Christine O’Donnell has done it again.  In a debate with her Democratic opponent Chris Coons, she is questioning whether the First Amendment to the US Constitution creates a separation between church and state.

In Christian circles lately I am hearing much being made of the fact that the expression “separation of church and state” does not actually appear in the Constitution.  This often leads to the assumption that the courts cannot restrict public educators from teaching Christianity or any other religion as a part of their lesson plans.

This view, which would make room for the requirement that teachers present a creationist alternative, is very popular in Christian circles.

Thus candidate O’Donnell’s latest gaff:

Where in the Constitution is the separation of church and state? … Let me just clarify, you are telling me that the separation of church and state is in the First Amendment? … That’s in the First Amendment?

It did not help that the debate was held at the Widener University School of Law, nor that her questions provoked laughter, clearly audible, from the law students in attendance.

While I appreciate the nature of her dilemma — she is a Christian believer who wants to advocate for a creationist world view — she clearly is not helping her case by the denial of the obvious.  The First Amendment clearly forbids a state religion, and thereby the effort on the part of any representative of the state to impose a religious doctrine into public education.

Since Darwin, many scientists have been resistant to the concept of intelligent design.  This bias has been reflected in the nation’s textbooks for the last fifty years.   I recall clearly how, as a middle school student during the 1960’s, I was first presented with the tenets of the evolutionary explanation of origins. I recall how conflicted I felt that this presentation challenged my personal religious beliefs.

Still, while I had the Constitutionally protected right to raise questions regarding evolution (which I certainly did), I did not have the right to prevent the teacher from teaching the essence of contemporary scientific understanding, nor for that matter, forcing her to present a view with which I was more comfortable.

In considering the magnitude of what the evolutionary view required me to accept, as opposed to my understanding of intelligent design, I simply decided that my faith was more reasonable than my teacher’s faith.

Attempting to regain some credibility, Ms. O’Donnell’s campaign released a statement that:

Christine O’Donnell was not questioning the concept of separation of church and state as subsequently established by the courts.  She simply made the point that the phrase appears nowhere in the Constitution.

Indeed! Nor is the right to force Christian, Jewish, Muslim, or other doctrines into the curriculum. Nor does it prohibit students with these backgrounds from being in the classroom, and when appropriate, presenting their differing worldviews.

I’m afraid that Ms. O’Donnell and many other Christians do not understand that original Christianity did not gain a foothold in the Jewish and Gentile worlds through political force. Such force, in the form of an imperial state religion, came over three hundred years after the ministry of Jesus, and the church has not recovered fully from it since.