The Development of Church/State Separatism

Ronald B. Flowers

In the following excerpt Ronald B. Flowers, a recently retired professor of religion and chair of the Department of Religion at Texas Christian University and coauthor of Toward Benevolent Neutrality: Church, State, and the Supreme Court, traces the change in attitude regarding religious liberties and their connection with the politics of the state in Western civilization. In the fourth century, Christianity became the established religion of the Roman Empire. For centuries Catholicism was the established religion, according to Flowers, and church and state worked together. Even after the Protestant Reformation weakened the Catholic hold on Europe, the Western world continued to have a close church/state connection, although different churches were established as official by different states. English church/state relations affected the early colonies of North America; some colonies emulated the relationship that had existed in England, but others, such as Rhode Island and Pennsylvania, allowed more religious liberty. Finally, the author explains how churches were gradually pulled away from tight connections to various state governments through several influences, including pluralism, religious revivalism, pietism, and rationalism.

Source

Ronald B. Flowers, That Godless Court? Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 1994. Copyright © 1994 by Ronald B. Flowers. All rights reserved. Reproduced by permission of Westminster John Knox Press.

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