Washington, USA - In 1802, President Thomas Jefferson famously wrote to the Danbury Baptist Association of Connecticut, assuring the group that the US Constitution imposes ``a wall of separation between Church & State."
But today, at the 111-year-old New Hope Baptist Church of Danbury, the Rev. Ivan S. Pitts would like a way through that wall. He views President Bush's faith-based initiative as a ``great" opportunity to get a $500,000 grant to help build a children's center.
The effort by New Hope to get tax dollars for a church-affiliated building brings full circle a debate about church and state that has been roiling since before the American Revolution.
Indeed, the Baptists of Danbury had good reason to ask Jefferson to clarify the meaning of the First Amendment. One of the motivations behind the American Revolution was the anger of religious minorities -- including evangelical Christians, Catholics, and Baptists -- at being taxed to support a competing denomination. The Anglicans received tax dollars in much of the South, and the Congregationalists benefited from tax collections in much of New England.
The First Amendment, which said Congress shall make no law ``respecting an establishment of religion," set the nation on a path toward ending the use of tax dollars for churches -- with Massachusetts becoming the last state to cut official ties to a church, ending its affiliation with Congregationalists in 1833.
Over the next century and a half, the Supreme Court gave progressively greater force to the prohibition on establishing a state religion, viewing most forms of government funding of churches with skepticism.
But such restrictions have loosened over the last 20 years, most recently with a 5-to-4 Supreme Court decision in 2002 that tax-supported vouchers could be used at religious schools.
Nonetheless, Bush's faith-based initiative is facing a new challenge from the Freedom From Religion Foundation, which alleges that the president is violating the Constitution by using taxpayer dollars to help religious groups apply for federal funds.
Earlier this year, a federal district court allowed the suit to go forward, declaring that taxpayers can ``challenge an executive-branch program, alleged to promote religion, that is financed by a Congressional appropriation, even if the program was created entirely within the executive branch, as by presidential executive order."
Some legal specialists say the case could go to the Supreme Court, where it would test the willingness of the increasingly conservative body to further loosen restrictions on church-state partnerships.
First Amendment scholars say it is one of the great ironies of American history that two of the biggest supporters of Bush's initiative are evangelical Christians and Catholics, who once fought to end state support for churches.
``The one group that would almost certainly oppose the views of 21st-century evangelicals are the 18th-century evangelicals," Steve Waldman , editor of Beliefnet and author of a forthcoming book about religion in America, wrote recently.
Robert Cizik , vice president for governmental affairs of the National Association of Evangelicals, agreed that his forerunners ``were advocates of separation on the basis that the favored churches were not theirs." But Cizik said: ``Conditions have changed. Our federal government today is a leviathan which dispenses values as it does services. . . . There is the very monstrous capacity of government to change society."
But many Baptists, including the leadership of the Southern Baptists, oppose the initiative based on the history of persecution at the hands of prerevolutionary governments intent on promoting the Anglican Church.
Nonetheless, Pitts, the New Hope pastor, said he believes such funding is justified.
``Jefferson never meant for us to be separate in that we couldn't interact, but that we would be separate in sense that the state would not control religious expression," Pitts said. He said African-American churches such as his have struggled to provide services and can use the support, but he stressed, ``It can't be hush money."
A different view is heard at the nearby Baptist Church of Danbury, which traces its history to 1790 and was part of the association that wrote to Jefferson. The church's pastor, David Reinhardt , said his forerunners appealed to the president because they were upset at paying taxes that went to the salaries of Congregationalist ministers.
Given that history, Reinhardt said, he does not support the faith-based initiative and won't seek money from it.
``This is just a core value here," Reinhardt said. ``We want this separation of church and state."