This is CBSI on the world. I'm John Batchel. I welcome my colleague Peter Berkowitz at the Hoover Institution, writing his column for Real Clear Politics most recently about Robert Rausch. He has published a piece, cross-purpose Christianity, cross-purposes. Christianity's broken bargain with democracy.

The topic here is of great interest, has been, since the founding of this country, since before.

The people who came here found this country.

The people who stayed behind in Europe and dealt with the wars that have been commonplace throughout that land.

Freedom and religion.

The two belong together.

However, there are important caveats, and Peter takes us into some of them.

Peter, a very good evening to you.

It is, of course, a completely

compelling subject because it has very little to do with the 21st century. It comes from

the spirituality of the last several thousand years, and we have very specific demands of our

freedoms and our religions, establishing that the founding fathers

understood that this was a conflict. Did they successfully avoid it, in your opinion?

Good evening to you, Peter. Good evening, John. Well, I think they successfully managed it

as well as any founders in any form of government has managed to.

And they began with an understanding that they thought was both Christian and enlightened.

They believe that God endowed human beings with certain unalienable rights,

that we were equal in our possession of these rights, that it was government's first task

to secure these God-given rights, and only a government that was limited and well-organized

could ensure that government would neither establish a religion or interfere with the government's free exercise.

So I can't off the top of my head, actually, I can't, after considerable reflection, think of another great power, multi-religious and multi-ethnic, that has done better to manage

differences of opinion about religion than the United States.

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