They also influence, from an empirical angle, the actual exercise of power within these same communities. These dichotomies influence, more or less directly, the theoretical debate on the exercise of power in different religious cultures, and in different polities. The introduction to this volume discusses some of the dichotomies that define religion-including those between reason and faith, and between the spiritual and temporal realms of churches. This book on the relationship between religion and the secular is an analytical work on religious perspectives upon the secular, and, ultimately, on the bearings of religion upon the organization of both religious and secular societies. Secularism is most commonly defined as the separation of religion and the state.