Religious uniformity occurs whengovernment is used to promote onestate religion,denomination, orphilosophy to the exclusion of all other religious beliefs.
Religious uniformity was common in many modern theocratic and atheistic governments around the world until fairly modern times. The modern concept of a separatecivil government was relatively unknown until expounded upon byRoger Williams, a Christian minister, inThe Bloudy Tenent of Persecution (1644) shortly after he founded the American colony ofRhode Island and Providence Plantations in 1636.[1][2]
In the United States, theFirst Amendment to the Constitution (1791) prohibits the federal government from establishing or prohibiting a religion, and in 1947 the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that states cannot create established state churches inEverson v. Board of Education.
