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Credit: Rembrant Peale | Wikimedia Commons
Balancing Religion and State in North America September 12, 2013
There are a few dozen words in the U.S. Constitution about religion - and they're kind of cryptic. How does our country of 300 million people figure out its entire religion-state arrangement with this handful of phrases? Canada's official balance of religion and government is just as murky; and perhaps that's a blessing. For both the United States and Canada, the set up is always in flux - a work in progress.

Pictured: Thomas Jefferson first wrote the phrase "wall of separation between church and state" - which, by the way, is not in the U.S. Constitution.

Jacques Berlinerblau, associate professor of Jewish Civilization at Georgetown University
Marc DeGirolami, associate director at the Center for Law and Religion at St. John's University
Lori Beaman, professor in the Department of Classics and Religious Studies at the University of Ottawa