ABSTRACT
Between 1920 and 1960 there were continuing attempts to define what “independence of Church and State” might mean in a society self-conscious of its religious pluralism—at least to the extent of its three major faiths. Many Protestants also rethought their positions on the church-state issue, conscious that their pre-Civil War aspirations should not necessarily prevail in a more pluralistic era. The chapter presents the main reasons for believing in the separation of Church and state. Non-Christians who cannot accept the doctrine of the Incarnation are nevertheless frequently at one with its fundamental insight that there is an existential and an axiological continuum between the spirit and the flesh, between God and man. Urgent practical reasons why there is near unanimity of opinion among Jews favoring the strongest possible guarantees of the separation of the religious and the political orders.
