'To ask me to check my Christian beliefs at the public door is to ask me to expel the Holy Spirit from my life when I serve as a congressman,' declares Mark Souder, a conservative Republican from Indiana, 'and that I will not do.' Such affirmations of the legitimacy of religion in the civic sphere are increasingly common in the United States, even among liberal democrats stung by accusations of secularist bias. The practical meaning of the separation of church and state has been contested since its enactment in the Bill of Rights. At what point does the First Amendment's guarantee of the 'free exercise' of religion run foul of its prohibition on 'the establishment' of religion, and vice versa? These questions matter today, when the population of the United States is much more assertively Christian than that of any other nation in the North Atlantic West. 'Either I am a Christian or I am not,' Congressman Souder explains, and, as a Christian, he has 'an obligation to change things'. The floor of Congress is a good place to act on this obligation.

LRB 24 January 2008 | PDF Download