Since the beginnings of civilization, the religious has posed a central problem to the normative order of the political. The present volume illuminates this crucial relation in 21 chapters from different disciplinary perspectives including philosophy, theology, constitutional theory and law. Leading scholars are addressing conceptual questions as well as country-specific problems with regards to countries such as Croatia, Germany, Italy, Poland, Spain, Switzerland, the US, Mexico, China, India, Japan, Singapore, and Taiwan. One of the central themes in this volume are the ways by which the secular state envisions its relation to the religious between distance and entanglement, cooperation, independence, and conflict.