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The Supreme Court is going to take up some major cases involving church/state separation this session, and with Brett Kavanaugh's ascendance to the Supreme Court, there are now five male, Roman Catholic justices at the Court. Those justices are responsible for consideration of cases which could tear down the wall between church and state in the future. The wall between church and state is seriously shaking and the Supreme Court's decisions regarding some of the most important cases could result in major changes in the concept of church/state separation.    

First, there are two cases involving giant Christian crosses on public property in Pensacola, Florida, and Prince George's County, Maryland (City of Pensacola, Florida v. Kondrat’yev and Maryland-National Capital Park v. American Humanist Association). In the Pensacola case, the 11th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals unanimously ruled that the cross in Bayview Park needed to come down, but the judges made very clear their decision was based on legal precedent which they were bound to follow. In Maryland, the 4th Circuit ruled 2-1 that the World War I memorial was unconstitutional since it is shaped as a cross and it looks like an establishment of Christianity. There is pressure for the Supreme Court to overturn this decisions because both of this memorials have been up for a long time.

In the Kennedy v. Bremerton School case, a former high school football coach, Joe Kennedy, was fired because he prayed on the field after games while still on the clock so he sued the District for religious discrimination. A District Court ruled against him, and so did the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals, also the full 9th Circuit declined to rehear his case. Now Kennedy's lawyers are going to the Supreme Court. There is discrimination in this case because public school district employees shouldn’t use their position to promote their religious beliefs, and that was what Kennedy did.

Another pertinent case is Morris County Board v. Freedom From Religion Foundation, which is about the taxpayer money received by churches. Morris County was sued by  Freedom From Religion Foundation because it handed out large amount of money to a dozen churches for general maintenance between 2012 and 2015. A lower court ruled in favor of Morris County but the New Jersey Supreme Court unanimously overturned the decision. The money was used to fix churches and, because the churches are still active, this maintenance helped them to continue conducting worship services, so the money was for "religious uses". The Supreme Court should now decide what constitutes "religious use" and if it decides that general maintenance is not part of it churches would be able to request government funding for just about everything that doesn’t directly involve preaching.

These cases, together with number of smaller ones, could easily define the future of the church/state separation law.