Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion; or prohibiting the free exercise thereof;

Excerpted from "God, Government and Roger Williams' Big Idea", Smithsonian.com

 

In 1534, Henry VIII had rejected Roman Catholicism and turned the kingdom Protestant, and Parliament declared him head of the new Church of England; he executed those who opposed him as heretics and traitors. His daughter Queen Mary made England Catholic again and burned Protestants at the stake. Then Queen Elizabeth turned it Protestant and executed Catholics who plotted against her—including her cousin Mary Queen of Scots. Her successor was King James, VI of Scotland, Mary's son.

 

 

James was Protestant but moved the Church of England ever closer to Catholicism, inflaming Puritans. In 1604, believing the existing English Bibles did not sufficiently emphasize obedience to authority, he ordered a new translation; what became known as the King James Bible satisfied him on that point. In politics, he injected the theory of the divine right of kings into English history and claimed that "the monarch is the law. Rex est lex loquens, the king is the law speaking."

 

 

Opposing James was Sir Edward Coke, one of the greatest jurists in English history. It was he who ruled from the bench that "The house of every one is to him as his castle." Precedents he set included the prohibition of double jeopardy, the right of a court to void a legislative act, and the use of writs of habeas corpus to limit royal power and protect individual rights.

 

 

When the colonies were founded the government sponsored churches, required attendance, and punished those who did not conform. Throughout history those professing to follow Christ were executed for worshiping in the wrong manner.

 

 

In 1644 Roger Williams in a pamphlet he wrote used for the first time a phrase that although not commonly attributed to him has been repeated through American history. "When they have opened a gap in the hedge or wall of Separation between the Garden of the Church and the Wilderness of the world, God hath ever broke down the wall it self, removed the Candlestick & c. and made his Garden a Wilderness."

 

 

He was saying that mixing church and state corrupted the church, that when one mixes religion and politics, one gets politics.

 

 

Americans should feel safe knowing they have Constitutional protection from government sponsoring or establishing a religion.