Nathan Finn has an essay here worth reading on church-state separation.

“Patrick is simply wrong to suggest that the entire concept of separation of church and state is an unconstitutional lie that was concocted to silence people of faith. But he is certainly right to be concerned with how church-state separation is malformed when, like so many of our cultural values, it is divorced from its roots in Judeo-Christian reasoning. The real threat to religious liberty in America isn’t the separation of church and state, but the widespread assumption by post-Christian cultural elites that secularism is neutral. Christians shouldn’t respond to this threat by abandoning the First Amendment, but by vigorously opposing secularist redefinitions of church-state separation and the curtailing of religious freedom by progressive activists.“