The traditionalist's fear or the rationalist's hope that modernity will see off religion as a legitimate form of thought has paradoxically both come true and been proved false. It has come true because religion today is no longer what it was in premodern times. It is self-conscious, argumentative, seeks rational justification, and is not a matter of a basic ontological trust, an unargued faith, or a taken-for-granted fact of life. The hope or the fear has been proved false because religion matters a great deal to a large number of people, in some respects even more than it did in premodern times, and continues to survive as a culture or a civilisation shaping the deepest thoughts of even those claiming to be free of it. The old question of how religion should be related to the state and what kind and degree of public recognition it should enjoy therefore remains as relevant as before, although of course it needs to be formulated and answered in terms suited to our times.

We can readily agree on two things. First, religion and state represent different human institutions. One is primarily concerned with the other-worldly destiny of the human soul, the other with the affairs of this world. One is a matter of belief and cannot be coerced, the other deals with matters requiring conformity and has coercion built into its structure. One talks in terms of largely non-negotiable absolutes, the other aims at a carefully assembled and inherently tentative consensus. Since the two are so different in their orientation, a close alliance between them is the surest way to corrupt and undermine both.

Second, although religion and the state differ radically in their approaches to human life, their spheres of activity overlap. Religious beliefs and practices have social consequences, and the state has a legitimate interest in the latter. This is why even liberal states rightly regulate religious activities on grounds of public order, public health, morality and social harmony, and criminalise or at least discourage religious beliefs that incite rebellion against it or hatred and violence against outsiders. Even as the state cannot remain indifferent to religion, the latter cannot remain indifferent to the state. Religious persons anchor their lives in certain fundamental moral and spiritual commitments.