There is much public confusion today over the phrase, “wall of separation,” in terms of describing the official relationship between church and state in the United States of America. Many conservative Christians, intent upon denying that the concept has any relevance in the founding of America (so as to argue that America was founded as a Christian nation), claim or infer that Thomas Jefferson coined the term a decade after the enactment of the First Amendment.
In reality, however, the use of the precise phrase dates back to Roger Williams (illustration), the first Baptist in America, in the early 17th century. Williams used the phrase in 1644 (“Mr. Cotton’s Letter Lately Printed, Examined and Answered”) to describe the Baptist belief that church and state should be kept separate. A strong advocate of freedom of conscience, Williams’ insisted that the state should not intrude into the free exercise of religion, and that religion should be disestablished from gover
Why did Roger Williams want to build a “wall of separation” between church and state? From the fifth century through the Reformation, church and state ruled together, and the marriage consistently produced wars, destruction, killings, and intense persecutions of those who did not embrace state religion. Yet there was more. Williams realized, as had the first generation of Baptists before him (the Baptist faith emerged in 1609 in Amsterdam, Holland), that state religion – even in the guise of Christianity –