MAGA pastor and self-proclaimed "prophet" Hank Kunneman held a special patriotic church service prior to Independence Day earlier this month, during which he read made-up a quote supposedly from Thomas Jefferson in an attempt to argue that America was founded as and must remain a Christian nation.
During the service, Kunneman flagrantly misrepresented the famous 1802 "separation of church and state" letter that Jefferson sent to the Danbury Baptists after being elected president.
After mistakenly claiming that this quote came from "an address" that Jefferson delivered to the Danbury Baptists, Kunneman then read a laughably false quote supposedly delivered by Jefferson.
"He said, 'The First Amendment has created a wall of separation between church and state,'" Kunneman declared, while an image of false quote was projected on screen. "'But that wall is one directional. It keeps the government from running the church, and it makes sure that Christian principles will always stay in government.'"
"Take that and choke," Kunneman smugly proclaimed.
Unfortunately for Kunneman, Jefferson's actual letter says nothing of the sort, which is something Kunneman would have realized if he actually read the letter, which is readily available online.
Here is the relevant portion:
Believing with you that religion is a matter which lies solely between Man & his God, that he owes account to none other for his faith or his worship, that the legitimate powers of government reach actions only, & not opinions, I contemplate with sovereign reverence that act of the whole American people which declared that their legislature should "make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof," thus building a wall of separation between Church & State. Adhering to this expression of the supreme will of the nation in behalf of the rights of conscience, I shall see with sincere satisfaction the progress of those sentiments which tend to restore to man all his natural rights, convinced he has no natural right in opposition to his social duties.
Obviously, the "quote" that Kunneman read to his congregation appears nowhere in Jefferson's actual letter.
Kunneman’s misinformation is another example of a phenomenon RWW wrote about earlier this week: the use of bogus “history” to justify Christian nationalist claims and policies. One of the champions of that strategy, “historian” David Barton, had his own book about Jefferson pulled from the shelves by its publisher when actual historians—including evangelical Christians—criticized its falsehoods.
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