Michael W. McConell - Religion and its relation to limited government - A clarification of the doctrine of church-state separation.

I read Michael W. McConnell's article Religion and its relation to limited government (2009) 33 Harv JL which made an interesting point about the reason behind the First Amendment of the American Constitution. According to McConnell, contrary to conventional wisdom that the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment and the various disestablishments at the state level are the legal embodiment of the movement towards a secularization of America's public culture,  "The First Amendment at the national level, like disestablishment at the state level, was intended to prevent the government from exercising control over religion, which was seen as a particularly important and valuable institution for the formation of public character and opinion in a republic. The Establishment Clause is thus more akin to the Free Press Clause--indeed to free enterprise and limited government in general-- than to any impulse of secularization or anti-religiosity."

I suppose McConell seeks to clarify the relationship between the church and the state in American public life. I suppose the notion of church-state separation has the common connotation of a complete severance of relationship between religion and the state. It is a common argument by atheists pointing towards the First Amendment that demonstration of religious practices in the public domain is an infringement of church-state separation. But as McConell has made clear in his article, the Framer's intent behind the First Amendment is not to limit religion, but to prevent its subjugation by the state for the state's purposes.

In his article, McConell brought up the interesting point that in fact, David Hume advocated establishment of religion for precisely the reason of wanting to subjugate religion to the state. Hume, a skeptic, believed that active, enthusiastic religion was bad for the public sphere and that religion was a superstitious and deleterious influence. He believed that establishment of religion would render the clergy docile and suppress religious enthusiasm, which he thought would be a good thing.


While America's doctrine of church-state separation is clarified by the intent of its Framers, I wonder what is the nature of Singapore's take on the doctrine of church-state separation.