Opinion: Faith and Politics Step Out

Religious freedom is moving in opposite directions in Canada and the United States. In recent years, Canadian law has moved openly toward the separation of church and state. American law has moved quietly in the opposite direction. Most public opinion-makers still think America remains faithful to the separatism of Thomas Jefferson. To end repressive religious establishments, Thomas Jefferson had sought religious freedom in the twin formulas of privatized religion and secularized politics. Religion must be "a concern purely between our God and our consciences," he wrote in 1802. Politics must be conducted with "a wall of separation between church and state." "Public Religion" is a threat to civil society and must thus be discouraged. "Political ministry" is a menace to political integrity and must thus be outlawed. These Jeffersonian maxims remain for many today the cardinal axioms of a unique American logic of religious freedom to which every patriotic citizen and church must yield