The contributions of this volume are written from a historical perspective and look at the specific form the relationship between church and state took in three different countries, with special attention being paid to their respective strengths and weaknesses.The separation of church and state is one of the most important advances of modern times. Yet Germany, France and the United States took very different routes to achieving this. The present situation is full of questions that were approached in the papers given at the 14th Dietrich Bonhoeffer Lecture Series 2010 in Mainz and were answered from various perspectives. How and for what reason did these very different models come to be? What are their respective strengths and weaknesses? More recently, these questions have again cropped up in the discussion surrounding the role of Islam in Western societies.

Contributions by: Robin W. Lovin, Roland Minnerath, Heinrich Bedford-Strohm, Christiane Tietz, Axel Frhr.von Campenhausen, Heinrich de Wall, Hans Michael Heinig, Karl Lehmann, Wolfgang Huber