Religion and Governance: Re-thinking the American Perspective

Political philosophers today need to re-think the relationship of church and state from a phenomenological perspective. The faithful of any religious system draw their identity from their history, language and cultural experience, not their form of governance. Forms of governance are politically constituted out of a nation¿s history and culture, not from the articles of personal faith. Both religion and governance may be understood today as social activities which are culturally determined and vary according to their time and place. Rather than in the traditional terms of church and state, the issues arising today in the relationship between the church and the state may be more satisfactorily addressed by political philosophers from a phenomenological perspective of religion and governance. In this monograph, I focus primarily on the American context in discussing a relationship between religion and governance.