Perry Dane on "Establishment and Encounter"

I always learn from Prof. Perry Dane's work.  Here is a recent paper his, posted at SSRN:

One of the great puzzles in the law of “religion and law,” considered normatively, is the profound and dramatic diversity, even among Western nations, of the basic norms governing religious establishment and disestablishment and the institutional, financial, and expressive relationships between religion and state. One challenge, then, is to articulate a sort of normative minimum that respects that diversity but also provides a language by which we might begin to assess specific religion-state dispensations. The principles of liberal democracy, including religious liberty, are one important pillar in constructing that normative minimum. But this essay argues that we also need to look elsewhere, to a different perspective that is both older and broader than the discourses of democracy and rights. In that view, religion and state are distinct sovereign realms engaged in an existential encounter. The encounter can take various forms. Nevertheless, church and state must, in a deep sense, respect each other’s essential independent dignity. The church should not subsume the state, and the state should not subsume the church. With this master idea in mind, we can at least begin to appraise specific religion-state dispensations by the spatial metaphors at their heart. Thus, both American separationism – with its metaphor of a “wall” between church and state – and English religious establishment – which has been described as taking the form of an “interlocking jigsaw” – fare well, at least in principle. But French laïcité, whose roots go back in part to a different metaphor – “The State is not in the Church, but the Church is in the State” – does not.

Perry's use of the term "encounter" reminds me of my former colleague and mentor Bob Rodes's use of "nexus" and "dialogue" in the church-state context.  I wrote a short paper about Rodes's approach here:

The idea of church-state separation and the image of a wall are at the heart of nearly every citizen's and commentator's thinking about law and religion, and about faith and public life. Unfortunately, the inapt image often causes great confusion about the important idea. What should be regarded as an important feature of religious freedom under constitutionally limited government too often serves simply as a slogan, and is too often employed as a rallying cry, not for the distinctiveness and independence of religious institutions, but for the marginalization and privatization of religious faith. 

How, then, should we understand church-state separation? What is the connection between separation, well understood, and religious freedom? What is the place, or role, of religious faith, believers, and institutions in the political community governed by our Constitution? With respect to these and so many other interesting and important questions, the work of Professor Robert Rodes has been and remains a help, a challenge, and an inspiration. 

This essay is an appreciation, interpretation, and application of Professor Rodes's church-state work. In particular, it contrasts the church-state nexus that he has explored and explained with Jefferson's misleading but influential wall metaphor. After identifying and discussing a few of the more salient features of this nexus, it closes with some thoughts about how the leading themes in Rodes's law-and-religion writing can help us better understand and negotiate one of today's most pressing religious freedom problems.