America’s first mega-church was in Congress

America’s first mega-church, defined as a congregation of 2,000 attendees or more, held services in the capitol building inside the House of Representatives. It remained there until 1868 as the congregation raised money for building a new sanctuary they could call their own.

According to the diary of John Quincy Adams, the sixth president of the United States, church services were also held in the Treasury building and the Supreme Court Building. He describes the Reverend James Laurie, pastor of a Presbyterian Church, that had settled into the Treasury Building, preaching to an overflow audience in the Supreme Court Chamber, which in 1806 was located on the ground floor of the Capitol.

This has significant importance to the debate over the separation of church and state. For those who may not be aware, the term, "separation of church and state," is not in the Constitution or in any other American document until liberal judges twisted and injected it for their own agenda, which really happened in the 1940s.

The phrase is found in a personal letter that President Thomas Jefferson wrote to the Baptist Association in Danbury, Conn., for the purpose of assuring Baptists that the federal government would not mandate a "federal religion."

The significance of the timeframe above and the actions of President Jefferson are important because they show irrefutable evidence that Jefferson’s words have been twisted by liberal activists and judges into the anti-religious laws we have today.

There were churches operating inside government facilities during the time of President Thomas Jefferson. This practice of religion and government being entwined lasted decades beyond his presidency. In fact, Thomas Jefferson attended church services every Sunday morning inside the chambers of the U.S. House where he had a reserved seat. If Thomas Jefferson truly believed that the separation of church and state meant a systematic removal of religion from all government buildings and operations, then he violated his own belief by attending church inside government facilities.

You cannot find a piece of evidence suggesting that our founding fathers believed religion should be banned from public activities, banned from government buildings, or banned from schools. You will actually find the complete opposite. They simply wanted all religions to be recognized as equally protected by the law.

I am a 100 percent believer in the true, Thomas Jefferson theory of "separation of church and state." This theory is that the state (federal government) should not establish a single denomination as the official federal religion. Those who want to see religion exterminated from America have deceitfully twisted Thomas Jefferson’s words into assaulting religion rather than protecting the free exercise of it.

There are no better examples than the life of President Thomas Jefferson himself. He was by no means in love with religion and had many harsh criticisms of it. However, he attended church inside the capitol of the United States. What other piece of evidence do you need to understand that President Jefferson did not intend for his personal letter and statement about the separation of church and state to eliminate religion from government?

Atheists in America will refer to Thomas Jefferson’s separation of church and state for their argument to eliminate religion from government.

They have no choice but to dishonestly ignore that he himself mixed government and religion by attended church inside of government buildings.

How have we moved from President Jefferson’s attending church inside of a government facility all the way to eliminating a cross from a World War II memorial, or telling cheerleaders at a high school that they are not allowed to hold up signs with Bible verses on them because they are "acting as the state?"

The answer is because reasonable people do nothing.

In 1787, a Mrs. Powel confronted Benjamin Franklin after the signing of the Constitution and asked, "Well, Doctor, what have we got — a republic or a monarchy?" His response was chilling: "A republic, Madam, if you can keep it."

If we as citizens do not demand freedoms and keep government in check, we will soon lose them.

For more information about the history of religion in America straight from the sources, check out the Library of Congress. site at http://www.loc.gov/exhibits/religion/rel06-2.html