U.S. Religion and Politics

Many Americans are worried that America's Christian heritage is being threatened. Even if the threat is more perceptual than actual, it has mobilized important religious leaders and politicians to question the separation of church and state. In a recent debate in Delaware, Christine O'-Donnell, the Republican candidate for the Senate, asked, "Where in the Constitution is the separation of church and state?" Indeed, many conservatives construe efforts to separate church and state as an attack on America's Christian majority. Many liberals, on the other hand, treat the separation of church and state as solely a political issue, a way to protect the state from religious influence.