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Disestablishment and Religious Dissent
On May 10, 1776, the Second Continental Congress sitting in Philadelphia adopted a Resolution which set in motion a round of constitution making in the colonies, several of which soon declared themselves sovereign states and severed all remaining ties to the British Crown. In forming these written constitutions, the delegates to the state conventions were forced to address the issue of church-state relations. Each colony had unique and differing traditions of church-state relations rooted in the colony’s peoples, their country of origin, and religion. This definitive volume, comprising twenty-one original essays by eminent historians and political scientists, is a comprehensive state-by-st...
Patriotism and Piety
In Patriotism and Piety, Jonathan Den Hartog argues that the question of how religion would function in American society was decided in the decades after the Constitution and First Amendment established a legal framework. Den Hartog shows that among the wide array of politicians and public figures struggling to define religion’s place in the new nation, Federalists stood out—evolving religious attitudes were central to Federalism, and the encounter with Federalism strongly shaped American Christianity. Den Hartog describes the Federalist appropriations of religion as passing through three stages: a "republican" phase of easy cooperation inherited from the experience of the American Revol...
Let Men Be Free
The assortment of political views held by Baptists was as diverse as any other denomination in the early United States, but they were bound together by a fundamental belief in the inviolability of the individual conscience in matters of faith. In a nation where civil government and religion were inextricable, and in states where citizens were still born into the local parish church, the doctrine of believer’s baptism was an inescapably political idea. As a result, historians have long acknowledged that Baptists in the early republic were driven by their pursuit of religious liberty, even partnering with those who did not share their beliefs. However, what has not been as well documented is the complexity and conflict with which Baptists carried out their Jeffersonian project. Just as they disagreed on seemingly everything else, Baptists did not always define religious liberty in quite the same way. Let Men Be Free offers the first comprehensive look into Baptist politics in the early United States, examining how different groups and different generations attempted to separate church from state and how this determined the future of the denomination and indeed the nation itself.
Guardian of the Wall
Guardian of the Wall examines Leo Pfeffer's church-state thought and its influence on the U.S. Supreme Court. The book argues that Pfeffer’s understanding of the First Amendment’s religion clauses, shaped as it was by his historical and religious context, led him to advocate a separationist historical narrative and absolutist application of the Establishment and Free Exercise Clauses. Pfeffer’s jurisprudence was pivotal in shaping the U.S. Supreme Court’s interpretation of the First Amendment throughout the last half of the twentieth century. Guardian of the Wall challenges the popular contention that Pfeffer’s separationist philosophy was hostile to religion and sought to remove religion from the public square. Instead, it illustrates how Pfeffer believed a broad reading of both religion clauses protected religious freedom, secured religious equality, and fostered authentic participation of religion in public life. The book concludes by analyzing the Court’s shift away from the strict separation of church and state during the past thirty years and contends that the Court should reconsider Pfeffer’s approach to the First Amendment’s religion clauses.
The Religion-Supported State
Between 1776 and 1850, the people, politicians, and clergy of New England transformed the relationship between church and state. They did not simply replace their religious establishments with voluntary churches and organizations. Instead, as they collided over disestablishment, Sunday laws, and antislavery, they built the foundation of what the author describes as a religion-supported state. Religious tolerance and pluralism coexisted in the religion-supported state with religious anxiety and controversy. Questions of religious liberty were shaped by public debates among evangelicals, Unitarians, Universalists, deists, and others about the moral implications of religious truth and error. The author traces the shifting, situational political alliances they constructed to protect the moral core of their competing truths. New England's religion-supported state still resonates in the United States in the twenty-first century.
Religion and the American Constitutional Experiment
This accessible and authoritative introduction tells the American story of religious liberty from its colonial beginnings to the latest Supreme Court cases. The authors analyze closely the formation of the First Amendment religion clauses and describe the unique and enduring principles of theAmerican experiment in religious freedom - liberty of conscience, free exercise of religion, religious equality, religious pluralism, separation of church and state, and no establishment of religion. Successive chapters map all of the 240+ Supreme Court cases on religious freedom - covering the freeexercise of religion; the roles of government and religion in education; the place of religion in public li...
Empire of Commerce
A groundbreaking study situating the Mississippi River valley at the heart of the early American republic’s political economy Shortly after the ratification of the US Constitution in 1789, twenty-two-year-old Andrew Jackson pledged his allegiance to the king of Spain. Prior to the Louisiana Purchase, imperial control of the North American continent remained an open question. Spain controlled the Mississippi River, closing it to American trade in 1784, and western men on the make like Jackson had to navigate the overlapping economic and political forces at work with ruthless pragmatism. In Empire of Commerce, Susan Gaunt Stearns takes readers back to a time when there was nothing inevitable...
Agreeing to Disagree
"The Establishment Clause of the First Amendment, "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion," may be the most contentious and misunderstood provision of the entire U.S. Constitution. It lies at the heart of America's culture wars. But what, exactly, is an "establishment of religion"? And what is a law "respecting" it? Many commentators reduce the clause to "the separation of church and state." This implies that church and state are at odds, that the public sphere must be secular, and that the Establishment Clause is in tension with the Free Exercise of Religion Clause. All of these implications misconstrue the Establishment Clause's original purpose and enduring val...
The Routledge History of Religion and Politics in the United States Since 1775
Drawing together history and recent historiography, this volume offers a reference work for understanding how religion influenced politics and how politics shaped religion in the United States from the American Revolution through to the present day. The book brings together some of the most well-regarded scholars in history, religious studies, American studies, political science, and other disciplines working in this field, providing a groundbreaking transdisciplinary history of this topic. It explores the major themes and historiographical trends that animate current scholarship, ensuring that readers come away with a thorough picture of the field, how it has evolved, and where future scholars might take us. This unique approach is well suited to students and scholars of both U.S. history and religious studies and encourages interdisciplinary analysis for the fields of religion and politics.
Conceived in Doubt
Americans have long acknowledged a deep connection between evangelical religion and democracy in the early days of the republic. This is a widely accepted narrative that is maintained as a matter of fact and tradition—and in spite of evangelicalism’s more authoritarian and reactionary aspects. In Conceived in Doubt, Amanda Porterfield challenges this standard interpretation of evangelicalism’s relation to democracy and describes the intertwined relationship between religion and partisan politics that emerged in the formative era of the early republic. In the 1790s, religious doubt became common in the young republic as the culture shifted from mere skepticism toward darker expressions ...
