The liberal interpretation depends upon a traditional, formal definition of religion, especially when it pertains to pray or the use of the Bible, versus a less substantial ideology such as Secular Humanism, as well as the presumption that the state can be almost absolutely separate from the former and its distinctive morality, and that the overall history of church/state relations for almost 150 years did not manifest the Founder’s interpretation of the First Amendment, but was in violation of it....
Jefferson’s letter and the FBI’s restoration work are among the items in an exhibit at the Library of Congress called, “Religion and the Founding of the American Republic.” The exhibit also notes that Jefferson began to attend worship services held at the House of Representatives two days after writing the letter, and that he permitted regular worship services to be held there, a practice that continued until after the Civil War, with preachers from every Protestant denomination appearing there. The Library of Congress exhibit records that
As early as January 1806 a female evangelist, Dorothy Ripley, delivered a camp meeting-style exhortation in the House to Jefferson, Vice President Aaron Burr, and a “crowded audience.”...In attending church services on public property, Jefferson and Madison consciously and deliberately were offering symbolic support to religion as a prop for republican government. [19][20]
http://www.conservapedia.com/Separation_of_church_and_state
Jefferson didn’t just ‘permit’ Christian wiorship in the chamber of congress; he led it for 15 years.
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After his son’s death in a duel, Alexander Hamilton underwent a kind of religious conversion. Hamilton was later killed by Burr in a duel, but he was strangely ambivalent of the matter. Torn between his sense of honor and the feeling that this was not right.