During oral arguments in the case of Shurtleff v. City of Boston, Supreme Court Justice Neil Gorsuch made a pointed reference to “so-called separation of church and state.” What precisely this aside was meant to convey is unclear. Yet Gorsuch’s dismissive comment laid bare what many have known for some time: “Separationism,” as a judicial and legislative doctrine, is on life support. Courtesy of the Christian right, it languishes in a theologically-induced coma. 

The many Americans who yearn for secular governance, believers and nonbelievers alike, must confront this truth, accept it and innovate accordingly. They need to do so expeditiously, given the Supreme Court’s hard pro-religion turn — a turn that advantages a white conservative Christian majority at the expense of religious moderates, religious minorities and nonbelievers. 

Gorsuch may have just been trolling, but he had a point. Let’s ask ourselves some hard questions about the “separationism” we know (and love). 

If we really had a “wall of separation,” […]