My uncle lives a few miles from Thomas Jefferson's Monticello, and very near James Madison's Montpelier. There are many locals there who are very engrossed with learning the area's history, particularly the minutia regarding our Founding Fathers. According to my uncle, as best I can recall what he said (in a rather, ehh, *emotional* telephone conversation yesterday), here is the "scoop" on how the separation of church and state thing came into being.
Jefferson departed for Paris to assume his role of ambassador, and left the task of completing the Constitution in the hands of country lawyer James Madison. The sticking point of getting the thing radified is that the 2 most populous states (VA and NY) were holding out. It is important to note that at this same time, oppression of every religious denomination that wasn't Anglican was still an ongoing problem in this (brand new) country.
So while JM was working on the Bill of Rights, he met with a Baptist leader who was known to have plenty of influence with the community and asked what the protestant concerns were with the new document. He told JM that their biggest thing was to get rid of the descrimination against the practice of religion. So JM worked out a way to PROTECT religion from the government, which is actually what the words above ("Congess shall make no law...") are all about, and NOT what those who are against God have done with the popularly held misconception (spin) of getting God out of the government.
The Baptists liked JM's work enough to get the vote out and ratify the thing. You see, the Brits settled in the safer areas east of the Blue Ridge and made everybody else go to the more dangerous frontier west of the mountains. That's why Anglican churches are quite rare there, and there is such a high percentage of German folks that came in from PA.
This modern-day deception regarding the relationship of church and state couldn't be farther from the real truth, and is so typical of the liberal agenda. As we know, a similar tactic is being used to undercut the 2nd Amendment.
It's also interesting to see how people react when you tell them how the Constitution was getting absolutely nowhere until the idea of praying before each session came up. A different local minister led the whole assembly in prayer every day, and the whole document was completed in 3 days. They just couldn't have gotten it done without God's help. This is why I almost barf every time some idiot like Michael Newdow tries to look smart and talk about how the Consitution is a secular document. At best, they don't know the history that they presume to speak about. At worst, they *do* know better but just lie about it. The men who wrote those special documents were big-time believers, in fact, I believe that had only 2 more of the signers been ordained ministers, that would've made a majority. Hardly a work of secular minds.
Anyway, that's the way I heared it! ;-)