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This chapter examines the Protestant–Catholic tensions of the early 1950s and the meteoric rise of Protestants and Other Americans United for Separation of Church and State (POAU) and its early litigation involving “captive schools.” It examines early criticism of POAU for its alleged anti-Catholicism. It then discusses President Truman’s unsuccessful attempt to appoint an ambassador to the Vatican, which met a groundswell of opposition among Protestants. The chapter then segues to consider the two leading church–state cases heard by the Supreme Court: the first involving a reconsideration of its released-time holding, and the second involving a sensational movie censorship controversy (“The Miracle case”).

This chapter distils the six main interlinking principles of religious freedom collectively embraced by the eighteenth-century American founders – liberty of conscience, free exercise of religion, religious pluralism, religious equality, separation of church and state, and disestablishment of (at least a national) religion. It shows the different and sometimes competing logics that the founders used to support these principles, and the expression and application of these principles in the new state constitutions of the 1770s and 1780s. The chapter traces the roots and routes of these religious freedom principles in the earlier Western legal tradition, but also shows how the principles of religious equality for all peaceable faiths and no establishment of any religion by law were largely new creations and distinctive features of the American constitutional experiment.

In virtually no other developed country are issues like abortion, contraception, homosexuality, and sexual education as controversial as in America. People in almost all other Western nations tend to share the liberal-moderate view of these questions. Few share the Christian fundamentalist position that represents a major side of America’s culture wars. Even though the vast majority of Americans are devout Christians, religion ironically divides them far more than Europeans. America is exceptionally polarized by rival understandings of faith, secularism, family values, gender roles, and sexuality. According to conventional wisdom, religious polarization in America reflects a clash between believers and non-believers. In reality, the divide is mainly among people of faith, as atheists or agnostics remain a limited proportion of the U.S. population. While nearly three-quarters of Americans identify as Christian, their churches are often at odds on basic issues like whether the Bible should be interpreted literally. The chapter particularly analyzes the ultra-traditionalist values prevalent in conservative America and demonstrates how unusual they are in the developed world.