Part II (Chapters 4-7) looks at the first empirical case study: Germany. To explore how religion, right-wing populism and identity politics interact in the German context, Chapter 4 begins with a review of the historical development of church–state relations in Germany and the ‘happy marriage of convenience’ between religion and liberal democracy in Germany after World War II. It examines the constitutional, institutional and political nature of Germany’s constitutional settlement of a benevolent neutrality of the state towards the churches and analyses its implications for the behaviour of church elites and modern-day politics. In so doing this chapter sets the social, political and institutional context in which to understand the rise of the AfD and its religiously laden right-wing identity politics.