Thomas Jefferson and the Wall of Separation Between Church and State

5. Early References to a “Wall of Separation”: Prefiguring the Jeffersonian Metaphor

Early References to a “Wall of Separation” Prefiguring the Jeffersonian Metaphor [There are those who hold] that Bishops may not meddle with the affairs of the commonwealth because they are governors of another corporation, which is the Church, nor Kings, with making laws for the Church because they have government not of this corporation , but of another divided from it, the Commonwealth, and the walls of separation between these two must forever be upheld. —Richard Hooker (circa 1590s)1 [T]he faithful labors of many witnesses of Jesus Christ, extant to the world, abundantly proving that . . . 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 itself, removed the candlestick, and made His garden a wilderness, as at this day. —Roger Williams (1644)2 Build an impenetrable wall of separation between things sacred and civil. —James Burgh (1767)3 Although Thomas Jefferson is often credited with coining the “wall of separation” metaphor, he was not the first to use it in a churchstate context. The image of a wall or similar barrier separating the realms of the church and the civil government can be found in Western political and theological literature centuries before Jefferson penned the 5 71 Danbury Baptist letter.4 A separation between ecclesiastical and civil authorities was, for example, a familiar theme in both the Renaissance and the Reformation eras.5 Separationist rhetoric was used by numerous writers to advance diverse arguments and to serve a variety of theological and political purposes . This rhetoric made occasional reference to a wall of separation, a structure of unambiguous demarcation that would differentiate between the sacred and the temporal, between ecclesiastical and civil institutions and/or jurisdictions. A wall, for some theorists, was a symbol of protection and freedom; for others, it was a restrictive structure that imposed undue restraints on the proper roles of both church and state in civil society . Some thought a wall of separation shielded individual conscience from the rough and corrupting hands of civil or clerical authorities. Religious dissenters, in particular, hoped that placement of a wall between church and state would ensure a measure of autonomy from religious establishments in the exercise of religion. There were those who believed that a wall safeguarded the purity of religious truth and Christ’s church from a fallen world; still others thought that it protected the civil state from ecclesiastical interference or domination. Separationist themes emerged from the Renaissance and, later, from the Reformation. The language of separation is found in the writings of theological reformers. John Witte, Jr., observed that “[Martin] Luther, John Calvin, Thomas Cranmer, Menno Simons, and other sixteenthcentury reformers all began their movements with a call for freedom from this ecclesiastical regime—freedom of the individual conscience from intrusive canon laws and clerical controls, freedom of political of- ficials from ecclesiastical power and privileges, freedom of the local clergy from central papal rule and oppressive princely controls.”6 Early in his reformation ministry, Martin Luther (1483–1546) wrote of a “paper wall” between the “spiritual estate” and the “temporal estate.”7 In his Institutes of the Christian Religion, John Calvin (1509–1564) asserted that the “spiritual kingdom” and the “political kingdom” “must always be considered separately” because there is a great “difference and unlikeness . . . between ecclesiastical and civil power,” and it would be unwise to “mingle these two, which have a completely different nature .”8 The Anabaptists, who believed they were in the world but not of the world, emphatically rejected the close identification of state and church that had been prevalent in Western Christendom since the reign of Constantine. They believed that the secular kingdom should be sepa72 | Early References to a “Wall of Separation” rated from the church of Christ. No true Christian, they maintained, should exercise the sword of temporal authority, and no civil magistrate should exercise jurisdiction in spiritual matters, because this is under the authority of God alone.9 Although the civil state was instituted and ordained by God and is “necessary in the ‘world,’ that is, among those who do not heed or obey Christ’s teachings, it is not necessary among the true disciples of Christ.”10 Menno Simons (1496–1561), a leader of the nonviolent wing of the Dutch Anabaptists, spoke of a “Scheidingsmaurer ”—a “separating wall” or “wall...