I read an essay by a christian a while ago that pointed out that the separation of church and state wasn’t about protecting the state from religion - it was about protecting religion from the state.
The gist of the argument was that religion should be concentrating on the eternal, and politics, by necessity, concentrates on the immediate. The author was concerned that welding religion and politics together would make religion itself political, meaning it would have to conform to the secular moment rather than looking to saving souls or whatever.
The mind meld of evangelical christianity and right wing politics happened in the mid to late 70s when the US was trying to racially integrate christian universities, which had been severely limiting or excluding black students. Since then, republicans and christians have been in bed together. The southern baptist convention, in fact, originally endorsed the Roe decision because it helped the cause of women. It was only after they decided to go all in on social conservatism that it became a sin.
Christians today are growing concerned about a falloff in attendance and membership. This article concentrates on how conservatism has become a call for people to publicly identify as evangelical while not actually being religious, because it’s an our team thing.
Evangelicals made an ironically Faustian bargain and are starting to realize it.
That sounds more like a modern reinterpretation of “protecting religion from the state.” The context of the origin of the separation of church and state from the late 18th century was more about religious adherence being closely tied to political power, so you could deal your political opponents harm by branding them a participant of a socially outcast religion, or you could use political power to (legally) persecute the followers of a non-state religion. Yes, it was about protecting religion from the state, but it was in more concrete terms of protecting the followers of non-state-backed religions, rather than preventing some kind of philosophical corruption of the moral foundations of the religion.
I agree. I think the main thing that kept separation of church and state historically was the fear on everyone’s part that someone else’s religion might end up in charge. I’ve been friends with former adventists and they told me one of their ent times myths is that they’ll be persecuted and locked in concentration camps by Sunday church-goers. They also had a tendency towards pacifism and vegetarianism. That’s been changing in the past decade or two, where they (like many Catholics) have started just signing off on the evangelical worldview.
I feel like, once they’re in a position of having consolidated political power, we’re going to see an increase in christian sectarianism, but until that point they’re going to pretend they’re a big tent movement.