{"id":19733,"date":"2023-12-01T08:56:29","date_gmt":"2023-12-01T13:56:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/?p=19733"},"modified":"2023-12-01T08:56:29","modified_gmt":"2023-12-01T13:56:29","slug":"speaker-mike-johnson-criticized-for-calling-separation-of-church-and-state-a-misnomer","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2023\/12\/speaker-mike-johnson-criticized-for-calling-separation-of-church-and-state-a-misnomer","title":{"rendered":"Speaker Mike Johnson Criticized For Calling \u201cseparation of church and state\u201d a \u201cmisnomer\u201d"},"content":{"rendered":"
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House Speaker Mike Johnson has found himself under scrutiny from critics again after speaking with\u00a0<\/span>CNBC\u2019s Squawk Box<\/span><\/a>\u00a0on the separation of church and state. Johnson had appeared on the show to discuss the upcoming budget vote when he found himself responding to questions about an image of himself praying on the floor of Congress with other representatives and how that impacts the doctrine of separation of church of state. Johnson responded that the founding fathers wanted a \u201cvibrant expression of faith in the public square.\u201d He then went on to say that \u201cseparation of church and state\u201d is a \u201cmisnomer.\u201d \u201cPeople misunderstand it. Of course, it comes from a phrase that was in a letter that Jefferson wrote. It\u2019s not in the Constitution,\u201d he said. \u201cWhat he was explaining is they did not want the government to encroach upon the church, not that they didn’t want principles of faith to encroach on our public life. It’s exactly the opposite.\u201d The speaker\u2019s claim was quickly latched on to by his critics.\u00a0<\/span>The Guardian<\/span><\/em><\/a>, when reporting the comment, referred to Johnson as a \u201cChristian nationalist House speaker.\u201d \u201cThe second-in-line to the presidency informed Americans on Tuesday that their time-honored conception of one of the founding principles of the country was a \u2018misunderstanding,\u2019\u201d the tongue-in-cheek article went on.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

The phrase \u201cseparation of church and state\u201d has been a source of contention between liberals and conservatives for decades. As Speaker Johnson stated, the term is not directly found in the US Constitution but in a <\/span>letter<\/span><\/a>\u00a0written by Thomas Jefferson in 1802 to the Danbury Baptist Association. In the letter, Jefferson termed the phrase while discussing the establishment clause of the First Amendment, writing, \u201cI contemplate with sovereign reverence that act of the whole American people which declared that their legislature should \u2018make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof,\u2019 thus building a wall of separation between Church & State.\u201d The phrase then found itself in US law in 1947 in the US Supreme Court decision\u00a0<\/span>Everson v. Board the Education<\/span><\/a>. In that decision, the Supreme Court wrote, \u201cThe ‘establishment of religion’ clause of the First Amendment means at least this: Neither a state nor the Federal Government can set up a church. Neither can pass laws which aid one religion, aid all religions or prefer one religion over another. Neither can force nor influence a person to go to or to remain away from church against his will or force him to profess a belief or disbelief in religion.\u201d Since that decision, the application of the Establishment Clause has expanded, resulting in the 1962 Supreme Court case\u00a0<\/span>Engel v Vitale<\/span><\/a>, where prayers in school were determined to be unconstitutional.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Such decisions, however, have increased the tension between the establishment clause of the First Amendment and the \u201cfree exercise clause\u201d of that same amendment, which states that while Congress cannot establish a federal religion, neither is it allowed in \u201cprohibiting the free exercise thereof.\u201d Thus, when high school football coach <\/span>Joe Kennedy<\/span><\/a>\u00a0was fired from his school for praying on the football field after school hours, the Supreme Court stepped in once again, siding with Kennedy. Yet not every case sides with the religious defendant, further muddying exactly how to apply the First Amendment. Johnson is also not the first to state that Americans misunderstand \u201cseparation of church and state.\u201d In 2010, political thinker and author Thomas Sowell wrote an op-ed for\u00a0<\/span>The National Review<\/span><\/em><\/a>\u00a0on the separation of church and state. Noting how the phrase is so intricate to American thought that most people believe it does appear in the Constitution, Sowell wrote that the phrase \u201cwas used in a letter by Thomas Jefferson, who was not even in the country when the Constitution was written. It was a phrase seized upon many years later by people who wanted to restrict religious symbols, and it has been cited by judges who share that wish.\u201d He added that \u201can establishment of religion\u201d referred to how the Church of England was the established church of the founders\u2019 time, with members gaining special privileges sanctioned by the government. \u201cThe people who wrote the Constitution of the United States had been British subjects most of their lives and knew exactly what an \u2018established church\u2019 meant. They wanted no such thing in the United States of America. End of story \u2014 or so it should have been,\u201d Sowell wrote.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

House Speaker Mike Johnson has found himself under scrutiny from critics again after speaking with\u00a0CNBC\u2019s Squawk Box\u00a0on the separation of church and state. Johnson had appeared on the show to discuss the upcoming budget vote when he found himself responding to questions about an image of himself praying on the floor of Congress with other…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":664,"featured_media":19739,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fbia_status":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-19733","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\nSpeaker Mike Johnson Criticized For Calling \u201cseparation of church and state\u201d a \u201cmisnomer\u201d<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Mike Johnson has found himself under scrutiny after speaking with\u00a0CNBC\u2019s Squawk Box\u00a0on the separation of church and state.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link 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