church and State in such questions as, for instance, jurisdiction, is, to my thinking, impossible in any real sense. My clerical opponent maintains that the Church holds a precise and defined position in the State. I maintain, on the contrary, that the Church ought to include the whole State, and not simply to occupy a corner in it, and, if this is, for some reason, impossible at present, then it ought, in reality, to be set up as the direct and chief aim of the future development of Christian society! ~ Anton Chekhov

The [president] has no particle of spiritual jurisdiction ... ~ Alexander Hamilton

There's a reason we seperate Church and State. The reason for the richness and the diversity of religion in this nation is because of the seperation of Church and State, and there are people out there who can't wait to make this nation a nation of one religion ... THEIR religion. ~ Phil Donahue

The 'wall of separation between church and state' is a metaphor based on bad history, a metaphor which has proved useless as a guide to judging. It should be frankly and explicitly abandoned. ~ William Rehnquist

What is dangerous about the far right is not that it takes religion seriously - most of us do - but rather that it condemns all other spiritual choices - the Buddhist, the Jew, the Muslim, and many others who consider themselves to be good Christians. The wall of separation between church and state is needed precisely because religion, like art, is too important a part of the human experience to be choked by the hands of censors. ~ Barbra Streisand

When we seek to understand liberty, equality, progress, constitutional governance, separation of church and state, and the meaning of the American Revolution, we do so in contexts framed by Jefferson's writings and arguments. Whatever we think of Jefferson as a person or as a politician, we can never take away from him his remarkable gift as a writer or his ultimate claims to fame. He achieved his intention to express 'the American mind' and became the leading spokesman for the revolution of ideas that changed, and that continues to change, the face of America and the world. His words mean not only what he might have intended them to mean, but also what succeeding generations of Americans have read into them. Thus, whether he would even comprehend the United States in the first years of the twenty-first century, Jefferson's shadow looms large over us, thanks to the conflicting influences of his thinking, doing, and -- most important -- his writing. That truth alone requires each generation to reacquaint itself with the life and work of Thomas Jefferson, and to grapple with his ambiguous legacies. ~ R.B. Bernstein

I don't believe in an America where the separation of church and state is absolute. The idea that the church can have no influence or no involvement in the operation of the state is absolutely antithetical to the objectives and vision of our country. ~ Rick Santorum

We are told that Sin consists in acting contrary to God's commands, but we are also told that God is omnipotent ... This leads to frightful results ... The British State considers it the duty of an Englishman to kill people who are not English whenever a collection of elderly gentlemen in Westminster tells him to do so ... Church and State are placable enemies of both intelligence and virtue. ~ Bertrand Russell

There the union of Church and State tends strongly to paralyze some of the members of the body of Christ. Here there is no such influence to destroy spiritual life and power. ~ Josiah Strong

The great ideas of the West - rationalism, self-criticism, the disinterested search for truth, the separation of church and state, the rule of law, equality before the law, freedom of conscience, thought, and expression, human rights, and liberal democracy- quite an achievement, surely, for any civilization- - remain the best, and perhaps the only, means for all people, no matter of what race or creed, to reach their full potential and live in freedom. ~ Ibn Warraq

Separation of church and state' meant freedom to worship, not freedom from worship. ~ Larry Schweikart

Religion in the form of polytheism entered the world as the vindication of power. Not only was there no separation of church and state; religion was the transcendental justification of the state. ~ Jonathan Sacks

The coziness between church and state is good for the state and bad for the church ~ Gilbert K. Chesterton

Jesus from the moment he first appears in Galilee is a sign of contradiction, fomenting revolution through telling the truth about the state of the world, the reality of evil, and the eye of God, who judges in a different vein altogether than courts of law, whether they be religious canons, the ecclesiastical courts, or government legal systems. ~ Megan McKenna

Religious institutions that use government power in support of themselves and force their views on persons of other faiths, or of no faith, undermine all our civil rights. Moreover, state support of an established religion tends to make the clergy unresponsive to their own people, and leads to corruption within religion itself. Erecting the 'wall of separation between church and state,' therefore, is absolutely essential in a free society. ~ Thomas Jefferson

Usually, it is not my habit to address religious issues on the floor. I strongly believe in a person's right to religious freedom, as well as the separation of church and state. ~ Alcee Hastings

There should be absolutely no 'Separation of Church and State' in America. ~ David Barton

The purpose of separation of church and state is to keep forever from these shores the ceaseless strife that has soaked the soil of Europe in blood for centuries.
[Letter objecting to the use of government land for churches, 1803] ~ James Madison

There is no separation of church and state. Modern US Supreme Courts have raped the Constitution and raped the Christian faith and raped the churches by misinterpreting what the Founders had in mind in the First Amendment to the Constitution. ~ Jerry Falwell

The Sabbat arose as a conspiracy to destroy the rotten edifice of Church and State, meeting on the heath to avoid the gaze of authority, guised in anonymity and foreboding. This revolutionized the nature of witchcraft, regardless of the pre-existence of the Sabbat form. I do not simply refer here to the inspiring fantasies of Jules Michelet, but the important modern work of Silvia Federici. We see the same attacks on freedom of assembly in the destruction of the free festivals, rave culture and the occupy movement. These have been met by the masked Anonymous, the faceless black bloc anarchists, the direct actions of the ELF. These are expressions of popular witchcraft and have been persecuted by the same inquisition that came for us. I do not say that these are examples of operative witchcraft, I say that we, the people who are the Witchcraft, have a sacred duty to join this war. We need to celebrate Grand Sabbats again, infuse them with our witchblood, our cunning. ~ Peter Grey

I believe in a wall between church and state so high that no one can climb over it. When religion controls government, political liberty dies; and when government controls religion, religious liberty perishes. Every American has the constitutional right not to be taxed or have his tax money expended for the establishment of religion. For too long the issue of government aid to church related organizations has been a divisive force in our society and in the Congress. It has erected communication barriers among our religions and fostered intolerance. ~ Sam Ervin

Even if three centuries of outsider status and intermittent persecution had tested the endurance of individuals and communities, coping with the patronage of a newly Christian emperor posed a challenge. The challenge was all the more threatening for its moral complexity. Was it right for the churches to accept the Emperor's favour, knowing full well that if they did so, they also tacitly accepted his right, so evident in all other aspects of life in the Roman Empire, to call the shots? ~ Kate Cooper

I strongly believe in the separation of church and state. But freedom of religion does not mean freedom from religion, there is a better way. ~ Al Gore

Let us settle ourselves, and work and wedge our feet downwards through the mud and slush of opinion and tradition, and pride and prejudice, appearance and delusion, through the alluvium which covers the globe, through poetry and philosophy and religion, through church and state, through Paris and London, through New York and Boston and Concord, till we come to a hard bottom that rocks in place which we can call reality and say, This is and no mistake. ~ Henry David Thoreau

Some people claim we have a Christian heritage in America that needs restoring, but such a claim is debatable and is not well supported by the evidence. We have no biblical warrant to deify the past. Consequently, I find it difficult and possibly wasteful to try to identify just what part of our heritage was Christian in hopes that we can somehow get back to it. ~ Donovan L. Graham

Let me speak plainly: The United States of America is and must remain a nation of openness to people of all beliefs. Our very unity has been strengthened by this pluralism. That's how we began; this is how we must always be. The ideals of our country leave no room whatsoever for intolerance, anti-Semitism, or bigotry of any kind
none. The unique thing about America is a wall in our Constitution separating church and state. It guarantees there will never be a state religion in this land, but at the same time it makes sure that every single American is free to choose and practice his or her religious beliefs or to choose no religion at all. Their rights shall not be questioned or violated by the state.
Remarks at the International Convention of B'nai B'rith, 6 September 1984 ~ Ronald Reagan

Declare Church and State forever separate and distinct, but each free within their proper spheres, and that all church property shall bear its own proportion of taxation. ~ Ulysses S. Grant

Turning, then, from this loathsome combination of church and state, and weeping over the follies of our fellow men, who yield themselves the willing dupes and drudges of these mountebanks, I consider reformation and redress as desperate, and abandon them to the Quixotism of more enthusiastic minds. ~ Thomas Jefferson

The way liberals are interpreting the First Amendment today is that it prevents anyone who is religious from being in government. ~ Rush Limbaugh

This separation was absolute in our original Republic. But the sky-godders do not give up easily. In the 1950s they actually got the phrase In God We Trust onto the currency, in direct violation of the First Amendment. ~ Gore Vidal

Modern ecumenism rightly began in mission, but then lapsed into a merger mentality, then defensive bureaucracy, and finally into unrepresentative forms of extreme politicization. ~ Thomas C. Oden

Since much of American taxes prior to 1763 went to support the local clergy, one humorist suggested the opportunity to vote on that. If the minister was turned out, he could open a tavern and preach to his customers if he served them liquor. ~ Colin G. Calloway

If nowhere else, in the relation between Church and State, good fences make good neighbors. ~ Felix Frankfurter

He saw the Constitution as the vehicle to keep ecumenical passions in check. ~ Jeffrey Toobin

In England, the struggle between church and kings would take centuries to resolve. Interestingly, in the end, neither institution came out on top. Today, each is as powerless as the other. As people power emerged, we invented politicians. We're not bright. ~ Jodi Taylor

there was a common understanding that religion generally served the powerful, who manipulated the words of the gods and prophets to justify their greed and lust for power. Yet Christianity comes in numerous guises; mystical to dogmatic; it is used by some as a reason to justify their wars, their oppression and their hatreds. Others use it to oppose those wars and other injustices. ~ Ron Jacobs

[I]t would be unjust to our people and dangerous to our institutions to apply any portion of revenues of the nation or of the States to the support of sectarian schools. ~ James A. Garfield

The Bible says we are to be salt and light. And salt and light means not just in the church and not just as a teacher or as a pastor or a banker or a lawyer, but in government and we have to have elected officials in government and we have to have the faithful in government and over time, that lie we have been told, the separation of church and state, people have internalized, thinking that they needed to avoid politics and that is so wrong because God is the one who chooses our rulers. ~ Katherine Harris

I believe in an America where the separation of church and state is absolute - where no Catholic prelate would tell the President (should he be Catholic) how to act, and no Protestant minister would tell his parishioners for whom to vote - where no church or church school is granted any public funds or political preference - and where no man is denied public office merely because his religion differs from the President who might appoint him or the people who might elect him.

I believe in an America that is officially neither Catholic, Protestant nor Jewish - where no public official either requests or accepts instructions on public policy from the Pope, the National Council of Churches or any other ecclesiastical source - where no religious body seeks to impose its will directly or indirectly upon the general populace or the public acts of its officials - and where religious liberty is so indivisible that an act against one church is treated as an act against all.

[Remarks to the Greater Houston Ministerial Association, September 12 1960] ~ John F. Kennedy

Let them all believe whatever they want. It is pointless to go on radio shows and wrangle over mystical claims. However, such claims must not be imposed on captive children in government-owned schools. That is prohibited by the separation of church and state, a core principle in the First Amendment in America's Bill of Rights. ~ James A. Haught

There is no relationship here between Church and State. Religious liberty has its unalterable place, along with civil and human liberty, in the very foundation of the Republic. I hold it [religious intolerance] to be a menace to the very liberties which we boast and cherish. ~ Warren G. Harding

I believe this notion of separation of church and state was the figment of some infidel's imagination. ~ W. A. Criswell

The union of Church and State is not to make the Church political, but the State religious. ~ John Scott, 1st Earl Of Eldon

[W]hen they have opened a gap in the hedge or wall of Separation between the Garden of the Church and the Wildernes of the world, God hath ever broke down the wall it selfe, removed the Candlestick, &c. and made his Garden a Wildernesse, as at this day. ~ Roger Williams

The separation of church and state was meant to protect church from state; a state that declares religion off limits in public life is a state that declares itself supreme over all religious values. ~ Ben Shapiro

We should wash the fur of the magistrate and clean out his mouth whether he laughs or rages. Christ has instructed us preachers not to withhold the truth from the lords (rulers) but to exhort and chide them in their injustice. Christ did not say to Pilate "You have no power over me". He said that Pilate did have power, but he said, "You do not have this power from yourself. It is given to you from God." Therefore he upbraided Pilate. We do the same, we recognize the authority, but we must rebuke our Pilates in their crime and self-confidence. Then they say to us, "You are reviling the majesty of God" to which we answer, "We will suffer what you do to us, but to keep still and let it appear that you do right when you do wrong, that we cannot and will not do." We must confess the truth and rebuke the evil. There is a big difference between suffering injustice and keeping still. We should suffer, we should not keep still. The Christian must bear testimony for the truth and die for the truth. But how can he die for the truth if he has not first confessed the truth? Thus Christ showed that Pilate did exercise authority from God and at the same time rebuked him for doing wrong. ~ Martin Luther

The First Amendment, however, does not say that in every and all respects there shall be a separation of Church and State. Rathe, it studiously defines the manner, the specific ways, in which there shall be no concert or union or dependency one on the other. That is the common sense of the matter. Otherwise the state and religion would be aliens to each other. ~ William O. Douglas

Many of us vote under the assumption that if only the right man/woman/party/ideology could get seated in the White House, the Court House, or the School House then the Kingdom of God would come. That is an illusion. We do not look for the church to assist in or endorse the building of a made-in-America utopia which is only a Babylon with red, white, and blue curtains. We look for a city whose builder and maker is God. To him, and only him, we must pledge our primary allegiance. ~ Ronnie McBrayer

This is a lttle prayer dedicated to the separation of church and state. I guess if they are going to force those kids to pray in schools they might as well have a nice prayer like this: Our Father who art in heaven, and to the republic for which it stands, thy kingdom come, one nation indivisible as in heaven, give us this day as we forgive those who so proudly we hail. Crown thy good into temptation but deliver us from the twilight's last gleaming. Amen and Awomen. ~ George Carlin

What makes books - and with them writers - so dangerous that church and state, politburos and the mass media feel the need to oppose them? ~ Gunter Grass

Since God will have us leave father and mother for his sake, certainly he will have us leave lords (governors) for his sake. ~ Martin Luther

For while this year it may be a Catholic against whom the finger of suspicion is pointed, in other years it has been, and may someday be again, a Jew--or a Quaker--or a Unitarian--or a Baptist. It was Virginia's harassment of Baptist preachers, for example, that helped lead to Jefferson's statute of religious freedom. Today I may be the victim- -but tomorrow it may be you--until the whole fabric of our harmonious society is ripped at a time of great national peril.

Finally, I believe in an America where religious intolerance will someday end--where all men and all churches are treated as equal--where every man has the same right to attend or not attend the church of his choice--where there is no Catholic vote, no anti-Catholic vote, no bloc voting of any kind--and where Catholics, Protestants and Jews, at both the lay and pastoral level, will refrain from those attitudes of disdain and division which have so often marred their works in the past, and promote instead the American ideal of brotherhood.

That is the kind of America in which I believe. And it represents the kind of Presidency in which I believe--a great office that must neither be humbled by making it the instrument of any one religious group nor tarnished by arbitrarily withholding its occupancy from the members of any one religious group. I believe in a President whose religious views are his own private affair, neither imposed by him upon the nation or imposed by the nation upon him as a ~ John F. Kennedy

When church and state are separate, the effects are happy, and they do not at all interfere with each other: but where they have been confounded together, no tongue nor pen can fully describe the mischiefs that have ensued. ~ Isaac Backus

Demanding a separation between church and state isn't enough; the churches' basic doctrines must be changed, with homophobia written out forever. ~ Michelangelo Signorile

Men never fail to dwell on maternity as a disqualification for the possession of many civil and political rights. Suggest the idea of women having a voice in making laws and administering the Government in the halls of legislation, in Congress, or the British Parliament, and men will declaim at once on the disabilities of maternity in a sneering contemptuous way, as if the office of motherhood was undignified and did not comport with the highest public offices in church and state. It is vain that we point them to Queen Victoria, who has carefully reared a large family, while considering and signing ... ~ Elizabeth Cady Stanton

Do you know, where does this phrase "separation of Church and State" come from? It was not in Jefferson's letter to the Danbury Baptists...The exact phrase "separation of Church and State" came out of Adolf Hilter's mouth, that's where it comes from. So the next time your liberal friends talk about the separation of Church and State - ask them why they're Nazis. ~ Glen Urquhart

You're telling me that the separation of church and state is found in the First Amendment? ~ Christine O'Donnell

Conservative evangelicals don't want government support for our faith, because we believe God created all consciences free and a state-coerced act of worship isn't acceptable to God. Moreover, we believe the gospel isn't in need of state endorsement or assistance. Wall Street may need government bailouts but the Damascus Road never does. ~ Russell D. Moore

We need to remember that the separation of church and state must never mean the separation of religious values from the lives of public servants ... If we who serve free men today are to differ from the tyrants of this age, we must balance the powers in our hands with God in our hearts. ~ Lyndon B. Johnson