Prezken

It is no exaggeration to say that on Sundays in Washington during the administrations of Thomas Jefferson (1801-1809) and of James Madison (1809-1817) the state became the church. Within a year of his inauguration, Jefferson began attending church services in the House of Representatives. Madison followed Jefferson's example, although unlike Jefferson, who rode on horseback to church in the Capitol, Madison came in a coach and four. Worship services in the House--a practice that continued until after the Civil War--were acceptable to Jefferson because they were nondiscriminatory and voluntary. Preachers of every Protestant denomination appeared. (Catholic priests began officiating in 1826.) As early as January 1806 a female evangelist, Dorothy Ripley, delivered a camp meeting-style exhortation in the House to Jefferson, Vice President Aaron Burr, and a "crowded audience." Throughout his administration Jefferson permitted church services in executive branch buildings. The Gospel was also preached in the Supreme Court chambers.

Jefferson's actions may seem surprising because his attitude toward the relation between religion and government is usually thought to have been embodied in his recommendation that there exist "a wall of separation between church and state." In that statement, Jefferson was apparently declaring his opposition, as Madison had done in introducing the Bill of Rights, to a "national" religion. In attending church services on public property, Jefferson and Madison consciously and deliberately were offering symbolic support to religion as a prop for republican government.

Religion and the Federal Government: PART 2 (Religion and the Founding of the American Republic, Library of Congress Exhibition)

Seriously, how can anyone with half a brain come to the conclusion we have now in our country regarding the meaning of the constitution and first amendment?

Edify_Always_In_All_Ways

That was then, this is now.

Church services in a public building? That's your way of calling Jefferson pro-non-separation? In those days, basically all ational politicians were serious Christians, and there was no one who cared.

Today, 12% of the population is atheist/agnostic, and prayers aren't in schools anymore. Times change.

Your post is the equivalent of claiming that the country wasn't founded on freedom because Jefferson owned slaves.

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Why?

Prezken

So your answer is basically we can reinterpret the constitution regardless of it's intentions and rewrite the founders beliefs to fit whatever political agenda we deem necessary? And to think we wonder why this country is struggling for an identity.

tryreading

Jefferson had refused to proclaim thanksgivings and fasts during his presidency, and wasn't much of a churchgoer, and the Federalists latched onto these facts to attack him on the false basis that he was an atheist and therefore no good for the country.

Jefferson chose to begin the very dramatic processions to church that you describe to placate the religious citizens who might believe his enemies. This was a political move, not a reverent one.

From the LOC, this is a very interesting article on the Danbury Baptist letter containing the 'wall of separation' quote you mention, and a few paragraphs on Jefferson's religious motives in general :

'A Wall of Separation' (June 1998) - Library of Congress Information Bulletin

Mach

Probably because it's either:
Church is part of State
or
Church is not part of State.

Apparently he wrote, they were not part of one another. How are you getting this confused? Are you reading theocractic propganda?

Separation of church and state - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The phrase "separation of church and state" is derived from a letter written by Thomas Jefferson in 1802 to a group identifying themselves as the Danbury Baptists. In that letter, referencing the First Amendment of the United States Constitution, Jefferson writes:

"Believing with you that religion is a matter which lies solely between Man & his God, that he owes account to none other for his faith or his worship, that the legitimate powers of government reach actions only, & not opinions, I contemplate with sovereign 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 & State." [7]

I'm going out on a limb here, but I believe if he wanted them part of one another, he would not describe it as "building a wall", or as "separation".
Separation means not part of one another.
A wall is something that is between two parts.

Are you sure you read all this and still came to precisely the opposite conclusion?

And his buddy Madison:

Another early user of the term was James Madison, the principal drafter of the United States Bill of Rights, who often wrote of "total separation of the church from the state." [8] "Strongly guarded . . . is the separation between religion and government in the Constitution of the United States," Madison wrote, and he declared, "practical distinction between Religion and Civil Government is essential to the purity of both, and as guaranteed by the Constitution of the United States." [9] This attitude is further reflected in the Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom, originally authored by Thomas Jefferson, but championed by Madison, and guaranteeing that no one may be compelled to finance any religion or denomination.

Same as above. No ambiguity that I see.

-Mach

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Let teachers and priests and philosophers brood over questions of reality and illusion. I know this: if life is an illusion, then I am no less an illusion, and being thus, the illusion is real to me. I live, I burn with life, I love, I slay, and I am content.- Conan

the makeout hobo

Nothing is wrong with a public building being loaned as a place or worship when it's not being used. Plenty of public buildings are used for religious meetings, as well as many other public gatherings. If he refused to let citizens use the capitol for a religious meeting, but let any other public group use it, he'd be discriminated against religion. If you want to convince us, give us something more revealing, like Jefferson legislating religious rules into law.

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The Makeout Hobo is real, and does indeed travel around the country in his van and make out with ladies... If you meet the Makeout Hobo, it is customary to greet him with a shot of whiskey and a high five (if you are a dude) or passionate makeouts (if you are a lady).Vague is a man of honor

Edify_Always_In_All_Ways

So your answer is that the country should become a theocracy? If only you'd have been a Founding Father, we could have elected Pat Robertson president and never had another hurricane.

The Baron

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"To the distinguished character of Patriot, it should be our highest glory to add the more distinguished character of Christian." - George Washington

Edify_Always_In_All_Ways

How would you like to represent our Christian Heritage, then?

The silenced majority

So for the anti-religion, anti-US history crowd it's OK to use the *!* interpreted intent of the founders in regards to the separation of Church and State to justify doing things like seeking the removal of a monument to the 10 commandments from State Courthouses nowadays.

But when shown historical facts that point to, at one time, Church services being conducted in the US house of Representatives; you claim these same *intentions you've interpreted in such a slanted way today to be at that time irrelevant.

Irrelevant, even as the ink on amendment I of the US Constitution was still drying (1791)...

I suppose they needed us to interpret 200 years later, what they thought out and wrote up at that time?

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"Treason never prospers; what's the reason? For when it prospers, none dare call it treason;" ~ Sir John Fortescue