【作者】迈克尔.纽森

【内容提要】

This essay begins a discussion of the purpose, meaning, and future prospects of America understood as a Protestant Empire.' American experience and its English antecedents establish that the idea and the reality of the Protestant Empire are deeply embedded in the American character.Thus, our church-state law was meant to serve the purposesand the interests of the American Protestant Empire.It was not meant to advance "equality,"' "neutrality,". "religious liberty" or other empty verbal formulations.' If our church-state law serves other purposes, it does so only because of interest convergence.
 

【关键词】protestant empire，institutionalization and secularization