Riigi ja Kiriku suhete Ideed ning Praktika Ameerikaliku Vabakirikliku Paradigma taustal
The Ideas and Practices of the Relationship Between Church and the State, Based on the American Free Church Model

Summary/Abstract: The United States continues to follow the motto “In God We Trust” at the time when the rest of the Western world is undergoing an increasing secularization. This poses a question, why is the American religiosity so different? The American religiosity and the organizational forms of religion have successfully put up with the invasion of different tendencies of modernization, have proved to be strongly adaptive to new conditions and thus have become even more vigorous and pro-active regarding the developments in society. Even more surprisingly, the United States has been able to hold on to one of the most important accomplishments of the democratic constitution – a clear-cut line of separation between state politics and organized religion. In the Old World, the drawing of the line of separation has been painful for both sides, and the legacies of several centuries are still overshadowing the church-state relationships as is demonstrated also in this paper.

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