Problems of church and state exist not only elsewhere in the former communist East, but in Western Europe as well. In both countries, official studies have been published holding that in most or all cases fears of antisocial practices by such sects were unfounded. In Germany last month, the Federal Constitutional Court threw out a lower court ruling that Jehovah's Witnesses and other small religious groups could not qualify for corporate and tax-free status and taxpayer support. The constitutional court ordered the lower court to reconsider its judgment. That this kind of issue still arises even in established democracies comes as no surprise to Robbers.
Polls show the United States as one of the world's most religiously observant nations in the world.
Yet U.S. citizens' concerns about church-state relations tend to operate in the opposite direction. Many Americans are quite opposed to any connection between church and state, whose powers are clearly separated in the U.S. Constitution. They even reject a proposed initiative by President George Bush that religious groups be eligible for taxpayer reimbursement for social programs they operate. By contrast, that's a practice taken for granted or considered enlightened by many nations of Europe, east and west.