Modern liberalism developed out of the strife of post-Reformation religious warfare. Among liberalism's central ideas were those of the individual's right of religious liberty and the separate jurisdictions of secular and religious authority. In societies that accepted these ideas and put them into institutional practice, levels of systemic religious violence were dramatically diminished. Moreover, the liberal principles that helped to build and sustain civil peace could make a strong claim to providing a just framework for addressing religious differences. Yet important normative questions have remained about the policies a liberal state should adopt toward religion.