NOAH FELDMAN: A Church-State Solution

July 3, 2005 in the New York Times Magazine

I. THE EXPERIMENT

II. OUR PRESENT PREDICAMENT

III. CLOSING THE RIFT

IV. FAITH IS NOT A CONVERSATION STOPPER

V. WHAT INCLUSION REALLY LOOKS LIKE

VI. THE PROBLEM WITH MONEY

VII. THE EXPERIMENT REVISITED

If we could be more tolerant of sincere religious people drawing on their beliefs and practices to inform their choices in the public realm, and at the same time be more vigilant about preserving our legacy of institutional separation between government and organized religion, the shift would redirect us to the uniqueness of the American experiment with church and state. Until the rise of legal secularism, Americans tended to be accepting of public, symbolic manifestations of faith. Until values evangelicalism came on the scene, Americans were on the whole insistent about maintaining institutional separation. These two modern movements respectively reversed both those trends.

The novelty of these developments does not mean they are wrong, of course. But in an America grown so religiously diverse that it can no longer easily be called ''Judeo-Christian,'' we need to learn from our history if we are to have any hope of constructing a single nation that will endure. Muslims, Buddhists and Hindus will have to join Protestants, Catholics, Jews and atheists in finding a resolution to our church-state problem that all can embrace. A solution that will work for our generation must bind us to the past. But like all successful nation-building, it will work only if it also sets a foundation for our future.