Church and State: The Current Constitutional Debate in the USA

Abstract

"Where do we stand today in the constitutional debate regarding Church and State? We are certainly not in the era during which the original understanding of the First Amendment religion clauses was dominant. In the Establishment Clause area, we are still in the Everson era, which began in 1947 and ushered in a new and quite different understanding of establishment. In the Free Exercise area, we are no longer in the Sherbert era, since the Smith case in 1990 – though I will discuss below the “accidental” character of that (partial) return to the original understanding."(...)