When asked to criticize a Roman tax, Jesus famously answered: “Render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and unto God the things that are God’s.” Influenced by that teaching, James Madison wrote in the 1820s about the separation of church and state: “I have no doubt that every new example will succeed … in shewing that Religion & Govt. will both exist in greater purity, the less they are mixed together.”
Such lessons are not always heeded.
