ABSTRACT
For many observers of the United States, ‘religion and politics’ connotes interaction between the institutional forms of Church and state. The language of the first amendment to the constitution-‘Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof’—appears to confine religious and political forces to separate spheres, divided by an impregnable wall of separation. If taken as a statement about empirical reality, the sharp constitutional demarcation between religious institutions and governmental agencies may raise doubt that religion and politics are strongly enough related in the United States to warrant examination. Even so, an otherwise perceptive observer such as James Bryce concluded that the constitutional formulation (among other factors) had rendered the United States largely immune to the ‘debate and strife’ associated with sectarian political controversies in Europe.1
