ABSTRACT
This chapter identifies seven different periods of church and state in American history. The phrase “church and state” designates a certain tension in our pluralistic society. Aid to parochial schools, public-school prayer, tax exemption for religious institutions, religious beliefs of political candidates, abortion, and the nuclear arms race—all of these issues have been thought to involve questions of church and state. It ought to be equally obvious that no single authority structure embodies the temporal life of Americans—a single state is no more an empirical reality than a single church. This cursory review of the developing church-state pattern ought to make clear that through the sixteenth century a static relationship between religious and political authorities never existed in Western history. One kind of independence between church and state is a recognition of mutually supportive roles. The chapter also presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in this book.
