A Quote by William Rehnquist

The "wall of separation between church and State" is a metaphor based on bad history.

William Rehnquist

Quote Topics

Bad Based Between Church Church And State History Metaphor Separation Separation Between Church And State State Wall

Quote Author

William Rehnquist
American - Judge
October 1, 1924 - September 3, 2005

The 'wall of separation between church and state' is a metaphor based on bad history, a metaphor which has proved useless as a guide to judging. It should be frankly and explicitly abandoned.

William Rehnquist

It is true that traditional Christianity is losing some of its appeal among Americans, but that is a religious, not political, matter. It is worth remembering that the Jeffersonian 'wall of separation' between church and state has always been intended to protect the church from the state as much as the state from the church.

Jon Meacham

The contemporary quarrel over church and state is not really about whether a wall of separation of church and state should exist or not... The real question is what does 'separation' mean?

James Davison Hunter

It is the wall of separation between church and state . . . that is largely responsible for religion thriving in this country, as compared to those European countries in which church and state have been united, resulting in opposition to the church by those who disapprove of the government.

Alan Dershowitz

The separation of church and state is necessary partly because if religion is good then the state shouldn't interfere with the religious vision or with the religious prophet. There must be a realm of truth beyond political competence, that's why there must be a separation of churches, but if religion is bad and a bad religion is one that gives an ultimate sanctity to some particular cause. Then religion mustn't interfere with the state - so one of the basic Democratic principles as we know it in America is the separation of church and state.

Reinhold Niebuhr

Erecting the 'wall of separation between church and state'... is absolutely essential in a free society.

Thomas Jefferson

We worry a great deal about the problem of church and state. Now what about the church and God? Sometimes there seems to be a greater separation between the church and God than between the church and state.

Abraham Joshua Heschel

The separation of church and state is a source of strength, but the conscience of our nation does not call for separation between men of state and faith in the Supreme Being.

Lyndon B. Johnson

Today the separation of church and state in America is used to silence the church. When Christians speak out on issues, the hue and cry from the humanist state and media is that Christians, an all religions, are prohibited from speaking since there is a separation of church and state.

Francis Schaeffer

I wish, in America, (that) we were as concerned about separation from church and sin as we are about separation between church and state. Church and sin-- it's a monstrous problem.

Leonard Ravenhill

The Supreme Court's 1947 decision which introduced the wall of separation between church and state 'has fueled a movement to sterilize anything in American public life from religion.'

Mickey Edwards

Everyone in the United States is so intense about maintaining a separation between Church and State when the real concern should be about keeping a separation between Corporations and State--because in America (and most of the rest of the Western World, for that matter) economics is the real religion.

Neale Donald Walsch

Separation of church and state cannot mean an absolute separation between moral principles and political power.

Edward Kennedy

Thanks in large measure to the ACLU, the belief that there is a wall of separation between faith and state, not just church and state, is endemic. The exercise of religious faith in the public square is not prohibited; only the federal imposition of a particular faith. Hardly anyone any longer knows the difference.

F. LaGard Smith

There's no doubt that the Christian right has gone to bed with the more conservative elements of the Republican Party. And there's been a melding in their goals when it comes to the separation of church and state. I've always believed in the separation of church and state.