What Jefferson Really Thought About Church And State

Here’s an inter­est­ing tid­bit report­ed by The Wash­ing­ton Times: Thomas Jef­fer­son did not want a wall built between church and state. There are two books by two dif­fer­ent schol­ars ref­er­enced in the above arti­cle: Daniel Dreis­bach’s Thomas Jef­fer­son and The Wall of Sep­a­ra­tion Between Church and State and Sep­a­ra­tion of Church and State by Philip Ham­burg­er.

Alan Wolfe, direc­tor of the Boisi Cen­ter for Reli­gion and Pub­lic Life at Boston Col­lege, is impressed by the new find­ings but doubts they can make a dif­fer­ence.

“I think it is ter­rif­ic schol­ar­ship, but I don’t think it can change any­thing,” said Mr. Wolfe, who reviewed the Ham­burg­er book and has sur­veyed pub­lic opin­ion on pol­i­tics and reli­gion.

“The ‘wall’ idea has tak­en on a life of its own and is part of our cus­tom and law,” Mr. Wolfe said. “Amer­i­cans love God and hate pol­i­tics, so they ask, ‘Why mix the two?’ ”

You can read some reviews from Har­vard Uni­ver­si­ty Press here and here.