The Body of Christ and the Public Square understands the phrase "separation of Church and State" can be interpreted in two fundamental ways. The first is according to the philosophy of separationism, which insists that America's form of constitutional governance does not permit religious influence because to do so would be to become vulnerable to an array of ideological impositions, ultimately causing an imbalance. The second is according to the accommodationist philosophy, which asserts that the Founding Fathers believed that the government and religion were innately compatible and, together, were seen as necessary for maintaining societal order, morality, and community, ultimately serving a nation's stability, prosperity, and longevity. 

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The Body of Christ and the Public Square subscribes to the accommodationist view, namely, Martin Luther's teachings on the Theology of the Two Kingdoms, which a number of America's Founding Fathers considered the clearest extrapolation of the Church and State relationship. For example, consider the words sent by James Madison, the fourth President of the United States, to Frederick Schaeffer in New York in December of 1821. Schaeffer, a Lutheran pastor, had presided over the cornerstone ceremony for St. Matthew Lutheran Church in New York City. Doing so, he wrote and preached a sermon in which Luther’s Two Kingdoms theology was crisply spoken.  Schaeffer sent the sermon to Madison, who later replied:

It is a pleasing and persuasive example of pious zeal, united with pure benevolence and of a cordial attachment to a particular creed, untinctured with sectarian illiberality. It illustrates the excellence of a system which, by a due distinction, to which the genius and courage of Luther led the way, between what is due to Caesar and what is due God, best promotes the discharge of both obligations. The experience of the United States is a happy disproof of the error so long rooted in the unenlightened minds of well-meaning Christians, as well as in the corrupt hearts of persecuting usurpers, that without a legal incorporation of religious and civil polity, neither could be supported. A mutual independence is found most friendly to practical Religion, to social harmony, and to political prosperity. * 

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Madison describes the doctrine as best iterating what is due to God and what is owed to Caesar. As with Luther, who forbade Christians from trying to establish “the authority of worldly legal order,”  Madison denounces with capable eloquence dominionistic doctrines as well-meaning but false. He does the same with those who press for absolute separation of Church and State. In other words, for Madison, one of the nation’s founders, drafters of its constitution, and first presidents, the Two Kingdoms doctrine delineates the best meaning of the phrase “the separation of Church and State.” Additionally, the doctrine has the best grip on how and where the separation begins and ends.

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* Robert S. Alley, James Madison on Religious Liberty (Amherst, NY: Prometheus Books, 1985), 82.

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