Ronald Reagan got it right...
The separation of church and state myth is a creation of secularists who are intolerant of people of faith. The first amendment was not intended to prohibit religion from influencing the State, but to keep the State from abridging the freedom of religion.
Origins of Separation of Church and State From Wallbuilders
Where did the phrase “separation of church and state” come from? What does it mean?
The phrase “separation of church and state” comes especially from the 1500s, and was a product of the Reformation in Europe.
In the fourth century A.D., the government took control of the church and began to establish specific doctrinal tenets by law, making the church an official organ of government and using coercion and brutal penalties against those who did not submit to government-established theology. That abhorrent practice predominated until some religious leaders began to oppose it in the 1300s. Eventually, over a span of two-and-a-half centuries, numerous individuals in different nations across Europe raised their voice against the government union of church and state. After all, God Himself had separated the two institutions, placing Moses over civil affairs and Aaron over spiritual ones; and when King Uzziah tried to combine the two functions in 2 Chronicles 26, God Himself struck him down, thus reaffirming the institutional separation He had established. (Those European leaders and their followers who objected to many of the unBiblical operations of both the state and the state-established and state-run church became known as “Dissenters”.)
The first recorded usage of the separation phrase occurred during the reign of King Henry VIII of England. Henry had sought a divorce, but when the church rightly denied it, Henry established his own government-run church and awarded himself the divorce. The Parliament also passed laws decreeing who could and could not participate in the Lord’s Supper and other sacraments, even deciding who could and could not preach the Gospel. TheRev. Richard Hooker objected, and is credited with being the first to use the separation phrase, demanding that the government stay out of what was rightly the church’s jurisdiction.
Since those who came to America afterwards were largely Dissenters and generally held the same view as their Dissenting leaders in Europe, the separation phrase was widely used in America for the next century-and-a-half, especially in objecting to British attempts to establish official theology or British-run churches in America.
The most frequently referenced American source for the contemporary usage of the separation phrase today is an 1802 letter written by President Thomas Jefferson to the Baptists of Danbury, Connecticut, in which he assured them that because of “the wall of separation between church and state” the government would not interfere with or inhibit their religious practices or expressions, whether occurring in private or public. But in 1947, the Supreme Court reversed the traditional use of this phrase, for the first time allowing the government to interfere with and even prohibit religious practices and expressions, especially when occurring in public – a complete reversal of the historic meaning of the phrase and its usage both by Jefferson and those in previous centuries. Consequently, the modern application of this phase bears nearly no resemblance to either its historical or Biblical origins.
For information and sources for this issue, see the following resources: