Merger of Church and State corrupts both Church and State: "Which brings up one of the main reasons - almost always overlooked by modern-day commentators, both left and right - that the Founders and Framers were so careful to separate church and state: They didn't want religion to be corrupted by government. Many of the Founders were people of faith, and even the Deists like Franklin, Washington, and Jefferson were deeply touched by what Franklin called 'The Mystery.' And they'd seen how badly religious bodies became corrupted when churches acquired power through affiliation with or participation in government."

"Throughout most of the 1700s in Virginia, a citizen could be imprisoned for life for saying that there was no god, or that the Bible wasn't inerrant. "Little wonder," notes Cousins, "that Virginians like Washington, Jefferson, and Madison believed the situation to be intolerable.... Certainly the Founders wanted to protect government from being hijacked by the religious.... But several of them were even more concerned that the churches themselves would be corrupted by the lure of government's easy access to money and power."

"Madison even objected to government giving money to churches to care for the poor. It would be the beginning of a dangerous mixture, he believed - dangerous both to government and churches alike.... In Madison's mind, caring for the poor was a public and civic duty - a function of government - and must not be allowed to become a hole through which churches could reach and seize political power or the taxpayer's purse. Funding a church to provide for the poor would establish a "legal agency" - a legal precedent - that would break down the wall of separation the founders had put between church and state to protect Americans from religious zealots gaining political power.... But always, in Madison's mind, the biggest problem was that religion itself showed a long history of becoming corrupt when it had access to the levers of governmental power and money.... Yet now, in 2004, the religious appear to be on the verge of both corrupting government and being corrupted themselves by the power and influence government can wield."

Merger of Church and State corrupts both Church and State: "Which brings up one of the main reasons - almost always overlooked by modern-day commentators, both left and right - that the Founders and Framers were so careful to separate church and state: They didn't want religion to be corrupted by government. Many of the Founders were people of faith, and even the Deists like Franklin, Washington, and Jefferson were deeply touched by what Franklin called 'The Mystery.' And they'd seen how badly religious bodies became corrupted when churches acquired power through affiliation with or participation in government."

"Throughout most of the 1700s in Virginia, a citizen could be imprisoned for life for saying that there was no god, or that the Bible wasn't inerrant. "Little wonder," notes Cousins, "that Virginians like Washington, Jefferson, and Madison believed the situation to be intolerable.... Certainly the Founders wanted to protect government from being hijacked by the religious.... But several of them were even more concerned that the churches themselves would be corrupted by the lure of government's easy access to money and power."

"Madison even objected to government giving money to churches to care for the poor. It would be the beginning of a dangerous mixture, he believed - dangerous both to government and churches alike.... In Madison's mind, caring for the poor was a public and civic duty - a function of government - and must not be allowed to become a hole through which churches could reach and seize political power or the taxpayer's purse. Funding a church to provide for the poor would establish a "legal agency" - a legal precedent - that would break down the wall of separation the founders had put between church and state to protect Americans from religious zealots gaining political power.... But always, in Madison's mind, the biggest problem was that religion itself showed a long history of becoming corrupt when it had access to the levers of governmental power and money.... Yet now, in 2004, the religious appear to be on the verge of both corrupting government and being corrupted themselves by the power and influence government can wield."