The Rise and Decline of American Religious Freedom

The Rise and Decline of American Religious Freedom
Author :
Publisher : Harvard University Press
Total Pages : 236
Release :
ISBN-10 : 9780674730137
ISBN-13 : 0674730135
Rating : 4/5 (135 Downloads)

Book Synopsis The Rise and Decline of American Religious Freedom by : Steven D. Smith

Download or read book The Rise and Decline of American Religious Freedom written by Steven D. Smith and published by Harvard University Press. This book was released on 2014-02-18 with total page 236 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Familiar accounts of religious freedom in the United States often tell a story of visionary founders who broke from centuries-old patterns of Christendom to establish a political arrangement committed to secular and religiously neutral government. These novel commitments were supposedly embodied in the religion clauses of the First Amendment. But this story is largely a fairytale, Steven Smith says in this incisive examination of a much-mythologized subject. The American achievement was not a rejection of Christian commitments but a retrieval of classic Christian ideals of freedom of the church and of conscience. Smith maintains that the First Amendment was intended merely to preserve the political status quo in matters of religion. America's distinctive contribution was, rather, a commitment to open contestation between secularist and providentialist understandings of the nation which evolved over the nineteenth century. In the twentieth century, far from vindicating constitutional principles, as conventional wisdom suggests, the Supreme Court imposed secular neutrality, which effectively repudiated this commitment to open contestation. Instead of upholding what was distinctively American and constitutional, these decisions subverted it. The negative consequences are visible today in the incoherence of religion clause jurisprudence and the intense culture wars in American politics.


The Rise and Decline of American Religious Freedom Related Books

The Rise and Decline of American Religious Freedom
Language: en
Pages: 236
Authors: Steven D. Smith
Categories: Law
Type: BOOK - Published: 2014-02-18 - Publisher: Harvard University Press

GET EBOOK

Familiar accounts of religious freedom in the United States often tell a story of visionary founders who broke from centuries-old patterns of Christendom to est
Law and International Religious Freedom
Language: en
Pages: 183
Authors: Pasquale Annicchino
Categories: Law
Type: BOOK - Published: 2017-12-01 - Publisher: Routledge

GET EBOOK

This book analyzes the promotion and protection of freedom of religion in the international arena with a particular focus on the role and influence of the US In
The Myth of American Religious Freedom
Language: en
Pages: 368
Authors: David Sehat
Categories: Religion
Type: BOOK - Published: 2011-01-14 - Publisher: Oxford University Press

GET EBOOK

In the battles over religion and politics in America, both liberals and conservatives often appeal to history. Liberals claim that the Founders separated church
Kingdom of Nauvoo: The Rise and Fall of a Religious Empire on the American Frontier
Language: en
Pages: 303
Authors: Benjamin E. Park
Categories: History
Type: BOOK - Published: 2020-02-25 - Publisher: Liveright Publishing

GET EBOOK

Best Book Award • Mormon History Association A brilliant young historian excavates the brief life of a lost Mormon city, uncovering a “grand, underappreciat
Pagans and Christians in the City
Language: en
Pages: 405
Authors: Steven D. Smith
Categories: Religion
Type: BOOK - Published: 2018-11-15 - Publisher: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing

GET EBOOK

Traditionalist Christians who oppose same-sex marriage and other cultural developments in the United States wonder why they are being forced to bracket their be