The Separation of ‘Common Sense’ and ‘State’

Why is it that when we talk about religious freedom in the United States, we hear it through the phrasing of the separation of church and state?

Now sit with that question for a minute. Let it hold…
Ponder – why don’t we hear the separation of temple and state?
The separation of mosque and state?
The separation of oracle, of shrine, of altar and state?

Why is church the word we reach for – as though it is the only threat, the only site, the only stage on which religious power might interfere with civic life?

And while you’re asking, let me go further: religion itself is not the enemy of the state.
Neither is the temple.
Neither is the mosque.
Neither is the shrine.
Neither is the oracle.
But the institutional church – and more specifically, the political dominance of Christianity – has often positioned itself not as a peer among faiths, but as a ruler among them.

But the language we use creates a narrative straw man – one that allows the church, and particularly the Christian church, to cast itself as victim in a drama of persecution and violence it has, more often than not, authored.
It is not simply included in the story of religious overreach – it has rarely relinquished its lead role.

And here’s the more devastating truth: Christianity was so persistently at odds with religious freedom that it became necessary to codify a governmental boundary to protect the state – more clearly, its citizens – from it.
This was not a shield for the church. It was a guardrail against it.

Christianity is not the victim in this history.
It has been the perpetrator.
And the law knows it.

So when “religious freedom” shows up in court, in policy, or in editorial concern, what is being defended?
And what is being assumed?

Let’s name the deeper mechanism. It is not the rulings per se, but the cultural grammar beneath them.
What passes for neutrality in this country is often the enforcement of the familiar.
And what gets dismissed as non-belief is often a refusal to kneel to what was never sacred in the first place.

The feature of this conversation that continues to evade both legal writers and cultural reporters alike is their refusal to state – or perhaps even to see – that to be not Christian is not to be absent of belief.
That to reject imposed theism is not to float in some ambient neutrality.
That to say no to the god of your oppressor is not the absence of religion – but the beginning of a different kind of sacred.

This distortion is conjured through the subterfuge of calling Christians “believers” – as if belief were theirs alone.
And tacitly, many “nonbelievers” come to think of themselves as having no faith, and certainly no religion.
That is both a tactical error and a political malfeasance.

And yet even in the telling of these stories – stories about court decisions, religious liberty, and prayer in public schools – there is a strange silence.
The writers don’t say it. They hint. They tilt. They gesture.
But they don’t name the mechanism.

They don’t say that Christianity is being protected as the default condition –
and that all other frameworks – pluralistic, ancestral, queer, non-theistic –
are being rendered ornamental at best, oppositional at worst.

They won’t say that for a queer student, refusal to bow to a prayer is not just personal – it is doctrinal. It is theological. It is sacred.

They won’t say that when a teacher affirms their students’ pronouns and refuses to impose a binary God, they are not violating belief – they are living theirs.

They won’t say that non-belief is always belief in something else. That agnosticism is not an absence. That silence is not neutrality. That pluralism, too, has liturgy.

They won’t say it because they’re afraid of appearing too clear. Because to say it plainly would undo the false decorum that allows “religious freedom” to be wielded as a shield for Christian dominance. Because they still want to be seen as fair. Because forced silence is still a bully move – a doctrine and dogma that should not enjoy the protection of the courts.

And fairness is not what’s needed. 

What’s needed is understanding that belief is not the sole province of Christians. And that those of us who don’t bow to that God are not standing on empty ground – we’re standing on ground that has been prayed over, danced on, wept into, and protected for generations.

There is no such thing as non-belief. There is only belief that has not yet been granted legal legitimacy –  or belief that refuses to ask.

This isn’t about balance either. It never was.
“Balance” is the language dominance uses to perform fairness while maintaining control.

The moment a court protects one person’s right to bow their head while ignoring another’s right to stand without being shamed, it is no longer interpreting freedom –  it is enforcing faith.

And that’s a bully move too.

On the contrary, this is not a clash of beliefs. It is the codification of one belief system at the expense of all others –  including those who believe that coercion – any coercion – is itself a desecration.

There is no honest conversation about religious freedom in public institutions until we admit:
Christianity is not being defended.
It is being assumed –
skating by through the lips and pens of legislators and journalists who use euphemism as a shield,
and jurists who rely on that free ride to evade accountability.

Christianity claiming the victim is no different than slavery asserting itself as savior –
now that’s a ruling that needs to reverberate.