Yesterday morning, coffee in hand, I was met with a sobering claim. Our Texas lieutenant governor, Dan Patrick, broke the news: “Separation of church and state is a lie.”
Despite my “limitations” — a public-school education, a private college degree in history and government, and a seminary education covering Baptist history, theology and the Bible — this “fact” was news to me. My background also includes three quarters of Clinical Pastoral Education and a master’s degree in family psychology, which informed my 22 years as a Licensed Professional Counselor and supervisor.
Michael Chancellor
Apparently, none of that prepared me for this revelation.
I am not sure where Patrick was when the Founding Fathers framed the Constitution and the Bill of Rights. Thomas Jefferson stood front and center, declaring a “wall of separation between church and state.” Yet, if Patrick is to be believed, we all have been misled for nearly 250 years.
Perhaps Patrick will next reveal that the Constitution is a figment of our imagination, the Bill of Rights a myth, and the rule of law a mere suggestion. After all, a lieutenant governor living in 2026 must be an ultimate expert in such matters — right?
Or perhaps he is like so many others in our time who seek to rewrite history to inflict their biases upon the documents that founded our nation. The rejection of well-researched, documented history in favor of bizarre interpretations is the mark of a radical — one who refuses to accept settled truth because it is uncomfortable and indicting.
Mr. Patrick, let me state this clearly: You are wrong. Worse, you are wrong again.
Patrick belongs to a radical wing of Americans who wrap themselves in the label of “conservative” except when it contradicts their own impulses. Historic conservatism — at least the British and American varieties — always has espoused limited government. The Constitution and the Bill of Rights reflect Enlightenment thinking; they are foundational documents designed to limit the power of the state. They set the parameters of what the government could do and, with the addition of the Bill of Rights, what the government could not do.
“The Bill of Rights is, first and foremost, about limiting the power of the state in matters of religion, life, relationships and freedom.”
This was vital because the state has an inherent impulse to creep into the lives of its citizens. Power is a historic temptation. The radicalism that Patrick, Greg Abbott and Ken Paxton have brought to Texas is not limited government; it is intrusive government. This group has traded “limited” for “intrusive” whenever they encounter something they dislike.
These radicals have overreached into the Texas family to dictate what children can learn, what faith can be shared and what books can be read in public schools or shelved in community libraries. Once power is exerted, it is never satisfied; like greed, it fuels a brokenness in the soul that cries “never enough.”
Not content with controlling women’s bodies or dictating reproductive choices (an intrusion notably absent regarding male reproduction), the state now has moved into the realm of theology. This intrusion already has cost women their lives. It also raises a harrowing question: If the state insists life begins at conception, who is to be held accountable if an embryo dies before birth? Who is charged? Who does the state prosecute? If life begins at conception, the state’s logic demands a culprit.
It is for this reason that limits were placed within the Constitution. The Bill of Rights is, first and foremost, about limiting the power of the state in matters of religion, life, relationships and freedom.
Apparently, some Republicans skipped those lessons.
Michael Chancellor served 33 years as pastor of four Baptist churches in Texas, six years as a mental health manager in a maximum-security Texas prison before becoming a therapist in private practice in Round Rock, Texas. He now lives in Taylor, Texas.