(due to volumne I needed some attention getting subject line)
I just watched an interview on Lehrer Newshour with Jon Meacham on his book, American Gospel. Meacham maintains that there is not a hard line separation between church and state in the US founding fathers and cites Washington and Madison. Madison for example was quoted as making a distinction between `tolerance' and `liberity' and Meacham says that liberity in Madison's lexicon was the greater separation of the two possible choices where mere tolerance is superceeded by liberity in which any belief system is included.
The implication in Madison is that Locke's tolerance of belief must be augmented with something more determinant and closer to Spinoza's idea of a freedom to philosophize (from J. Israel's Radical Enlightenment). This apparently absurd parsing of words actually has some important US historical background for countering the US rightwing and Christian fundies (and indirectly Leo Strauss).
What I am asking for is some US political history insight into this general controversy. According to Meacham it was Jefferson who introduced the phrase `wall of separation between church and state'.
The more important point is the deeper western US-EU historical transition between theological thought concerning the `state' and early Enlightenment thought about the secularization of the state. Clearly the US historically stands in some rather fogging ground between the two. It has never been able to clearly draw the line---thanks to a constant drone of many different periods of Protestant fundamentalism.
Feel free to comment on any of this at will. But historical notes with citations would be greatly appreciated....
CG