Write any feature of American model of secularism​

Answer:

Pope Benedict XVI has, in recent months, expressed his admiration for the “American model” of religious liberty and church-state liberty. For example, during his trip last SPRING to the United States, the Pope noted, and SEEMED to praise, AMERICA’s “positive concept of secularism,” in which government respects both the role of religious arguments and commitments in the public square and the important distinction between religious and political authorities.

Is there, in fact, such a model, and such a concept, at work in America? What are its features? And, is it worthy of the Pope’s apparent endorsement?

Looking back, for a moment, to America’s founding, we are reminded that Thomas Jefferson regarded the religious-freedom guarantees enacted into law after the Revolution as a “fair” and “novel” experiment. Similarly, it was the confident HOPE of James MADISON that America’s bold experiment in religious liberty—one that rejected both mere “toleration” and Jacobin anti-clericalism alike—“promised a lustre to our country.” Madison believed that a specifically “American model” of religious freedom was emerging, and that it would distinguish us, shape us, and strengthen us. He and other leaders among the founding generation were keenly aware that they were attempting something new and great, something that would change—indeed, remake—the world. At the same time, they felt the weight of great responsibility. John Adams revealed as much when he wrote that “the People in America have now the best opportunity and the greatest trust in their hands, that Providence has ever committed to so small a number, since the transgression of the first pair; if they betray their trust, their guilt will merit . . . the indignation of Heaven.”