Separation of Church and State

Separation of Church and State PDF Author: Philip HAMBURGER
Publisher: Harvard University Press
ISBN: 0674038185
Category : Law
Languages : en
Pages : 529

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Book Description
In a powerful challenge to conventional wisdom, Philip Hamburger argues that the separation of church and state has no historical foundation in the First Amendment. The detailed evidence assembled here shows that eighteenth-century Americans almost never invoked this principle. Although Thomas Jefferson and others retrospectively claimed that the First Amendment separated church and state, separation became part of American constitutional law only much later. Hamburger shows that separation became a constitutional freedom largely through fear and prejudice. Jefferson supported separation out of hostility to the Federalist clergy of New England. Nativist Protestants (ranging from nineteenth-century Know Nothings to twentieth-century members of the K.K.K.) adopted the principle of separation to restrict the role of Catholics in public life. Gradually, these Protestants were joined by theologically liberal, anti-Christian secularists, who hoped that separation would limit Christianity and all other distinct religions. Eventually, a wide range of men and women called for separation. Almost all of these Americans feared ecclesiastical authority, particularly that of the Catholic Church, and, in response to their fears, they increasingly perceived religious liberty to require a separation of church from state. American religious liberty was thus redefined and even transformed. In the process, the First Amendment was often used as an instrument of intolerance and discrimination.

Separation of Church and State

Separation of Church and State PDF Author: Philip HAMBURGER
Publisher: Harvard University Press
ISBN: 0674038185
Category : Law
Languages : en
Pages : 529

Get Book Here

Book Description
In a powerful challenge to conventional wisdom, Philip Hamburger argues that the separation of church and state has no historical foundation in the First Amendment. The detailed evidence assembled here shows that eighteenth-century Americans almost never invoked this principle. Although Thomas Jefferson and others retrospectively claimed that the First Amendment separated church and state, separation became part of American constitutional law only much later. Hamburger shows that separation became a constitutional freedom largely through fear and prejudice. Jefferson supported separation out of hostility to the Federalist clergy of New England. Nativist Protestants (ranging from nineteenth-century Know Nothings to twentieth-century members of the K.K.K.) adopted the principle of separation to restrict the role of Catholics in public life. Gradually, these Protestants were joined by theologically liberal, anti-Christian secularists, who hoped that separation would limit Christianity and all other distinct religions. Eventually, a wide range of men and women called for separation. Almost all of these Americans feared ecclesiastical authority, particularly that of the Catholic Church, and, in response to their fears, they increasingly perceived religious liberty to require a separation of church from state. American religious liberty was thus redefined and even transformed. In the process, the First Amendment was often used as an instrument of intolerance and discrimination.

Separation of Church and State

Separation of Church and State PDF Author: Philip Hamburger
Publisher: Harvard University Press
ISBN: 067424642X
Category : Law
Languages : en
Pages : 294

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Book Description
In a powerful challenge to conventional wisdom, Philip Hamburger argues that the separation of church and state has no historical foundation in the First Amendment. The detailed evidence assembled here shows that eighteenth-century Americans almost never invoked this principle. Although Thomas Jefferson and others retrospectively claimed that the First Amendment separated church and state, separation became part of American constitutional law only much later. Hamburger shows that separation became a constitutional freedom largely through fear and prejudice. Jefferson supported separation out of hostility to the Federalist clergy of New England. Nativist Protestants (ranging from nineteenth-century Know Nothings to twentieth-century members of the K.K.K.) adopted the principle of separation to restrict the role of Catholics in public life. Gradually, these Protestants were joined by theologically liberal, anti-Christian secularists, who hoped that separation would limit Christianity and all other distinct religions. Eventually, a wide range of men and women called for separation. Almost all of these Americans feared ecclesiastical authority, particularly that of the Catholic Church, and, in response to their fears, they increasingly perceived religious liberty to require a separation of church from state. American religious liberty was thus redefined and even transformed. In the process, the First Amendment was often used as an instrument of intolerance and discrimination.

Separation of Church and State

Separation of Church and State PDF Author: Philip Hamburger
Publisher: 清华大学出版社有限公司
ISBN: 9780674007345
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 546

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Book Description
Hamburger argues that separation of church and state has no historical foundation in the First Amendment and shows that eighteenth-century Americans almost never invoked this principle. Although Jefferson and others retrospectively claimed a First Amendment basis for separation, it became part of American constitutional law only much later.

Separating Church and State

Separating Church and State PDF Author: Steven K. Green
Publisher: Cornell University Press
ISBN: 1501762087
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 330

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Book Description
Steven K. Green, renowned for his scholarship on the separation of church and state, charts the career of the concept and helps us understand how it has fallen into disfavor with many Americans. In 1802, President Thomas Jefferson distilled a leading idea in the early American republic and wrote of a wall of separation between church and state. That metaphor has come down from Jefferson to twenty-first-century Americans through a long history of jurisprudence, political contestation, and cultural influence. This book traces the development of the concept of separation of church and state and the Supreme Court's application of it in the law. Green finds that conservative criticisms of a separation of church and state overlook the strong historical and jurisprudential pedigree of the idea. Yet, arguing with liberal advocates of the doctrine, he notes that the idea remains fundamentally vague and thus open to loose interpretation in the courts. As such, the history of a wall of separation is more a variable index of American attitudes toward the forces of religion and state. Indeed, Green argues that the Supreme Court's use of the wall metaphor has never been essential to its rulings. The contemporary battle over the idea of a wall of separation has thus been a distraction from the real jurisprudential issues animating the contemporary courts.

The Separation of Church and State

The Separation of Church and State PDF Author: Forrest Church
Publisher: Beacon Press
ISBN: 080707747X
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 177

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Book Description
Now in paperback, a primer of essential writings about one of the cornerstones of our democracy by the original authors of the Constitution, edited by preeminant liberal theologian Forrest Church. Americans will never stop debating the question of church-state separation, and such debates invariably lead back to the nation’s beginnings and the founders’ intent. The Separation of Church and State presents a basic collection of the founders’ teachings on this topic. This concise primer gets past the rhetoric that surrounds the current debate, placing the founders’ vivid writings on religious liberty in historical perspective. Edited and with running commentary by Forrest Church, this important collection informs anyone curious about the original blueprint for our country and its government.

Church, State, and Freedom

Church, State, and Freedom PDF Author: Leo Pfeffer
Publisher: Wipf and Stock Publishers
ISBN: 1532644523
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 849

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Book Description
“I believe that complete separation of church and state is one of those miraculous things which can be best for religion and best for the state, and the best for those who are religious and those who are not religious.” – Leo Pfeffer Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof. These sixteen words epitomize a radical experiment unique in human history . . . It is the purpose of this book to examine how this experiment came to be made, what are the implications and consequences of its application to democratic living in America today, and what are the forces seeking to frustrate and defeat that experiment. (From the Foreword)

The Oxford Handbook of Church and State in the United States

The Oxford Handbook of Church and State in the United States PDF Author: Derek Davis
Publisher: OUP USA
ISBN: 0195326245
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 592

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Book Description
21 essays present a scholarly look at the intricacies and past and current debates that frame the American system of church and state, within 5 main areas: history, politics, sociology theology/philosophy and law.

The Religion Clauses

The Religion Clauses PDF Author: Erwin Chemerinsky
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
ISBN: 0190699736
Category : Law
Languages : en
Pages : 241

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Book Description
"The relationship between the government and religion is deeply divisive. With the recent changes in the composition of the Supreme Court, the First Amendment law concerning religion is likely to change dramatically in the years ahead. The Court can be expected to reject the idea of a wall separating church and state and permit much more religious involvement in government and government support for religion. The Court is also likely to expand the rights of religious people to ignore legal obligations that others have to follow, such laws that require the provision of health care benefits to employees and prohibit businesses from discriminating against people because of their sexual orientation. This book argues for the opposite and the need for separating church and state. After carefully explaining all the major approaches to the meaning of the Constitution's religion clauses, the book argues that the best approaches are for the government to be strictly secular and for there to be no special exemptions for religious people from neutral and general laws that others must obey. The book argues that this separationist approach is most consistent with the concerns of the founders who drafted the Constitution and with the needs of a religiously pluralistic society in the 21st century"--

The Church State Corporation

The Church State Corporation PDF Author: Winnifred Fallers Sullivan
Publisher:
ISBN: 022645469X
Category : Christianity and politics
Languages : en
Pages : 223

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Book Description
"What is a church and what work does "church"-the church-do today in American law? In Church State Corporation, Sullivan argues that the appeals to "the church" we find in legal opinions express what she calls a "Christian mystical political theology" that naturalizes religion in the American legal imagination and limits the law's ability to acknowledge religion more broadly. To pinpoint the work the church does in US law, Sullivan examines two recent Supreme Court cases, Hosanna-Tabor v. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (2012) and Burwell v. Hobby Lobby (2014), in order to map the contours of the "church-shaped space" at the heart of what constitutes religion in US law. Sullivan also examines a constellation of church property cases, cases developing corporate personhood such as Citizens United, and what the "Angola Church"-a collection of churches formed within the Louisiana State Penitentiary at Angola-reveals about the range of the church's influence in US law. In all, the reader is treated to a remarkably thought-provoking analysis of the ways the church persists in US law, one that calls into question our basic assumptions about our supposedly secular age"--

Religion and the Law

Religion and the Law PDF Author: Elizabeth Eddy
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1351493876
Category : Law
Languages : en
Pages : 128

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Book Description
There are few issues as controversial as where to draw the line between church and state. The framers of the Constitution's Bill of Rights began their blueprint for freedom by drawing exactly such a line. Th e fi rst clauses of the First Amendment provide: "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof." Th e justices of the Supreme Court have not been wanting for advice from self-appointed guardians. Th e diffi culty with such advice is that the contestants are more convincing when they criticize their opponents' interpretations than when they seek to establish the validity of their own.