A History of Church and State

By eraachkwan

  • Jean-Jauques Rousseau

    Rousseau saw that religion should have its place in government, mainly in the aspect of virtue. He did not believe in original sin, stating "there is no original perversity in the human heart", and had decided that God is present in all things, and since God is good, humanity is by nature good as well, but has been corrutped by societal influence.

  • Founding Documents

    Our founding documents, especially the Declaration of Independence, were based off of old English documents proclaiming freedom, such as the Magna Carta and the English Bill of Rights. The Magna Carta proclaimed that the Church of England would be free and independent, and our Declaration mimics this claim in the way it claims freedom and independence for our country, religiously and otherwise.

  • The Constitution: Amendment I

    The First Constitutional Amendment states that the government is forbidden from creating any laws to create a national religion, nor will it create any laws to prevent free practice of religion, thus establishing a firm separation between church and state.

  • The State of Tennessee v. John Thomas Scopes

    Also known as the Scopes Monkey Trial, this trial dealt with the question of whether evolution should be taught in public schools or not. Scopes, a Tennessee teacher, was accused of violating the Butler Act, which banned teaching evolution in state-funded schools. Scopes was found guilty, but the verdict was overturned on a technicality and he went free. The essence of this court case is religion vs. secularism in public schools.

  • South Carolina's Marriage Amendment

    North Carolina’s May 8 primary elections confirmed the constitutional amendment defining marriage solely as a union between a man and a woman. This ban has been added to the state constitution, which makes the law harder for lawmakers to change in the future.

  • Barack Hussein Obama II- a Muslim?

    The obsession over President Obama's religion due to his traditionally Muslim middle name 'Hussein' spread like wildfire over a period of a year or two. As seen in all the history of the United States, all presidents have been Protestant (except JFK, who was Roman Catholic.)