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‘Private’ 1. The word ‘private’ derives from the Latin privatus, and means ‘belonging to,’ or ‘concerning a particular person or group; not common or general.’ In the course of the eighteenth century—through connections with ‘private property,’ and ‘private person’—the word developed into a counter-concept, first, to ‘state’ (adj.), and then, to ‘public,’ or ‘public civil,’ so that it gained the sense of ‘divided from [other] citizens,’ a state-free sphere. Private Religion 2. The Christian churches, in their self-concept, fulfill a ‘public charge.’ Indeed, they ma…