Accommodationism in the context of "Fundamentalism"

The separation of church and state is a philosophical and jurisprudential concept for defining political distance in the relationship between religious organizations and the state. Conceptually, the term refers to the creation of a secular state (with or without legally explicit church-state separation) and to disestablishment, the changing of an existing, formal relationship between the church and the state. The concept originated among early Baptists in America. In 1644, Roger Williams, a Baptist minister and founder of the state of Rhode Island and the First Baptist Church in America, was the first public official to call for "a wall or hedge of separation" between "the wilderness of the world" and "the garden of the church." Although the concept is older, the exact phrase "separation of church and state" is derived from "wall of separation between Church & State," a term coined by Thomas Jefferson in his 1802 letter to members of the Danbury Baptist Association in the state of Connecticut. The concept was promoted by Enlightenment philosophers such as John Locke.

In a society, the degree of political separation between the church and the civil state is determined by the legal structures and prevalent legal views that define the proper relationship between organized religion and the state. The arm's length principle proposes a relationship wherein the two political entities interact as organizations each independent of the authority of the other. The strict application of the secular principle of laïcité is used in France. In contrast, societies such as Denmark and England maintain the constitutional recognition of an official state church; similarly, other countries have a policy of accommodationism, with religious symbols being present in the public square.

Social conservatism is a political philosophy and a variety of conservatism which places emphasis on conserving the traditional moral values of a society, typically sourced from a religion. It also aims to preserve traditional social structures over social pluralism. Social conservatives organize in favor of duty, traditional values, and social institutions, such as traditional family structures, gender roles, sexual relations, national patriotism, and religious traditions. Social conservatism is usually skeptical of social change, instead tending to support the status quo concerning social issues.

Social conservatives also value the rights of religious institutions to participate in the public sphere, thus often supporting government-religious endorsement and opposing state atheism, and in some cases opposing secularism.