thomas jefferson wrote the separation of church and state.
who wrote the separation of church and state?
thomas jefferson
thomas jefferson wrote that the first amendment erected a "wall of separation between church and state" likely borrowing the language from roger williams, founder of the first baptist church in america and the colony of rhode island, who used the phrase in his 1644 book, "the bloody tenent of persecution". james madison, often regarded as the "father of the bill of rights", also often wrote of the "perfect separation", "line of separation", "strongly guarded as is the separation between religion and government in the constitution of the united states", and "total separation of the church from the state". madison explicitly credited martin luther as the theorist who "led the way" in providing the proper distinction between the civil and the ecclesiastical spheres with his doctrine of the two kingdoms.
freedom of religion in the united states
at the same period of the 17th century, pierre bayle and some fideists were forerunners of the separation of church and state, maintaining that faith was independent of reason. during the 18th century, the ideas of locke and bayle, in particular the separation of church and state, became more common, promoted by the philosophers of the age of enlightenment. montesquieu already wrote in 1721 about religious tolerance and a degree of separation between religion and government. voltaire defended some level of separation but ultimately subordinated the church to the needs of the state while denis diderot, for instance, was a partisan of a strict separation of church and state, saying ""the distance between the throne and the altar can never be too great"".
separation of church and state