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Tavis: The Reverend Doctor Forrest Church is the former senior minister of New York's All Souls Church, where he still holds the position of minister of public theology. He's also the author of a number of notable books, including his latest, "So Help Me, God: The Founding Fathers and Their First Great Battle Over Church and State." Dr. Church, nice to have you here.

Rev. Dr. Forrest Church: Well, it's great to be here.

Tavis: Glad to have you. I'm sure you've heard this a thousand times in your life - what a great name -

Church: Yeah, there you go.

Tavis: - for the work that you do.

Church: So no imagination whatsoever. (Laughter)

Tavis: And that's your real name.

Church: That's my real name.

Tavis: Wow.

Church: Didn't have to change it.

Tavis: Were you destined to do this, you think?

Church: I don't know, I'm the only one in my family who did, but there you go, just destiny.

Tavis: That's amazing. Tell me about this title, "So Help Me, God." We hear that phrase all the time. Why it as the title of the text?

Church: Well, in the oath of office, the inaugural oath of office that's set in the Constitution, it's a purely secular oath. And when George Washington was inaugurated the first time, when he got done with the oath as it was presented to him, he added the words "so help me, God."

Tavis: Impromptu.

Church: Impromptu, although I think he was scripted by his managers at that point. But that has become part of the presidential - it's a mantra.

Tavis: What do you make of that as a part of the mantra for that particular oath?

Church: Well, it was a division all the way back at the founding. There was an argument even in Congress the first couple of weeks Congress met as to whether or not the congressmen themselves were going to say, “So help me, God,” at the end of their oaths or whether they were just going to pledge to support the Constitution.

And the people who put together that first inaugural, the ceremony, were of the church party, who believed in a Christian commonwealth. They used the old formula; it was a very familiar formula at the time. Two months later, the Congress voted not to use the so help me, God, and in Washington's second inauguration it was not an issue and President Jefferson was very careful to ask the Supreme Court justice, "Do I have to say this when I get inaugurated?" And the answer was no - just the strict secular constitutional formula is all he would have to do.

Tavis: So Jefferson chose not to say it.

Church: It appears to me that way. There's an exchange of letters between Jefferson and Chief Justice John Marshall, where he asks do I have to say anything more than the oath that is in the Constitution? I can't imagine what else he'd be talking about if it weren't that.

Tavis: I want to walk through the first five presidents and their faith journey, or lack thereof, relative to the text in just a moment. To your knowledge, though, when did it become standard fare where every president pretty much says it now?

Church: It's almost impossible to know. There's even an argument as to whether or not Washington himself said it, because there was no script at the time. It strikes me from the evidence that he probably did, but it was not until - for sure until the late nineteenth century that as people began to pattern their inaugurations after Washington that all the presidents said it.

Tavis: You and I well know the contemporary debate about the separation between church and state when Washington utters that phrase, Jefferson wants an opinion about whether or not he has to do it. Take me back and give me some sense, if you can, of what they were - what their debate around the separation of church and state where those words were concerned was then.

Church: Well, there are two different themes that come together to sort of create the somewhat dissonant music of early American politics. One is the Puritan, New England, sort of Christian commonwealth theme that is - who think of it in terms of one nation under God. And the other theme comes through the enlightenment France, and I call it sacred liberty, divine order, sacred liberty.

It would be in our Pledge of Allegiance, with liberty and justice for all. Or in a sense the Unum theme and the pluribus theme, if you want to look at it that way. Jefferson, Madison, they were pluribus men. A person like John Adams, New Englander, strong Unum person. Washington, Monroe, they both had a kind of E Pluribus Unum balance, but the real question was was liberty going to be the dominant, an empire of liberty going to be the outcome of our early experience or were we going to be a commonwealth of God?

Tavis: Parallel that debate for me today. Then versus now.

Church: You've got the same characters. You've got the same characters, but they're all wearing different costumes. For instance, on the religious right in the past, you've got the Episcopalians, Congregationalists, and Unitarians. They were the God and government party. They had no problem having God have a seat in government because it was their government, it would be their god.

Then on the religious left in the early republic it was the Baptists. They were the vanguard of the left. Also on the left were Methodists, Jews, Catholics. But it was the Baptists who fought most ferociously for church-state separation, and the reason was they were religious outsiders. So they knew from past experience that when there was collusion between church and state, they would get the short end of the stick.

They were the ones who would have to pay, for instance, a church establishment to give support to other clergy, other congregations' clergy, and they also treasured their religious freedom. So the Baptists joined together with the quote, unquote "infidel," deist Thomas Jefferson, and create a Libertarian party demanding absolute separation of church and state.

Tavis: So we've talked a bit about Washington and Jefferson, but since we're talking about these founding fathers, let me throw a few other names at you and give me some sense of where they stood in this debate. Adams.

Church: Well, Adams, he and Jefferson had the same beliefs. Neither of them believed that Jesus was divine, neither of them believed that the bible was the revealed word of God, but Adams, being from New England, thought that you could not have solid, moral government without the church and religion being present.

So he was the head of the Unum, or Christian commonwealth party - the Federalists, back then. And what he claims that he lost his election by virtue of having declared a national bath day which led the Baptists as well as other religious dissonants and sects to believe that he was establishing a national Christian government.

Because he used the language of New England theology, and they were afraid that they would lose their religious freedom, even though Jefferson himself was branded as such an infidel, he had a strong support from the outside sects of Christians.

Tavis: I'm thinking as you talk, Dr. Church, I'm thinking, trying to imagine what a president today, Republican or Democrat, would run into if they ever deemed, ever dared to think of calling a national (inaudible).

Church: No, absolutely. We came a long way and we basically worked this thing out during the first 30 years. What's interesting about this story is that in the war of 1812, the New England clergy were very active against the war, but part of the reason was that we were allied with France against the English, and the English were the Christian commonwealth ideal.

And so when the Americans won the war and the New England clergy lost their political traction, they were branded as traitors, they had to move from religious politics fighting to convert the president of the United States and convert the government into converting the nation, one Christian at a time. So then we get church-state separation, and even as the church and state are separated, religion grows like topsy.

That's the time of what's called the second great awakening. So the church is actually aided once it disentangles itself from the government, because it gains its moral independence.

Tavis: Madison.

Church: Madison was the sharpest critic of church interference with government policy, and he wrote an interesting thing when he finished his office. He critiqued his own presidency, the things that he had done that he thought stepped over the line. He was even opposed to chaplaincies, and he said the future president should watch out very carefully about the danger of religious corporations with their money and their power having an overweening influence upon the government.

Tavis: Since you mention a chaplaincy, are you at all surprised - maybe surprised's the wrong word - what's your take on the fact that we still do have, to this day, chaplains in the House and the Senate?

Church: Well, what Madison said was it's basically, though he considered it unconstitutional, he said it was a matter of indifference. He said this is not worth fighting over. He said he didn't think it was going to go away, there's no reason to fight over it. And part of, I think, the ongoing debate instructs us in the same way.

Are we going to take in God we trust off the coinage? Do we want to take one nation under God out of the Pledge of Allegiance? Those, I think a person like Madison would have described as matters of relative - relative - indifference. However, he would have an eagle eye for any trespass of the church into the halls of governmental power.

Tavis: Before I go finally to Monroe, since you went there, let me ask whether or not you can ever envision, given the debate that we are now having over church and state and the separation or the lack thereof for some people, can you envision a time when we would take that off our coinage?

Church: No, I don't think so. I think it's unlikely. That went on the coinage, by the way, under Lincoln in the Civil War. I think it's unlikely that that would go off the coinage.

Tavis: Monroe.

Church: Monroe is the least luminous of all these early characters, but in some ways, he strikes the best balance between Unum and pluribus, between moral order and sacred liberty. He had the great advantage of coming into office at a time when the political New England clergy had been shamed. And so I couldn't find a single sermon that was preached against him, and if you could read the sermons that were preached against Madison and Jefferson, it just makes the hair stand up on your back. (Laughter)

Tavis: Worse than the proselytizing we get today?

Church: You know what? Their language, both in the pulpit and on the stump, would make a modern-day talk show host blush.

Tavis: Wow.

Church: It was fierce. It was -

Tavis: Not Jerry Springer.

Church: Close. It's real close. That 1800 election, real close. But Monroe does manager, in the year of good feelings, to separate church and state but respect the work of the church to create a kind of moral citizenry, and that is where our balance, which we aspire to, of E Pluribus Unum got established.

Tavis: This is a dense text, and I haven't even begun to do justice to it at all. Let me ask, before I let you go, though, Dr. Church, what you make - let me rephrase that. What is the abiding lesson for everyday Americans today when they learn that the founding fathers were not in unison on this whole notion of in God we trust and this Christian nation that we're supposed to live under?

When people watch this conversation, read this text, and figure out wow, they weren't all on the same page about this, what's the lesson there? What do we take from that?

Church: Well, that our history - we began, even as we are today, divided. The moments when we made the greatest progress is when we were able to come a little bit together. There was a fear, I think just as three years ago, that we would end up moving toward, in this country, a religious party and a secular party. I think if we ended up with a religious party and a secular party, whoever won, the nation would lose.

That, I think, is coming back together. There are Democratic candidates who are strong people of faith, Republican candidates who have a little difficulty with their religious authorities, and I think that you'll see that the evangelical vote will be more split, and that's actually healthy for the country, if it turns out that way.

Tavis: Let me offer this as an exit question, because my curiosity's gotten the best of me. I introduced you by suggesting that your new title, now that you're retired as senior minister - is it director of public theology?

Church: Minister of public theology.

Tavis: Minister of public theology, which means what?

Church: Well, it means coming out and talking about this kind of thing. The separation of church and state. I was trained as an historian, so I'm not putting my shoulder to the wheel of some work on early Christian and early American history, and I'll do that, blessedly sponsored by this nice bunch of people who've been my congregation for the last three decades.

Tavis: I like that. The minister of public theology. The new book from the Reverend Dr. Forrest Church is "So Help Me, God: The Founding Fathers and Their First Great Battle Over Church and State," which of course goes on and on and on. (Laughter) Unlike this conversation. Good to see you, Dr. Church.

Church: Hey, thank you very much.

Tavis: I'm glad to have you here.