Separation between church and state?

Question

What exactly is this separation mean in the 18th century? Before the church and the state separated, what did like the state do to interfere with church business?

I was reading about this and I dont get this whole idea...... So the American colonies had a separation between church and state but what was it like before? Also how was it like in Britain???

A link to a website that explains this is fine

Answer 1

Western Europeans once, and for some time, made no separation between religious and secular rule. Kings were crowned and blessed by the Church, and in return, the state exempted the Church from secular obligations, eg. no taxes. Kings were said to rule by divine right, and Churches guaranteed the divinity of their rule.

After Rome's fall, the first European kingdom was Charlemagne's Holy Roman Empire.

  Come the Reformation and the division of the Church--as well as King Henry VIII's lust for serial wives--unity was broken, although state's had an official religion, Catholic, Anglican, or Protestant. With the rise of secularism and science, and the modern economies that arose, neither the Church nor State had a similar need for each other's protections and benefits. Still the issues remained of taxes and property, and the implication that the Church could stand apart from the state, freed of its direction and control (eg selection of officials), and exempted from public duties/ordinary laws.

   The Americann Founders took the division to its logical conclusion and forbade the existence of any state-sanctioned church. No sect could be preferred and favored over any other. Freedom of religion became a constitutional legal right, protected by law and courts from state intrusion, preferences, or control. The point was to ensure a full flowering of religious sects by forbidding any superiority by law to any one church.

Answer 2

The separation of church and state simply means that the government will not favor one religion over another and engage in the sort of religious persecution that had been going on in Europe and in some instances the colonies for many years. It hardly means what some people have interpreted it to mean when they try to keep any religious symbolism off of public property.  It was only set in place to keep the government from having the power over religion that it had in Europe.

Answer 3

In England, and later Scotland, following the break with Rome the Church was seen as part of the state The Head of State was Head of the Church (as is still the case). To be seen as a member of the national, Anglican, church was seen to be patriotic, not to be, in other words Roman Catholic, as potentially treasonable. The same situation would have pertained in the American colonies prior to independence, although a far greater degree of religious toleration was permitted - hence the reason for the Pilgrim Fathers leaving England. Remember that in the UK today there is still no formal seperation od church and state. The Anglican church is still 'by law established' and the Prime Minister and the Queen formally appoint its bishops