Religion and Politics in the United States: Money, Free Speech, and Deference to America’s Religious Heritage

Church and state in the United States are not and have never been completely separate from one another. Government provides aid to religious organizations for their nonreligious activities, grants them tax benefits as nonprofit, charitable entities, protects their freedom of belief, speech, and most of their religious practices, and allows them to participate in most political activities with the exception of campaigning for specific candidates for office. Most people approve of this government-church relationship; they regard it as part of America’s political heritage, consistent with its constitutional strictures, and beneficial to the moral and ethical fabric of society. Introduction: Theory of Church and State in America Church and state in the United States are separate in theory but not in practice. Nor have they ever been. Escape from religious persecution was a cause not consequence of the European immigration to the New World in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. The new settlers, eager to practice their own religion without fear of government coercion, did not extend thei