- August 13, 2026
Dear Editor:
Jearlyn Dennie's essay starts from solid ground. As a pastor who was the first Black woman to chair a Republican Executive Committee in Florida, she shares her experience of being told to "keep religion out of politics" once her faith became clear in a political role. She's correct that nothing in the Constitution mandates that trade-off.
A person does not lose the right to hold office, vote according to her conscience, or speak at a School Board meeting just because she is also a person of faith. This is not a controversial claim. It isn't even the claim most people challenge when discussing "separation of church and state."
That’s where the essay's argument encounters issues — not in what it defends, but in what it quietly generalizes into. Dennie is correct that the phrase "separation of church and state" does not appear in the Constitution. She is also right that the phrase comes from Jefferson's 1802 letter assuring the Danbury Baptists that the government would not interfere with their worship.
However, she uses that history to conclude that the First Amendment's main purpose was to protect the church from government control, not to protect the government from religious influence. This conclusion is only partially correct, and the part that is missing actually generates most real-world church-state disputes.
The religion clause has two parts, written together for a reason: the government cannot prohibit free exercise, and it also cannot make a law that respects an establishment of religion. The second part is not just a footnote. It is the reason a school district cannot mandate prayer, a courthouse cannot require witnesses to swear on one faith's text and a legislature cannot legislate one denomination's doctrine as binding on everyone, including citizens of other faiths or none. That protection is not directed at pastors serving in office. It is aimed at preventing the government from being used to decide questions of conscience for people who never agreed to settle them that way.
Dennie's essay does not actually argue against that principle. This is important because it means the piece addresses an objection that no serious person is raising. She clearly states that she isn't asking the government to preach her faith and that she does not expect everyone to share her beliefs. This is fine, as nearly everyone who discusses church-state separation feels the same way.
The disagreement was never about whether a pastor can run for office or speak from her beliefs. It concerns the difference between a citizen's faith influencing how she votes or governs, which is free exercise, and the government adopting that citizen's theology as law applicable to people who reject it, which is establishment. These are different actions, and confusing criticism of the second with hostility toward the first allows the essay to claim a much larger victory than its argument actually supports.
There is also a smaller detail worth mentioning: the "keep religion out of politics" comment she describes came from individuals, not from the government. This was a private citizen's opinion, protected speech responding to her protected speech — not a violation of the First Amendment, and not proof that the "government" is targeting anyone's faith. Being criticized for how you express your beliefs in public life is not the same as being constitutionally silenced. Equating the two allows the essay to shift from a personal grievance to a constitutional argument that it has not actually demonstrated.
None of this means faith has no place in public life. It clearly does, and Dennie is right that the Constitution never asked her to hide hers. However, defending a citizen's right to be openly religious while serving the public is a different task than defending the government's right to enforce one faith's answers for everyone. An essay that only argues the first should not be read as having settled the second.
Brad M West
Palm Coast
