Professor J D Williams told a record Humanist of Utah audience that the struggle for religious political influence in this nation began with the landing of the Puritans at Plymouth Rock. Speaking to more than 130 people attending the March 12th meeting, Professor Williams explained that the colonies and the original states were theocracies that required church membership to be a government officeholder. As late as 1780, five states continued to have established religions.

The first state to challenge the close ties between government and religion was Virginia where, in 1773, a 22-year-old Princeton graduate James Madison wrote, "Is an ecclesiastical establishment absolutely necessary to support civil society.?" That question sparked a fiery debate that continued for 12 years. One of the prominent supporters of maintaining the Virginia theocracy was Patrick Henry. When Madison wrote Thomas Jefferson, then U.S. Ambassador to France, asking what to do about Patrick Henry, Jefferson replied, "What we have to do, I think, is devoutly pray for his death."

In 1785 Madison published his famous "Memorial and Remonstrance" which effectively killed Patrick Henry's proposed legislation to continue to provide tax dollars to Virginia churches.

The successful political struggle to disestablish the entanglement of religion and government in Virginia inspired Jefferson, Madison and others to seek the same freedom of conscience for every citizen in every state, and they did so with what was to eventually become the First Amendment to the Constitution. Professor Williams said many scholars agree that the First Amendment intended to do the following:

1. Prevent the establishment of a national church.
2. Bar government promotion of religion.
3. Leave religious belief and practice free from government control.
4. Protect the state from church domination.

J D quoted from the famous letter that Jefferson wrote to the Danbury Baptists' Association in 1803 saying that the First Amendment had created "a wall of separation between church and state." He also quoted Supreme Court Justice J. Robert Jackson, writing in Everson vs. Board of Education in 1947: "This freedom was first in the Bill of Rights because it was first in the forefathers' minds; it was set forth in absolute terms, and its strength is its rigidity. It was intended not only to keep the states' hands out of religion, but to keep religion's hands off the state, and above all, to keep bitter religious controversy out of public life by denying to every denomination any advantage from getting control of public policy or the public purse."

Professor Williams concluded his presentation with the reminder that Freedom of Conscience is the most precious freedom guaranteed by our living constitution.

--Flo Wineriter