The Wall Between Church and State Is Crumbling

There is something deeply unsettling about hearing the president of the United States announce that his administration is “bringing back religion.” Religion never left. No one stopped Americans from going to church, reading the Bible, praying in their homes, sending their children to religious schools or living according to their faith. Religious freedom is one of the fundamental promises of the First Amendment. But religious freedom and government promotion of religion are two very different things, and increasingly, that distinction is being blurred.

We can see it in the states, where governments are pushing religion further into public schools. We can see it in the Supreme Court, which abandoned the Lemon test in 2022 and replaced a fairly straightforward set of questions about government involvement with religion with a much less defined appeal to history and tradition.  And now we can see it coming directly from the executive branch. Trump’s own Religious Liberty Commission is challenging the very idea of a wall between church and state and suggesting that we should think instead about building a “bridge” between them. Its draft report calls for a stronger role for religion in government, schools and public life. 

That is not a small semantic change. The Establishment Clause exists because religious freedom becomes very fragile once government gets to decide which religion deserves its encouragement, its money and its power. Christianity is a religion. Christian nationalism is a political ideology, and there is a world of difference between protecting someone’s right to practice Christianity and using Christianity to give a political agenda religious authority. Rhode Island colonial founder Roger Williams understood that distinction nearly four centuries ago. We would be wise to remember why.