I think you and I can agree that the Establishment Clause is often read over-broadly, but the First Amendment is a list of prohibitions on Congress. Quoting th

I think you and I can agree that the Establishment Clause is often read over-broadly, but the First Amendment is a list of prohibitions on Congress. Quoting the relevant part here: > Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof So reinterpreting that in modern words: Congress shall not establish a Church of the United States and Congress shall not govern religion. The phrasing comes from Jefferson, and you are right that it is ex post facto the Constitution, but the idea is very Puritan and Jefferson himself was referencing Roger Williams (who established the first Baptist Church in America over 150 years prior) and his idealistic "Wall of Separation"[1]. Even restating the establishment clause with terminology, I can't read it any other way but as a conceptual separation of Church and State. The language does not need to be literal to have this effect. Your quote from Adams doesn't contradict this either because it reads like an assumption that the Constitution does not need to do more than this to address religion because the American people are already moral and religious, therefore to the extent that it does so, it is adequate, but it would not necessarily work well for a different people. [1] https://myemail.constantcontact.com/Roger-Williams---ORIGIN-of--Wall-of-Separation--between-Church---State.html https://myemail.constantcontact.com/Roger-Williams---ORIGIN-...