The founders of the United States understood the importance of the separation of church and state. The traditional understanding of the Establishment Clause to the Constitution guarantees our right to worship as we please, forbids the establishment of a state religion, and precludes any religious test to hold political office. In his letter to the Danbury Baptists Thomas Jefferson wrote, “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.” Jefferson clearly understood that the people of the United States made the decision to keep church and state separate.

One of the most aggressive attacks on democracy we face is the attack on the separation of church and state. Elected officials like Speaker of the House Mike Johnson and Representative Lauren Boebert, appointed officials like Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth, and state officials in many places across the country are arguing that the Establishment Clause does not create a separation of church and state. These arguments are being used to undermine and take resources from public schools, justify proselytizing in federal work places, and are even being invoked in international conflicts like the war in Iran and strikes on Venezuelan boats in the Caribbean.

Many of these attacks fall under the label of Christian nationalism. 

You might ask, what does this have to do with interfaith initiatives and organizing? Democracy requires pluralism and the acceptance of people of all faiths or no faith fully participating and being civically engaged. The attacks on the separation of church and state by Christian nationalists seek to elevate one religion and in most cases a very narrow understanding of that religion. That elevation comes with discrimination and erasure of people of different faiths, races, ethnicities, sexuality, and class against people that do not conform to particular religious ideas. It makes our democracy smaller. The Interfaith Alliance and other interfaith groups advocate for inclusion and diversity in ways that make our democracy bigger. We are stronger when more people can openly share their faiths and beliefs systems in ways that contribute to our democracy.