Why Freedom of Religion?

The first amendment secures the freedom of religion. But why freedom of religion?

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Well, James Madison drew on what theologian Martin Luther realized: the Two Kingdoms. The Two Kingdoms is the idea where religion and government are separate.

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But take a look at this, written by the 40th Lion:

"Some try to separate the American republic from its religious founding by denying it ever existed. They say that the United States was never, in any sense, a Christian nation.

Well, there's one problem: It just isn't true.

America's supreme law, the Constitution, is the embodiment of Martin Luther's doctrine of the "Two Kingdoms," the idea that the religious and civil realms are, and should be, separate. (Which is itself an explanation of Christ's command to "Give to Caesar what is Caesar's, and give to God what is God's.")
How do we know this? James Madison, the Father of the Constitution, declares it in an 1821 letter to F. L. Schaeffer:

 

It illustrates the excellence of a system [American Constitutional government] which, by a due distinction, to which the genius and courage of Luther led the way, between what is due to Caesar and what is due to God, best promotes the discharge of both obligations. The experience of the United States is a happy disproof of the error so long rooted in the unenlightened minds of well-meaning Christians, as well as the corrupt hearts of persecuting usurpers, that without a legal incorporation of religious and civil polity, neither could be supported. A mutual independence is found most friendly to practical Religion, to social harmony, and to political prosperity."

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Thank you 40th Lion!

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What James Madison is saying there is that the government that they created, which Luther "helped" them with, has freedom of religion because what is due to Caesar and what is due to God are two separate things. The idea of mixing religion and government is often in the minds of "well-meaning Christians" and traitors. Independence is "most friendly" towards "practical religion, to social harmony, and to political prosperity."

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President John Adams declared that "Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other."

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