Book #1: Religion and State by L. Carl Brown

[TheCurmudgeon]

That’s a very post-Aquinas view of politics.

I am not so sure. As the book mentions, the separation of politics and religion can at least be traced back to Jesus' advice to render onto Caeser that which is Caeser's. This would indicate that at least the religious and the political could be considered separate.

The separation of religion from politics or church and state is a peculiarly Western European, post-protestant phenomena/mania.

I am not so sure that Westerners have actually separated politics from the church; we have only compartmentalized their organizational charts. That was simply the result of dealing with multiple religions. India had a separation of church and state for two thousand years.

I believe that any complex society that has to deal with multiple religions either has to suppress religions not in concert with the political entities or would have to find a way to tolerate them – a defacto separation if not one sanctified by a constitutional separation. That does not mean that religion, or politics, or any other component of society are separate (or separable) from the human animal or the human condition. They are creations of the human condition and have no life without it; they are immutable from their creator.

The relationship of “religion” to other “spheres” of human existence (if such divisions are to be accepted; a la political “science”) remains a problem to be explained not a phenomena to be taken at face value.

I don't accept it at face value, and I accept the challenge of attempting to explain the phenomena.