To the editor:

I read Pam Loewenstein’s letter (Public Forum, Jan. 6) on separation of church and state with great interest. I believe, however, she has taken some statements out of context.

For instance, Thomas Jefferson used the term “separation of church and state” because our forefathers did not want any one religion imposed by the government. His following quote shows us what he believed: “God who gave us life gave us liberty. Can the liberties of a nation be secure when we have removed a conviction that these liberties are the gift of God?”

And James Madison, the man behind the language of the Constitution, did talk about religion working better without government. He also said, “We have staked the whole future of American civilization, not upon the power of the government, far from it. We have staked the future of all our political institutions upon the capacity of each and all of us to govern ourselves, to control ourselves, to sustain ourselves according to The Ten Commandments.” The big 10 as a moral code? Sounds like our forefathers wanted us to embrace spirituality, not be separated from it!

“God” is a spiritual term used in many different religions. Secularists feel as if there is no place in public for spirituality, thus suppressing religious freedom, which goes against everything this country was founded upon.

Glenn Robertson,

Lawrence