With its decision to allow a 40-ft cross to stand on public ground, the Supreme Court of the United States may have settled the question of religious displays on public property, but key issues about the relationship of Church and State remain hotly disputed

With President Donald Trump’s appointment of two conservative justices to the United States Supreme Court, some hoped – and others feared – that the court would begin blowing holes in what Thomas Jefferson referred to as the “wall of separation” between Church and State. Yet in the court’s most recent term, which concluded at the end of last month, the addition of Justices Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh did not result in a lurch in the court’s jurisprudence on Church-State issues. But, on the day after the last opinions were handed down, the court announced that it would hear a case in its next term, beginning in October, that could tell a different and more dramatic story.

The First Amendment to the US Constitution has two clauses dealing with religion. One prevents an “establishment of religion” by government; the other protects the “free exercise” of religion. The so-called Establishment Clause, which applies to state governments as well as the federal government, has been the source of considerable confusion, and sometimes consternation, when the court has been asked to decide whether a particular practice – such as a Christmas creche at the county courthouse, or prayers before a meeting of a town council – crossed the constitutional line.