This is what American "exceptionalism" is supposed to refer to: a denominationlly-neutral State removes the sword from any single religious sect's hands. After the English civil wars, this "experiment in the wilderness" of religious disestablishment was the "exception" to the then-current rule. "No religious tests" was not intended to remove all religion from public life, but to disarm any particular religion's authority, and to separate it from State authority. We should speak about the "separation of church *authority* from state *authority*" not the "separation of church and state."