Doug Wilson

They're regulating every last detail of life now, and we want to get away from that.

I would say that I support wholeheartedly the separation of church and state, but that's different than the separation of morality and state.

A church is an ecclesiastical government, and the founders did not want a national church of the United States.

There were soft establishments at the state level, and in three cases, hard establishments at the state level, and I don't even think they're a good idea there, right?

I'm in favor of a soft establishment where the

The state simply says the Christian faith is true, but doesn't support any particular denomination with tax money.

That's the kiss of death for that denomination, and it's just not good.

In Federalist 48, it says that power is of an encroaching nature, and the Constitution is a work of theological genius because they spread the power as thinly as possible.

at the national and state levels, and then with the separation of powers.

That's profoundly Christian.

Right.

The only entity that could violate the First Amendment is Congress.

Congress shall make no law concerning the establishment of religion.

But when the Constitution was ratified, Massachusetts, Connecticut, and New Hampshire

all had established state churches at the state level.

And then the 14th state to come in, Vermont, came into the Union with an established state church.

That was hard establishment.

South Carolina didn't have a connection to any denomination, but they simply said the Protestant religion is the faith of the state.

They simply confessed that there was a transcendental grounding.

Now, I don't think that hard establishment at the state level is a good idea either.