Abstract

The author discusses several models of the relation of church and state with respect to their advantages and shortfalls to freedom of religion and equality of religions. The first model is the separation of church and state at a great distance, the second the model of equal religions and the third the rapprochement model of civil religion and constitutional ethics. None of these possible models is fully satisfying. Precisely because the minimum pre-requisites for legitimacy and liberality are preserved, or should be preserved, in all three models, the advocates of all of these church-state models should learn to cherish their respective assets in order to ‘bear’ the accompanying losses