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The United States: Understanding the Theocratic-Secular Enigma It is deeply misleading to consider the United States as a democratic regime under the supervision of Christian guidelines, for it is indeed a secular state the principles of which are clearly set out in the First Amendment to the Constitution. In fact, since the colonial period, two antagonistic rationales have constantly meshed: a spirit of religion aiming to place all aspects of life under the auspices of divine law, and a spirit of secularity regularly consolidated by Supreme Court jurisprudential progress. Seven major periods can be identified, each marked by the dominance of one tendency or the other. If at times the theocratic position has won out, it has always been thwarted by the reactivation of the secular perspective. The history of this ebb and glow teaches us that the current fundamentalist revival fits in line with a secular tradition. It also prompts us to seek the balancing element that has enabled this paradoxical combination to remain coherent. Civil religion provides a key to this enigma. It refers to three principles: respect for God, considered to preside over the country’s destiny, the conviction that the republican model offers an example for all of humanity and the desire to defend its underlying values. This is how, beyond the potentially conflictual dimension of the theocratic-separatist mix, civil religion has made the theocratic aspiration of radical Protestants compatible with the separatist will of the partisans of a secular state.