'Separation of church and state' is a
political and
legal doctrine which states that
government and
religious institutions are to be kept separate and independent of one another. The term most often refers to the combination of two principles:
secularity of government and freedom of
religious exercise.
[1]
The phrase ''separation of church and state'' is generally traced to a letter written by
Thomas Jefferson in 1802 to the
Danbury Baptists, in which he referred to the
First Amendment of the
United States Constitution as creating a "wall of separation" between church and state. The phrase was mentioned in an eloquent letter written by President
John Tyler on July 10, 1843. The phrase was then quoted by the
United States Supreme Court first in 1878, and then in a series of cases starting in 1947. This led to popular and political discussion of the concept, including criticism that it overstates the limits created under the Constitution. However, it originated much earlier, and was implicit in the flight of
Roger Williams from religious oppression in Massachusetts to found what became Rhode Island on the principle of state neutrality in matters of faith.
Although the term is primarily discussed in the context of
United States constitutional interpretation, the concept parallels various other international social and political ideas, including
secularism,
disestablishment,
religious liberty,
religious pluralism and
laïcité.
Overview of the principle
In the United States, the "Separation of Church and State" is generally discussed as political and legal principle derived from the First Amendment of the United States Constitution, which reads, "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof . . . ." The concept of separation is commonly credited to the combination of the two clauses: the
establishment clause, generally interpreted as preventing the government from establishing a national religion, providing tax money in support of religion, or otherwise favoring any single religion or religion generally, and the
free exercise clause, ensuring that private religious practices not be restricted by the government. The effect of prohibiting direct connections between religious and governmental institutions while protecting private religious freedom and autonomy has been termed the "separation of church and state."
There are automatic entanglements between the institutions, inasmuch as religious institutions and their adherents, are a part of civil society.
[2] Moreover, private religious practices can sometimes come into conflict with broad legislation not intending to target any particular religious minority. Each of these complicate the idea of true separation.
Beliefs on the proper relationship between
religion and
government cover a wide spectrum, from
secular government to
state atheism to varying degrees of
theocracy. Along the line, a number of distinctions and issues are raised. Perhaps the most primary is the division between the two distinct ideas of government secularization and church independence.
[3]
History of the term
The phrase "separation of church and state" is derived from a letter written by
Thomas Jefferson to a group identifying themselves as the
Danbury Baptists. In that letter, referencing the
First Amendment of the
United States Constitution, Jefferson writes:
Another early user of the term was
James Madison, the principal drafter of the
United States Bill of Rights, who often wrote of "total separation of the church from the state."
[4] "Strongly guarded . . . is the separation between religion and government in the Constitution of the United States," Madison wrote, and he declared, "practical distinction between Religion and Civil Government is essential to the purity of both, and as guaranteed by the Constitution of the United States."
[5] This attitude is further reflected in the
Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom, originally authored by
Thomas Jefferson, but championed by Madison, and guaranteeing that no one may be compelled to finance any religion or denomination.
The United States Supreme Court has referenced the separation of church and state metaphor more than 25 times, first in 1878. In the ''
Reynolds'' case the Court defended marriage as between a man and a woman and denied the free exercise claims of Mormons in the Utah territory. The Court used the metaphor again in 1947 when it was used by Justice Hugo Black in ''
Everson''. The term was used and defended heavily by the Court until the early 1970s. Since that time, the Court has distanced itself from the metaphor, often suggesting the metaphor conveys hostility to religion in contrast to Jefferson's original meaning "...in behalf of the rights of [religious] conscience." In
Wallace v. Jaffree, Justice Rehnquist presented the view that the establishment clause was intended to protect local establishments of religion from federal interference-- a view which diminished the strong separation views of the Court. Justice Scalia has criticized the metaphor as a bulldozer removing religion from American public life.
[6]
History of the concept
:''See
Separation of church and state in the United States''
As applied in the United States, the idea of separating the church and state is often credited to the writings of the British philosopher
John Locke, which deeply influenced the drafting of the United States Constitution.
[7] According to his principle of the
social contract, Locke argued that the government lacked authority in the realm of individual conscience, as this was something rational people could not cede to the government for it or others to control. For Locke, this created a natural right in the liberty of conscience, which he argued must therefore remain inviolable by any government authority. These views on religious tolerance and the importance of individual conscience, along with his social contract, became influential in the American colonies.
[8]
Under the United States Constitution, the treatment of religion by the government is broken into two clauses: the
establishment clause and the
free exercise clause. While both are discussed in the context of the separation of church and state, it is more often discussed in regard to whether certain state actions would amount to an impermissible government establishment of religion.
Nevertheless, issues of free exercise are also implicated by the extent to which laws are permitted to impinge upon private religious practice. In the
United States, state laws can prohibit practices such as
bigamy, sex with children, human and occasionally animal sacrifice, use of drugs, or other criminal acts, even if citizens claim the practices are part of their religious belief system. However, the
federal courts give
close scrutiny to any state or local laws that impinge upon the ''bona fide'' exercise of religious practices. The courts ensure that genuine and important religious rights are not impeded, and that questionable practices are limited only to the extent necessary. The courts usually demand that any laws restricting religious practices must demonstrate a fundamental or "compelling" state interest such as protecting citizens from bodily harm.
International Views
Ancient
In most ancient cultures, the political ruler was also the highest religious leader and sometimes considered divine. Under republican government, religious officials were appointed just like political ones. Ancient Israel was different inasmuch as the King and the priesthood were separate and limited to their respective spheres of authority and responsibility, though interferences did happen as well. Later, under foreign supremacy, the high priest also held the highest civil authority in an autonomous
theocracy. Biblically,
Hezekiah destroyed a
copper serpent, calling it
Nehushtan, or a lump of
brass. From this it was argued that the rulers in Church and State have authority to prohibit, in the public
worship of God, the use of things that have been abused to Idolatry.
[9]
Roman emperors were considered divine and also occupied the highest religious office. This was challenged by Christians and Jews who acknowledged the Emperor's political authority but refused to participate in the state's religion or to recognize the emperor's divinity. While the Jews were excepted from this demand, Christians were considered enemies of the state and adherence to Christianity was punishable by death (e.g.,
Justin Martyr under
Marcus Aurelius). At various times this resulted in violent
persecutions until the
Edict of Milan in 313. The
Roman Empire formally became Christian by edict of
Theodosius I in 380.
Medieval
:''See also:
Church and state in medieval Europe
In the West, the issue of the separation of church and state during the medieval period centered on monarchs who ruled in the secular sphere but encroached on the Church's rule of the spiritual sphere. This unresolved contradiction in ultimate control of the Church led to power struggles and crises of leadership, notably in the
Investiture Controversy, that resulted in a number of important events in the development of the west.
In the
Eastern Roman Empire the Emperor had supreme power over the church and controlled its highest representative: the
Patriarch of Constantinople.
Eastern Orthodoxy was the state religion. When the
Ottomans conquered
Constantinople (now
Istanbul) in 1453, the Emperor was killed. The position of head of the
Orthodox Church was given to Gennadius II Scholarius by the conquering
Caliph and the
Ottoman ruler, Sultan
Mehmed II, who continued to practice the right of the Roman Emperor to appoint the head of the Eastern Orthodox Church.
Modern
Countries in the modern world have varying degrees of separation between government and religious institutions. While the United States is recognized as the first country to completely disestablish its government from any religion in its Constitution ratified in 1791,
[10] a number of other countries have since followed. Nevertheless, the degree of actual separation between government and religion or religious institutions varies widely. In some countries the two institutions remain heavily interconnected. There are new conflicts in the post-Communist world.
[11]
The many variations on separation can be seen in some countries with high degrees of religious freedom and tolerance combined with strongly secular political cultures which have still maintained state churches or financial ties with certain religious organizations into the 21st century. In
England, there is a constitutionally established
state religion but are inclusive of other faiths as well.
Status of religious freedom by country, United Kingdom In
Norway, the King is also the leader of the
state church, and the 12th article of the
Constitution of Norway requires more than half of the members of the
Norwegian Council of State to be members of the state church. Yet, the second article guarantees freedom of religion, while also stating that
Evangelical Lutheranism is the official state religion.
[12] In countries like these, the
head of government or
head of state or other high-ranking official figures may be legally required to be a member of a given faith. Powers to appoint high-ranking members of the state churches are also often still vested in the worldly governments. These powers may be slightly anachronistic or superficial, however, and disguise the true level of religious freedom the nation possesses.
Two common examples of the most active type of separation are France and Turkey. The French version of separation is called
laïcité. This model of a secularist state protects the religious institutions from some types of state interference, but with public religious expression also to some extent limited. This aims to protect the public power from the influences of religious institutions, especially in public office. Religious views which contain no idea of public responsibility, or which consider religious opinion irrelevant to politics, are less impinged upon by this type of secularization of public discourse.
Turkey, whose population is overwhelmingly
Muslim, is also considered to have practiced the laïcité school of secularism since 1923. While France comes from a
Roman Catholic tradition and Turkey from an Islamic one,
secularism in Turkey and secularism in France present many similarities.
Nevertheless, even France and Turkey present certain entanglements involving funding to certain religious institutions of the kind which has not been permitted in the United States. In Turkey for example, despite it being an officially secular country, the Preamble of the Constitution states that ''"There shall be no interference whatsoever of the sacred religious feelings in State affairs and politics."''
The Constitution of the Republic of Turkey
In order to control the way religion is perceived by adherents, the State pays
imams' wages, and provides religious education in
public schools. The State has a Department of Religious Affairs, directly under the
Prime Minister bureaucratically, responsible for organizing the
Muslim religion - including what will and will not be mentioned in sermons given at
mosques, especially on Fridays. Such an interpretation of secularism, where religion is under strict control of the State is very different from that of the
First Amendment to the United States Constitution, and is a good example of how secularism can be applied in a variety of ways in different regions of the world.
Mexico was guided toward separation of church and state by Benito Juarez, in the 1860s, and to this day all churches are owned by the Government of Mexico.
Japan under the military occupation government of General Douglas Macarthur, made separation of religion and state a major priority.
The opposite end of the spectrum from separation is a
theocracy, in which the state is founded upon the institution of religion, and the
rule of law is based on the dictates of a religious court. Examples include
Saudi Arabia,
the Vatican and
Iran. In such countries state affairs are managed by religious authority, or at least by its consent. In theocracies, the degree to which those who are not members of the official religion are to be protected is decided by professors of the official religion, and ordinarily the civil rights, or restrictions of rights of the unfavored group, are defined in terms of the official religion. (See also ''
State religion'')
The belief that authority derives from a God and diffuses downward through a monarch was promoted by the French philosopher
Jean Bodin. His ideas were naturally welcomed by the Bourbon and Stuart monarchs who advocated the alleged "divine right of kings." The duty of the common people was simply to obey God and the king. This concept of Jean Bodin was totally contradicted by the founders of the American republic who saw authority as being inherent in the people; who may then assign powers to their government, revocably. Thus, the authority of the US Constitution rests in "We the People," not in any God. The godless character of the US constitution places it in striking contrast with others such as those of Canada, Iran, Israel, and - most notably - Ireland.
The discussion over the separation of church and state is often connected with the general divide between the concepts of
secularism and
theocracy. While the term "secularism" was first coined by the
British writer
George Holyoake in 1846
[13] (more than half a century after the ratification of the
First Amendment to the United States Constitution, and nearly as long after
Jefferson's reference to the "Wall of Separation"), it has since come to denote the general concept of separating religion from other aspects of social life, and particularly from the governmental sphere. As such, outside of the
United States (where Jefferson's metaphor of the "Wall of Separation" has less importance), and to some extent in the United States as well, the discussion of secularism versus theocracy has come to provide the broader rubrik for discussing the relationship between religion and government.
Enactment
Separation of church and state can occur in different ways. At a basic level, it can occur either on a social level (through individual action, societal expectations, etc., creating such a separation), or through legal separation (official government action or court order aiming to prevent encroachment from one realm into the other). In either circumstance, there are many further interpretations of separation, with numerous arguments in the gray areas between proponents of separation and proponents of mutual inclusion played out in courts and legislatures the world over.
A list of the various types of separation discussed and implemented in various parts of the world could include the following:
★ Legal and Financial Separation I: the state should not officially establish a religion.
★ Legal and Financial Separation II: the state should not officially fund religious activities.
★ Legal and Financial Separation III:the state should not fund religious activities.
★ Legal and Financial Separation IV: the state should not fund non-religious activities sponsored by religious organizations.
★ Separation of State Authority I: the state should not prescribe, proscribe, or amend religious beliefs.
★ Separation of State Authority II: the state should not attempt to endorse or criticize any religious belief or practice.
★ Separation of State Authority III: the state should not interfere in religious hierarchies, nor interfere in issues strictly related to membership.
★ Separation of State Authority IV: No state action should have the primary effect of engaging in religious practice. Any such appearance of a state religious practice must be unintentional and coincidental.
★ Separation of State Authority V: No state action should have the primary effect of restricting religious practice. Any such appearance of interference in religious practice must be unintentional and coincidental.
★ Separation of State Authority VI: the state should not express any religious beliefs, or in any publication, speech, or other implement of state power such as currency, sworn testimony, oath of fealty to the state, or endorsements of national pride. The state should not imply any derivation of authority from any religious authority, nor should it express temporal supremacy in relation to religious belief or practice.
★ Separation of State Authority VII: political leaders should not express religious preferences in the course of their duties
★ Separation of Religious Authority I: no church should prescribe, proscribe, or amend civil or common law.
★ Separation of Religious Authority II: the church should not interfere in civil political processes or relations between the state and other nations.
★ Separation of Religious Authority III: no church should actively endorse any political figure, and should confine itself to moral, ethical, and religious teaching.
★ Separation of Religious Authority IV: no church should actively endorse any civil institution by providing religious services or religious expressions at that institution, nor favor one civil institution over another.
For instance,
France is legally prohibited from funding religious activities (except for
Alsace-Moselle,
French Guiana and military
chaplains), but funds some private religious schools for their non-religious activities as long as they apply the national curriculum and do not discriminate on grounds of religion.
Advocacy
Jewish views
:''See main article
Secular Judaism''.
Even in religious Judaism there is much room for a range of political or moral views; this is only more so for secular Jews. However, even Jewish secular culture is often strongly influenced by moral beliefs deriving from Jewish scripture and tradition. In recent centuries, Jews in Europe and the Americas have traditionally tended towards the
political left, and played key roles in the birth of the
labor movement as well as
socialism. While Diaspora Jews have also been represented in the
conservative side of the political spectrum, even politically conservative Jews have tended to support
pluralism more consistently than many other elements of the
political right. Some scholars
[14] attribute this to the fact that Jews are not expected to
proselytize, and as a result do not expect a single world-state, which differs from the beliefs of many religions, such as the
Roman Catholic and
Islamic traditions; rather, since in Jewish theology the religions of most
nations are respected, there was never any perceived reason to convert others. This lack of a universalizing religion is combined with the fact that most Jews live as minorities in their countries, and that no central Jewish religious authority has existed for over 2,000 years. ''(See also
list of Jews in politics, which illustrates the diversity of Jewish political thought and of the roles Jews have played in politics.)''
Roman Catholic views
On
December 8,
1864, on the same day as the
Pope's
encyclical Quanta Cura, the
Holy See under
Pope Pius IX issued a document titled
Syllabus of Errors (
Latin: Syllabus Errorum). This document listed 80 specific assertions which it declared to be erroneous. Assertion number 55 in this list, in the section headed "''Errors about civil society, considered both in itself and in its relation to the Church''", reads: "''The Church ought to be separated from the State, and the State from the Church.''"
[15]
The
Catholic Church's 1983
Code of Canon law, while not laying down general rules about relations between Church and State, considers that a religious and moral education in harmony with the conscience of the pupils' parents is an integral part of education, and obliges Catholics to try to secure its inclusion: "Christ's faithful are to strive to secure that in the civil society the laws which regulate the formation of the young also provide a religious and moral education in the schools that is in accord with the conscience of the parents" (canon 799)
Code of Canon Law Roman Catholic Church
American Catholics, some suffering discrimination from mainstream, majority Protestants, eventually came to see the separation of church and state as a positive development (in contrast to the long standing Church tradition). The work of
Jesuit priest and theologian
John Courtney Murray in the 1960s was significant as he developed a theological justification of the separation view based upon
St. Thomas Aquinas' observation that there existed a necessary distinction between morality and civil law; that the latter is limited in its capacity in cultivating moral character through criminal prohibitions. As Murray said, "it is not the function of civil law to prescribe everything that is morally right and to forbid everything that is morally wrong."
[16]
Baptist views
Historically,
Baptists have supported separation of church and state. In particular, many radical
Anabaptist movements, sensitised by the persecution they suffered under both
Protestant and
Catholic authorities, held that the state should not interfere in religious affairs and vice-versa. One of the earliest calls for separation came from
Thomas Helwys, the founder of the first Baptist Church in England. In his last written work, ''A Short Declaration on the Mystery of Iniquity'', he penned a note inside the cover of a single copy that was intended for King James. Whether the King received it or not is disputed, but Helwys was later arrested and placed in Newgate Prison. The words that got him in trouble were as follows (spelling is updated to modern conventions):
Another formal plea for separation of church and state in England, called ''Religious Peace: or, a Plea for Liberty of Conscience''. was written to
King James by a London citizen named Leonard Busher,
[17] a man later identified as an Anabaptist.
[18] In 1868, the renowned Baptist pastor
Charles Haddon Spurgeon perhaps best summed up the separationist Baptist stand thusly:
American Baptists also claim as a forebear Roger Williams, who fled Massachusetts Colony in order to establish a haven for religious liberty at Providence Plantation, now Rhode Island. He had suffered persecution for his religiously nonconformist beliefs, and had witnessed the oppression of Quakers. Consequently, he set up the new colony as a place where all religions could practice freely.
In more recent years, the foremost Baptist witness in the United States for the protection of separation of church and state has been the
Baptist Joint Committee for Religious Liberty. An education and advocacy group in Washington, D.C., the Baptist Joint Committee is affiliated with fourteen Baptist bodies collectively representing over 10 million Baptists in the United States.
Other Christian views
Since the 5th century, the
Coptic Church has advocated separation of church and state. Most
Unitarian Universalists advocate separation of church and state.
The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has long held to the doctrine of separation of church and state originating in part from the long antagonism local and state governments have had towards their faith. Mormon writings have affirmed "[n]o domination of the state by the church; No church interference with the functions of the state; No state interference with the functions of the church, or with the free exercise of religion; The absolute freedom of the individual from the domination of ecclesiastical authority in political affairs; The equality of all churches before the law."
Messages of the First Presidency
Political Neutrality
The
Seventh-day Adventist church also has a rich tradition of advocating the separation of church and state, due to sabbath-keeping persecution early in their history. Adventist writings suggest that when church and state unite in the United States of America, the antichrist will come and lead the union.
However some Christian groups, such as the
Christian Voice and the
Christian Coalition, oppose church and state separation and have become highly and vocally involved in promoting what they believe to be Christian values in government. The
Reformed Presbyterian Church, a
Calvinistic denomination, also believes that the state constitutionally
covenants to follow God's laws on earth. (This does not, however, involve a structural unification of church and state.)
[19]
Islamic views
Many Muslims consider the Western concept of separation of Church and State to be rebellion against God's law. There is a contemporary debate in
Islam whether obedience to Islamic law is ultimately compatible with the Western secular pattern, which separates religion from civic life. However, some majority Muslim nations are secular, such as
Turkey,
Senegal,
Albania and
Azerbaijan.
Other religious views
Religious opponents of secular government hold that while the state should not establish a particular state religion or require religious observance, it still must be infused with religious ethics and values in order to operate "properly", and needs to encourage ethical and beneficial religious belief, both inside and outside of government. These persons argue that the teachings of religion are the basis of law and civil society and that a society which discourages the promulgation of those beliefs cannot function. Furthermore, these groups argue that religious groups ought to be involved in politics in order to assure that laws are passed which reflect what they perceive as universal truths.
Other religious persons argue that the State ought to maintain an
established church.
Another view is that the state should provide a default religion for the large number of
citizens who wish to identify themselves as religious believers without actively choosing between the various alternatives. A slightly more extreme version of this is that the state should determine (or at least have the power to determine) the doctrine and structure of the state religion - this is the position in England, and has links to ideas underlying
Erastianism. However, there need not be obligation on individuals to follow the state in religion in such cases.
Secular views
Some people desire the legal separation of church and state in order to keep a religion from enforcing its social or ethical paradigm on the government. For example, many
atheists,
agnostics and
freethinkers believe it inappropriate for government to be controlled by a religion.
See also
American
Historical
★
William Bradford (1590-1657),
Plymouth Colony
★
Roger Williams (theologian),
Colony of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations
★
William Penn,
Province of Pennsylvania (inc.
Delaware Colony)
Contemporary
★
Americans United for Separation of Church and State
★
Freedom From Religion Foundation (Freethought)
★
American Civil Liberties Union
★
North American Religious Liberty Association
★
People for the American Way
★
Seventh-day Adventist Church State Council
General
★
Laïcité
★
State religion
★
Antidisestablishmentarianism
★
Freedom of religion
★
Status of religious freedom by country
★
Religious toleration
★
Christian anarchism
★
Christian Reconstructionism
★
Islamic leadership
★
Ayatollah Mohamed Hossein Kazemini Borujerdi
★
Dogma
★
Age of Enlightenment
★
Intellectualism
External links
International Separation of church and state
★
International Religious Freedom Report 2006
★
Q:Which other governments have separation of church and state issues?
Europe
★
The deep roots of French secularism, article by Henri Astier on BBC News online, Sept 1st, 2004
★
http://en.calvinism.ru - articles against separation of church and state and against feminism. Theocratic Calvinism, theocracy, theonomy, Biblical law solves problems of western nations, applied reformed theology website located in Russia. English and Russian sections
★
Human-Etisk Forbund (
Norway)
★
Religious Liberty: The legal framework in selected OSCE countries.
American activism in favor of strict separation
★
Americans United for Separation of Church and State
★ Scholars in favor, with
historical documents on-line
★
Freedom from Religion Foundation (Freethought)
★
American Civil Liberties Union
★
North American Religious Liberty Association
★
People for the American Way
★
Interfaith Working Group
★
American Jewish Committee (Jewish)
★
Anti-Defamation League (Jewish)
★
The Society for Humanistic Judaism
★
The Workmen's Circle/Arbeter Ring
★
Baptist Joint Committee on Public Affairs
★
Seventh-day Adventist Church State Council
American activism against strict separation
★
American Center for Law and Justice
★
WallBuilders
★
The Becket Fund for Religious Liberty
★
The Rutherford Institute
★
The Institute on Religion and Public Life
★
Acton Institute for the Study of Religion and Liberty
Origins of the phrase
★
The Federalist Papers
★
History of the Separation of Church and State in America
★ by Noah Feldman, Asst. Professor of Law, New York University, 2002.
Islamic activism in favor of separation
★
Institute for the Secularisation of Islamic Society (ISIS)
★
International Coalition Against Political Islam
★
No to Political Islam
Religion and politics
★
The Privatization of God
★
God in Government
References
1. Chan, Shun-hing and Beatrice Leung (2003). ''Changing Church and State Relations in Hong Kong, 1950-2000''. Hong Kong University Press, pg 12. ISBN 9622096123. "These oft-quoted clauses of Jefferson's theory of a 'wall of separation' reflect two significant foundations of Church-State relations in the US. Firstly, the separation of Church and State stands as a constitutional principle that promotes democracy and protects the religious freedom of all Americans equally. Secondly, this principle emerges as a unique American contribution to political theory (Feldman 1997, 4)."
2. ''Zorach v. Clauson'', 343 U.S. 306, 312 (1952). ("Otherwise the State and religion would be aliens to each other — hostile, suspicious, and even unfriendly. Churches could not be required to pay even property taxes. Municipalities would not be permitted to render police or fire protection to religious groups. Policemen who helped parishioners into their places of worship would violate the Constitution.")
3. Feldman, Noah (2005). ''Divided by God''. Farrar, Straus and Giroux, pg. 23-25 ("Yet an alternative, revisionist view of the history, first articulated by Mark DeWolfe Howe in the 1960s, adopted by several Justices of the Supreme Court, and recently redeveloped and deepened in an important book by Philip Hamburger, emphasizes not Jefferson's concern for the protection of the state from religion but rather eighteenth-century religious dissenters' concern to protect the church from the state.")
4. (1819 letter to Robert Walsh)
5. (1811 letter to Baptist Churches)
6. Lee v. Weisman,
7. Feldman, Noah (2005). ''Divided by God''. Farrar, Straus and Giroux, pg. 29 ("It took John Locke to translate the demand for liberty of conscience into a systematic argument for distinguishing the realm of government from the realm of religion.")
8. Feldman, Noah (2005). ''Divided by God''. Farrar, Straus and Giroux, pg. 29
9. Religious Thought In England: From The Reformation To The End Of The Last Century, , John, Hunt, Ams Pr Inc, 1972, (3 volume set)
10. Feldman, Noah (2005). ''Divided by God''. Farrar, Straus and Giroux, pg. 10 ("For the first time in recorded history, they designed a government with no established religion at all.")
11. The social and political history of Hungarian education - State-Church relations in the history of educational policy of the first post-communist Hungarian government, Péter Tibor Nagy, , , Hungarian Electronic library, ,
12. The Constitution of the Kingdom of Norway
13. Feldman, Noah (2005). Divided by God. Farrar, Straus and Giroux, pg. 113
14. Daniel J. Elazar, Judaism and Democracy: The Reality. Undated. Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs. Accessed 11 February 2006.
15. Syllabus of Errors
16.
Murray, John Courtney. ''Memo to Cushing on Contraception Legislation''. Murray Archives, file 1-43. Full text available from the Woodstock Theological Center website.
17.
Religious Peace: or, a Plea for Liberty of Conscience, , Leonard, Busher, , 1614,
18. A Question in Baptist History: Whether the Anabaptists in England Practiced Immersion Before the Year 1641?, , Dr. William, Whitsitt, C. T. Dearing, 1896,
19. Constitution of the Reformed Presbyterian Church of North America
العربية
中国
Français
Deutsch
Ελληνική
हिन्दी
Italiano
日本語
Português
Русский
Español
