by Allen Jayne

About the author: Allen Jayne is the author of Jefferson’s Declaration of Independence: Origins, Philosophy, and Theology.

Separation of church and state, a cornerstone of American civilization, has been under attack for several years. The Reverend Pat Robertson, for example, has long maintained such separation does not exist. Few people, outside of the Christian right, have taken him seriously. In the summer of 1998, however, a new attack was made—this time on the ideas of Thomas Jefferson, a principal architect of separation of church and state.

In his interpretation of a recent FBI study, James Hutson, chief of manuscripts at the Library of Congress, makes three conclusions about Jefferson. First, Jefferson’s famous “wall of separation between Church and State...