When it comes to the loyalty of its citizens, most governments are cognizant that their citizens typically have an affiliation with some form of religious faith and that many of those take their faith quite seriously. This signifies that governments in many a case, understand therefore that they should try to be in harmony with the prevailing religious faith, at a minimum, so that the population is more at ease with that governance, for whenever a governance is at odds with the faith of the majority of the people, then one side or the other will ultimately prevail, and even though governments have control of both the purse and the guns, religion has a way of prevailing, given a long enough span of time.
So then, intelligent governments that are engaged with their citizenry, recognize that being on the right side of the faith of the people, is going to be a win-win, which is why we see that historically there has been set aside a particular day of the week, dedicated to the people’s faith, so that typically secular activities such as carousing, drinking, shopping, and the like have had restrictions imposed upon such, voluntarily or by law, so meant to be of benefit and aid to religion, because by limiting what is considered to be acceptable to perform on a set aside religious day, restricts what people can or cannot do, and therefore will possibly mean that people will amend their behavior in a way that comports with the tenets of that religious faith, at least, for that day.
Additionally, governments understand that the right form of religion imposes an ethical code of conduct on its believers, which typically conforms to what the government would prefer to see from its constituents. That is to say, governments understand the value of integrity, family, obedience, labor, and charity, which signifies that to the degree that religion can help these to be imprinted upon the population, then the better behaved that population will be, which makes for a more quiescent population, which is typically something that governments prefer, especially over civil unrest, and a consistent clarion call for change, change, change.
While critics have said that “religion is the opium of the people,” it needs to be recognized that societies need not only social cohesion but also social direction, or else the result will be something less than ideal, and to the degree that religion in a positive way can help people to believe in something outside of their own personal domain, and to believe that how they interact with others and behave makes a difference, in this world, and on judgment day, it has to be admitted therefore that religion not only has its place but is vital for the governance of people, especially when the population is large and spread out along a vast amount of territory, because there needs to be commonality from north to south, and from east to west, and while a Constitution has its place and purpose, so does religious faith, especially when these two things, together, augment one another.