When you hear secularist or atheist progressives in the media and academia appeal to separation of church and state to deny the church’s role in politics do not fall for their arguments or believe their lies. They don’t believe in the separation of church and state, because they can’t. It’s a fundamentally Christian doctrine.
Secularists and atheists do not believe that God ordained the state and the church to be vitally important spheres of power within different aspects of peoples lives (spiritual and civil), because they deny Jesus Christ is Lord and they hate or are indifferent to the church.
To the progressive, there is only the state, and all are subject to it in every way, and therefore power is all that matters, so getting as much of it as possible is the order of the day.
We must recognize that they are lying and trying to use a fundamentally Christian doctrine for the exact opposite of what it was intended: which was originally to put a brake on state power.