Faith Education (was -RE: [HPFGU-OTChatter] the Eight Days of Chanukah)

[annemehr]

--- In HPFGU-OTChatter at yahoogroups.com, Laura Ingalls Huntley
<lhuntley at f...> wrote:
> Iggy:
> > There is, supposedly written into law, a separation of Church and 
> > State.
> 
> Laura:
> I've always been sort of interested about this, actually.  Where does 
> this "separation of Church and State" that is so often cited, *come* 
> from, exactly?

Annemehr:
The phrase itself comes from a letter written by Thomas Jefferson to a
certain Christian denomination to reassure them that the government
was not about to declare another denomination to be the national religion:

"I contemplate with solemn reverence that act of the whole American
people which declared that their legislature should 'make no law
respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free
exercise thereof,' thus building a wall of separation between Church
and State."

Annemehr
who finds history very enlightening when you can go straight to the
source (not quite what you find in school textbooks, eh?)