Why we separate church & state

Steven Waldeman, founder of BeliefNet and author of Founding Faith, has a lot of interesting stuff to say about the separation of church and state (which he supports) and the place of religion in public life (which he also supports). In a recent interview in National Review Online, he says:

Modern evangelicals often argue for more religion in the public square and often argue that separation of church and state is a myth concocted by liberal 20th-century judges. Actually, it was the 18th century evangelicals, mostly Baptists, who led the charge for religious freedom and separation of church and state. They rallied against Patrick Henry’s proposal to have tax dollars help religion in general, arguing that the idea was “founded neither in Scripture, on Reason, on Sound Policy; but is repugnant to each of them,” as one petition declared. The 18th-century evangelicals might be puzzled how their theological descendents ended up wanting more government entanglement with religion.

So when we hear people arguing that we need Christian Sharia in this country - a conformity in action and belief to their (usually) narrow interpretation of religion, we should pause to thank God that we have had freedom OF religion and freedom FROM religion all these years. It easily could have been different, but perhaps they were close enough to Oliver Cromwell and the English Civil Wars to realize that entanglement of religion with the state was bad for the state, bad for religion, and most importantly, bad for people.