July 2001 – Q: Is it accurate to say that, during the last half of the 20th century, the way our culture has viewed the Bible and the Judeo-Christian worldview has changed dramatically?

Steve Crampton, Chief Counsel: I think that there has been a major paradigm shift in the way Americans view the Bible and its principles. In the last century Americans began rejecting the Bible as being applicable to all areas of life. Instead they began to see it as something to be kept out of the public square and discussions about how government is to be run. Even a simple thing like a cross appearing on a city seal became controversial.

Q: Was that because of the doctrine of separation of church and state?

Michael DePrimo, Litigation Counsel: Well, the phrase, “separation of church and state,” properly understood, is a good concept. We believe that the government shouldn’t be forcing the church to do anything, nor do we believe that the church should have the power to force people to believe in Jesus Christ. But often when you hear the phrase “separation of church and state,” what people are referring to is the “separation of God and state.” It means we refuse to have the Creator rule over us, and we are going to make our own decisions.

Bryan J. Brown Litigation Counsel: Before the middle of the last century, everyone understood that the Establishment Clause [of the First Amendment] was erected against institutions – like the Episcopal Church of the Catholic Church – so that church institutions wouldn’t seize power and rule over our government. As our culture fell away from God, however, the idea took root that the Establishment Clause wasn’t just aimed at the institutional church, but also at the individual believer.

DePrimo: In a dispute over prayer at graduation, for example, if you really want to confuse a liberal when he says “separation of church and state,” ask him, “What do you mean the ‘church/‘ How is the church involved in this dispute?” He’ll look at you like you’re crazy, but the truth is the church is not involved – these are individual people who are doing this.

Crampton: And along with using the Establishment Clause to restrict the ability of individual Christians to operate as believers, there was this incredible expansion under the Free Exercise Clause of the First Amendment. People began to say that religion is anything a guy believes sincerely. That’s why you hear these stories about public schools which are bringing in witches to address the kids, the kids are being taught to practice incantations, they do little chants, they do yoga, get involved in New Age environmentalism. Many people don’t object to that because it’s not an established church – the only “established” church seems to be the Christian church.

Q: So it is not really an objection to church and state or even religion and state, but Christianity and state?

Crampton: I really don't think that's an unfair characterization. If you read the church-state cases, you will find an almost unbroken line that consistently comes down against individual Christians. It's the very rare case in which Christians prevail under this post-Christian jurisprudential model.

DePrimo: It seems to me that it is really a revolt against absolute truth and objective truth. You know the witches, these New Age-type religions, there is no objective truth or rule by which all conduct is measured.

Q: So how did this change happen?

Brown: Throughout Western Civilization since the late 1800s there has been an apostasy away from God, the Bible and absolute truth, especially in the universities. For example, you had higher criticism of the Bible in Germany in the 1880s, and it eviscerated the church in Europe, and then came over here. The liberal elite has had enormous success convincing the American public to reject the Judeo-Christian worldview, and in the last century these elites steam-rolled the vestiges of Christian traditionalism in this country.

DePrimo: And that led to a change in the way law was understood in our culture. This new worldview is completely divorced from a Creator, from objective truth. It's all subjective, where man determines right and wrong, and therefore what will be codified in law. Remember, this view is based in Darwinism: since man is "evolved" and evolving, law evolves, too. The laws change according to the views of the men and women who make them.

Brown: Now the attitude among the judicial elite in this nation, as demonstrated by the Supreme Court, is that "we are the guardians, we will define the way society ought to be. We are the gods of American democracy."

Q: And part of this "evolution" in law was this doctrine of separation of church and state?

Brown: The real problem was the incorporation doctrine, which took root back in the 1930s. That was when the Supreme Court said we're going to hold the First Amendment against the states, so anything Congress was unable to do under the First Amendment, now the states couldn't do either.

Crampton: Before the incorporation doctrine, you had cases where these First Amendment issues were raised in federal courts, but judges said, "We can't do anything about this ­ this is a state issue." For groups like the ACLU, the incorporation doctrine opened the door to achieve the social change they were after, because now one court case would affect all 50 states."

Q: So instead of having to plod through 50 separate state courts, the ACLU and others could hit the jackpot in the Supreme Court?

Crampton: Absolutely, and remember that state judges are more in tune with the social mores that govern in their own communities, and they have to live in a community with the people their verdicts affect. These judges are not going to make a lot of radical changes. Now you have federal judges who are often sitting miles away, who are appointed for life ­ they have enormous power. Federal judges are now dominating the legal scene, and in the area of prayer at school graduations, for example, only the federal judges know what the law says, because they are in essence creating it on the spot. It's like the old pagan priests reading the entrails of a goat, and saying, "No, in this case, you're good, but you over there, you're not." So now you have this hopeless mess where everyone else is blind, but only the courts can see.

DePrimo: The way the Constitution set up this nation, there should be 51 governments. You should have 51 sovereign governments ­ the federal government, and then 50 sovereign states. But through the incorporation doctrine the Supreme Court and the rest of the federal judiciary now have veto power over nearly everything the states do. As I recall there were 33 states that had laws prohibiting abortion at the time Roe v. Wade [which legalized abortion] was decided. And Roe v. Wade struck down all those state laws with one stroke of the pen.

Brown: I was on the Mall [in Washington, D.C.] recently, looking at the Washington Monument, the White House, and the Capitol Building. The Capitol is just breathtaking in its size and its dominance of that Mall. And you think of the little old Supreme Court [building] hidden behind the Capitol ­a little building you can't even see from the Mall. If you were to rebuild the Mall in this decade to reflect our government, the Supreme Court would be a 10-story building in the middle of the Mall because it dominates the legal landscape. That was never the intent of the founders.  

Supreme Court cases impacting freedom of religion
• Everson v. Board of Education, 330 U.S. 1 (1947) Law providing reimbursement using taxpayer funds to parents for cost of transporting children to religious schools was held to be unconstitutional. This case was the first to give the phrase "separation between church and state" its current interpretation as erecting a high and impenetrable wall meant to keep religion almost entirely out of government.

• Engle v. Vitale, 370 U.S. 421 (1962) New York state's simple, nondenominational prayer, which was required by statute to be recited by those so inclined at the start of each school day, was struck down as unconstitutional. Interestingly, the Court readily acknowledged that at the time of the adoption of the Constitution, at least 12 of the 13 states had state-established churches or religions.

• Abington School District v. Schempp, 374 U.S. 203 (1963) A Pennsylvania statute requiring the reading, without comment, of a few verses of the Bible and the recitation of the Lord's Prayer at the start of each school day was overturned. The Supreme Court ruled that any practice by a government entity that advances a religion, however slightly, constitutes an impermissible "establishment" of religion.