Alright so back to the original point about Ron. I agree replete was a poor word choice, however, there are references to God/a Creator in other writings outside of the Declaration/Constitution. Many, many of them. The people who wrote the bill of rights made reference after reference to the Almight God in their writings as well. As far as Ron's actual views on the matter and on school prayer, his view is that the government should not endorse, nor should it prohibit, school prayer. If a teacher wants to lead a prayer group, they are private individuals, and those who do not share beliefs with that teacher are not forced to pray along.
The point of religion clause of the 1st amendment is that there should be no state coercion with reguards to religious practice, whether it is suppression of the practice or endorsement of the practice. When ron talks about there being no "rigid wall" of seperation of church and state, he simply referring to the fact that the church was intended to play a very important role in American life, free from government involvement. However, congress may also write not law respecting an establisment of religion, thus giving that establishment any political power or favoritism over any others. Lets face it, the majority of American's are christian of some form (including LDS), and the church is a dominating institution. That is what Ron talks about when he says the founders (There were more founderst han jefferson, and even Ben Franklin concedes that religion is a very important moral institution) envisioned a robustly christian america. However, just because it is a dominant institution, does not mean it has any political power (though it does in many cases in an indirect way, but that is the fault of individual politicians) nor is anyone forced/coerced into conforming or following or even respecting and acknowledging that institution.
As for thomas jefferson, he had excellent ideas but even he often failed to execute them or live by them. That does not diminish his character nor his ideas, but just because he believes there should be a rigid wall of separation of church and state (which implies force used to keep that wall up), does not mean it was the sentiment of every founding father. Madison was responsible for most of the bill of rights and he was certainly not the deist jefferson was (though i thikn later in his life, madison did reject the divine nature of christ).
