The First Amendment to the United States Constitution contains two clauses about religion. The Free Exercise Clause guarantees the right to practice any religion — or none. The Establishment Clause prohibits the government from endorsing or promoting religion. Together they create a framework for a pluralistic democracy in which people of all faiths and no faith are equal citizens under a government that belongs to all of them.
That framework is under more pressure than at any point in modern American history.
The current Supreme Court has systematically weakened the Establishment Clause over the course of a decade — allowing public money to flow to religious schools, permitting public school coaches to lead prayers on the field, and narrowing the circumstances under which government endorsement of religion can be challenged. Christian nationalist political movements have moved from the fringe to the center of Republican politics, with explicit calls for a government grounded in biblical law that would recognize the United States as a Christian nation.
The danger here is not to Christianity or Christians. The vast majority of American Christians do not want a theocracy. The danger is to everyone — including religious minorities, including the non-religious, and including Christians who understand that a church dependent on state power is a church that has traded its spiritual authority for political utility.
The separation of church and state protects faith from government as much as it protects government from faith. It is the reason that no American can be required to pass a religious test to hold public office, to pay taxes to support a church they do not belong to, or to live under laws derived from a theology they do not share.
Democracy requires a public square that belongs to everyone. That is not a threat to religion. It is the precondition for genuine religious freedom.
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