The Religious Test Oath And The Wall Of Separation

Most Evangelical historians go to great lengths to show that Thomas Jefferson’s “wall of separation” phrase does not appear in the United States Constitution. However, the "Ismellarat" DVD claims that the concept is there nonetheless, tucked away in a little known provision of Article VI.

The documentary — “I Smell a Rat - An anti-Federalist Interpretation of American History” — points to the culprit in Article VI, Section 3: “No religious test shall ever be required for any office or public trust under these United States.”

As the narrative unfolds, we learn that a bon-a-fide Christian nation will be marked by three traits:

1. It will commit itself to the Bible as the highest law of the land,
2. It will pass laws against murder, theft, adultery and other crimes based specifically on the Bible, and
3. It will require government officers to swear on oath to uphold those laws.

The Constitution fails at all three points, in particular at point 3) where it forbids any religious test (belief) to be required of an officeholder. In addition, it draws its authority exclusively from the majority vote of “we the people” (not God) and declares its own man-made Constitution and laws (not the Bible) to be the supreme law of the land. Taken together these constitute a formidable wall of separation between God and State.

This is one of the reasons that Patrick Henry declared “I Smell A Rat”, when asked why he declined his invitation to the Constitutional Convention. Nonetheless, most Evangelical historians active today still pronounce the Constitution to be a Christian document. They marshal such "weighty" evidence as the date including the phrase “year of our Lord.”