The vexed question of the relationship between Caesar and God is one that refuses to go away. It is not a problem peculiar to Ireland but continues to engage our attention and fuel our controversies. This issue lurks in the undergrowth whether the public debate is about denominational schools, funding of hospitals, or the Taoiseach's partner.

Officially, we haven't had a State church on this island since 1869. However, disestablishment did not protect us from the sort of confessional clout which a crusading Catholicism imposed upon our society for more than a century.

In shorthand, the laos (laity) feared being "read off the altar" while those in high places trembled at the prospect of "a belt of the crozier".

Today such an eventuality causes little loss of sleep in either farmhouse or Leinster House. Other agendas seem to be making all the running.

This in-between time proffers space for reflection. With religious practice in steep decline and political life in considerable disarray, lots of hard questions tumble into the equation. To begin with, is there a theory or doctrine of church and State which fits the evolving situation and still retains its integrity and consistency?

In reaching for an answer it is helpful to look at some of the existing models. Most Western democracies have been formed and informed by what we might call the Judaeo-Christian moral consensus.

Arising directly out of the Old Testament concept of theocratic government this approach stressed transcendent accountability on the part of both leaders and the led. In other words, both the citizen and the legislator.

Theocratic thinking seeped into Christian consciousness and, to my mind, created mischief. In the training process of Deuteronomic particularity the concept of theocracy was situated in the selection of specific people and the allocation of a national territory under the direct rule of Yahweh.

That was fine for then, but later attempts to make this arrangement permanent, by establishing a so-called Christian nation with the church calling all the shots, was flawed from day one. No such theocratic absolutism is taught or endorsed by either Jesus or the New Testament writers.

In practical terms it leads to the pressure by Jewish Orthodox zealots in Jerusalem to make the teaching of the rabbinate subservient to the law of the state of Israel. And nearer home it throws the trip-switch which plunges us into the dark corridors of "For God and Ulster" or "a Nation under God" ideology.

An alternative model, known as Erastianism, places the state over the church in an establishment position which gives parliament jurisdiction over ecclesiastical matters.

On the ground, it leads to such strange absurdities as prime ministers choosing Anglican bishops and, in some Nordic countries, atheists or agnostics paying church taxes because they are citizens, not because they are believers.

If Charles and Camilla are denied a church wedding (if they decide to get married) the argument will centre on the future king's position as "temporal" head of the Church of England. The defects in church-state or state-church arrangements are apparent. A workable alternative is not easy to find.

Seeing as I have written stridently about the aforementioned models, I need to critique my own tradition, the Anabaptist approach. This placed civil society "outside the perfection of Christ" and tended to encourage a total disjuncture between church and state. In the context of the 16th century it is understandable that the radical Reformers went down this road because they suffered so much from church-state alliances.

I am attracted to the revisionist approach of William Lazareth, an American Lutheran. He argues for "functional interaction and institutional separation". Here is a seam of unmined gold well worth digging for. In the Irish context it could pave the way for an intelligent moral discourse on the part of both representatives of the legislature and religious practitioners.

Neither would be working out of autonomous corners and therefore could inform and inspire each other. As things are, a lot of the public debate could be described as either nitpicking or cherry-picking.

Creeping out from what is perceived as excessive ecclesiastical interference, it is important not to leave the new space totally unfenced. To achieve a modicum of balance, church and state need to recognise each other's roles, remain attuned to each other's concerns and, where appropriate, stay out of each other's territory.

As participatory players they may benefit from the counsel of R.J. Neuhaus, in his seminal work, The Naked Public Square. He addresses church leaders "to know the truth in the sense of mastering or possessing it. We are subject to the truth we possess and therefore do not possess it in the sense of mastery."

His definition of political discourse is situated in the arena of transcendent accountability. "Whatever moral dignity politics may possess depends upon its being a process of accommodation among moral actors, not simply a process of accommodation among individuals in pursuit of their own interests." This sort of vision gives us more than enough to get our teeth into for the benefit of both church and State.

Pastor Robert Dunlop is a Baptist minister in Brannockstown, Kilcullen, Co Kildare