Free Religion An American Faith

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The Myth of American Religious Freedom

Author : David Sehat
Publisher : Oxford University Press
ISBN 13 : 0199793115
Total Pages : 368 pages
Book Rating : 4.1/5 (997 download)

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Book Synopsis The Myth of American Religious Freedom by : David Sehat

Download or read book The Myth of American Religious Freedom written by David Sehat and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2011-01-14 with total page 368 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In the battles over religion and politics in America, both liberals and conservatives often appeal to history. Liberals claim that the Founders separated church and state. But for much of American history, David Sehat writes, Protestant Christianity was intimately intertwined with the state. Yet the past was not the Christian utopia that conservatives imagine either. Instead, a Protestant moral establishment prevailed, using government power to punish free thinkers and religious dissidents. In The Myth of American Religious Freedom, Sehat provides an eye-opening history of religion in public life, overturning our most cherished myths. Originally, the First Amendment applied only to the federal government, which had limited authority. The Protestant moral establishment ruled on the state level. Using moral laws to uphold religious power, religious partisans enforced a moral and religious orthodoxy against Catholics, Jews, Mormons, agnostics, and others. Not until 1940 did the U.S. Supreme Court extend the First Amendment to the states. As the Supreme Court began to dismantle the connections between religion and government, Sehat argues, religious conservatives mobilized to maintain their power and began the culture wars of the last fifty years. To trace the rise and fall of this Protestant establishment, Sehat focuses on a series of dissenters--abolitionist William Lloyd Garrison, suffragist Elizabeth Cady Stanton, socialist Eugene V. Debs, and many others. Shattering myths held by both the left and right, David Sehat forces us to rethink some of our most deeply held beliefs. By showing the bad history used on both sides, he denies partisans a safe refuge with the Founders.

Faith in Freedom

Author : Andrew R. Polk
Publisher : Cornell University Press
ISBN 13 : 150175923X
Total Pages : 268 pages
Book Rating : 4.5/5 (17 download)

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Book Synopsis Faith in Freedom by : Andrew R. Polk

Download or read book Faith in Freedom written by Andrew R. Polk and published by Cornell University Press. This book was released on 2021-12-15 with total page 268 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In Faith in Freedom, Andrew R. Polk argues that the American civil religion so many have identified as indigenous to the founding ideology was, in fact, the result of a strategic campaign of religious propaganda. Far from being the natural result of the nation's religious underpinning or the later spiritual machinations of conservative Protestants, American civil religion and the resultant "Christian nationalism" of today were crafted by secular elites in the middle of the twentieth century. Polk's genealogy of the national motto, "In God We Trust," revises the very meaning of the contemporary American nation. Polk shows how Presidents Franklin D. Roosevelt, Harry S Truman, and Dwight D. Eisenhower, working with politicians, advertising executives, and military public relations experts, exploited denominational religious affiliations and beliefs in order to unite Americans during the Second World War and, then, the early Cold War. Armed opposition to the Soviet Union was coupled with militant support for free economic markets, local control of education and housing, and liberties of speech and worship. These preferences were cultivated by state actors so as to support a set of right-wing positions including anti-communism, the Jim Crow status quo, and limited taxation and regulation. Faith in Freedom is a pioneering work of American religious history. By assessing the ideas, policies, and actions of three US Presidents and their White House staff, Polk sheds light on the origins of the ideological, religious, and partisan divides that describe the American polity today.

The Production of American Religious Freedom

Author : Finbarr Curtis
Publisher : NYU Press
ISBN 13 : 1479843806
Total Pages : 219 pages
Book Rating : 4.4/5 (798 download)

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Book Synopsis The Production of American Religious Freedom by : Finbarr Curtis

Download or read book The Production of American Religious Freedom written by Finbarr Curtis and published by NYU Press. This book was released on 2016-08-02 with total page 219 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Americans love religious freedom. Few agree, however, about what they mean by either “religion” or “freedom.” Rather than resolve these debates, Finbarr Curtis argues that there is no such thing as religious freedom. Lacking any consistent content, religious freedom is a shifting and malleable rhetoric employed for a variety of purposes. While Americans often think of freedom as the right to be left alone, the free exercise of religion works to produce, challenge, distribute, and regulate different forms of social power. The book traces shifts in the notion of religious freedom in America from The Second Great Awakening, to the fiction of Louisa May Alcott and the films of D.W. Griffith, through William Jennings Bryan and the Scopes Trial, and up to debates over the Tea Party to illuminate how Protestants have imagined individual and national forms of identity. A chapter on Al Smith considers how the first Catholic presidential nominee of a major party challenged Protestant views about the separation of church and state. Moving later in the twentieth century, the book analyzes Malcolm X’s more sweeping rejection of Christian freedom in favor of radical forms of revolutionary change. The final chapters examine how contemporary controversies over intelligent design and the claims of corporations to exercise religion are at the forefront of efforts to shift regulatory power away from the state and toward private institutions like families, churches, and corporations. The volume argues that religious freedom is produced within competing visions of governance in a self-governing nation.

Religious Freedom

Author : Tisa Wenger
Publisher : UNC Press Books
ISBN 13 : 1469634635
Total Pages : 313 pages
Book Rating : 4.4/5 (696 download)

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Book Synopsis Religious Freedom by : Tisa Wenger

Download or read book Religious Freedom written by Tisa Wenger and published by UNC Press Books. This book was released on 2017-08-31 with total page 313 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Religious freedom is so often presented as a timeless American ideal and an inalienable right, appearing fully formed at the founding of the United States. That is simply not so, Tisa Wenger contends in this sweeping and brilliantly argued book. Instead, American ideas about religious freedom were continually reinvented through a vibrant national discourse--Wenger calls it "religious freedom talk--that cannot possibly be separated from the evolving politics of race and empire. More often than not, Wenger demonstrates, religious freedom talk worked to privilege the dominant white Christian population. At the same time, a diverse array of minority groups at home and colonized people abroad invoked and reinterpreted this ideal to defend themselves and their ways of life. In so doing they posed sharp challenges to the racial and religious exclusions of American life. People of almost every religious stripe have argued, debated, negotiated, and brought into being an ideal called American religious freedom, subtly transforming their own identities and traditions in the process. In a post-9/11 world, Wenger reflects, public attention to religious freedom and its implications is as consequential as it has ever been.

We Have a Religion

Author : Tisa Joy Wenger
Publisher : Univ of North Carolina Press
ISBN 13 : 0807832626
Total Pages : 357 pages
Book Rating : 4.8/5 (78 download)

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Book Synopsis We Have a Religion by : Tisa Joy Wenger

Download or read book We Have a Religion written by Tisa Joy Wenger and published by Univ of North Carolina Press. This book was released on 2009 with total page 357 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: For Native Americans, religious freedom has been an elusive goal. From nineteenth-century bans on indigenous ceremonial practices to twenty-first-century legal battles over sacred lands, peyote use, and hunting practices, the U.S. government has often act

The Politics of American Religious Identity

Author : Kathleen Flake
Publisher : Univ of North Carolina Press
ISBN 13 : 9780807855010
Total Pages : 260 pages
Book Rating : 4.8/5 (55 download)

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Book Synopsis The Politics of American Religious Identity by : Kathleen Flake

Download or read book The Politics of American Religious Identity written by Kathleen Flake and published by Univ of North Carolina Press. This book was released on 2004 with total page 260 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Between 1901 and 1907, a coalition of Protestant churches sought to expel newly elected Reed Smoot from the Senate for being a Mormon. Here, Kathleen Flake shows how the subsequent investigative hearing ultimately mediated a compromise between Progressive Era Protestantism and Mormonism and resolved the nation's long-standing "Mormon Problem."

The Rise and Decline of American Religious Freedom

Author : Steven D. Smith
Publisher : Harvard University Press
ISBN 13 : 0674730135
Total Pages : 236 pages
Book Rating : 4.6/5 (747 download)

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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.

Free to Believe

Author : Luke Goodrich
Publisher : Multnomah
ISBN 13 : 0525652906
Total Pages : 290 pages
Book Rating : 4.5/5 (256 download)

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Book Synopsis Free to Believe by : Luke Goodrich

Download or read book Free to Believe written by Luke Goodrich and published by Multnomah. This book was released on 2019-10-22 with total page 290 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A leading religious freedom attorney, the veteran of several Supreme Court battles, helps people of faith understand religious liberty in our rapidly changing culture—why it matters, how it is threatened, and how to respond with confidence and grace. WINNER OF THE CHRISTIAN BOOK AWARD® • THE GOSPEL COALITION'S BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR, PUBLIC THEOLOGY & CURRENT EVENTS • NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY WORLD MAGAZINE Many Americans feel like their religious freedom is under attack. They see the culture changing around them, and they fear that their beliefs will soon be punished as a form of bigotry. Others think these fears are overblown and say Christians should stop complaining about imaginary persecution. In Free to Believe leading religious freedom attorney Luke Goodrich challenges both sides of this debate, offering a fresh perspective on the most controversial religious freedom conflicts today. With penetrating insights on gay rights, abortion rights, Islam, and the public square, Goodrich argues that threats to religious freedom are real—but they might not be quite what you think. As a lawyer at the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty, Goodrich has won several historic Supreme Court victories for clients such as the Little Sisters of the Poor and Hobby Lobby. Combining frontline experience with faithful attention to Scripture, Goodrich shows why religious freedom matters, how it is threatened, and how to protect it. The result is a groundbreaking book full of clear insight, practical wisdom, and refreshing hope for all people of faith.

The Impossibility of Religious Freedom

Author : Winnifred Fallers Sullivan
Publisher : Princeton University Press
ISBN 13 : 0691180954
Total Pages : 330 pages
Book Rating : 4.6/5 (911 download)

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Book Synopsis The Impossibility of Religious Freedom by : Winnifred Fallers Sullivan

Download or read book The Impossibility of Religious Freedom written by Winnifred Fallers Sullivan and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2018-04-24 with total page 330 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Constitution may guarantee it. But religious freedom in America is, in fact, impossible. So argues this timely and iconoclastic work by law and religion scholar Winnifred Sullivan. Sullivan uses as the backdrop for the book the trial of Warner vs. Boca Raton, a recent case concerning the laws that protect the free exercise of religion in America. The trial, for which the author served as an expert witness, concerned regulations banning certain memorials from a multiconfessional nondenominational cemetery in Boca Raton, Florida. The book portrays the unsuccessful struggle of Catholic, Protestant, and Jewish families in Boca Raton to preserve the practice of placing such religious artifacts as crosses and stars of David on the graves of the city-owned burial ground. Sullivan demonstrates how, during the course of the proceeding, citizens from all walks of life and religious backgrounds were harassed to define just what their religion is. She argues that their plight points up a shocking truth: religion cannot be coherently defined for the purposes of American law, because everyone has different definitions of what religion is. Indeed, while religious freedom as a political idea was arguably once a force for tolerance, it has now become a force for intolerance, she maintains. A clear-eyed look at the laws created to protect religious freedom, this vigorously argued book offers a new take on a right deemed by many to be necessary for a free democratic society. It will have broad appeal not only for religion scholars, but also for anyone interested in law and the Constitution. Featuring a new preface by the author, The Impossibility of Religious Freedom offers a new take on a right deemed by many to be necessary for a free democratic society.

We Came to America

Author : Faith Ringgold
Publisher : Dragonfly Books
ISBN 13 : 0593482700
Total Pages : 33 pages
Book Rating : 4.5/5 (934 download)

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Book Synopsis We Came to America by : Faith Ringgold

Download or read book We Came to America written by Faith Ringgold and published by Dragonfly Books. This book was released on 2022-06-28 with total page 33 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Acclaimed artist and Caldecott-winning picture book creator Faith Ringgold shares an inspiring look at America's lineage in this stunning ode to our country--past, present, and future. America is a land of diversity. Whether driven by dreams and hope, or escaping poverty or persecution, our ancestors--and the faces of America today--represent people from every reach of the globe. And each person brought with them a unique gift--of art and music; of determination and grit; of ideas and strength--that forever shaped the country we all call home. Vividly evoked in Faith Ringgold's sumptuous colors and patterns, WE CAME TO AMERICA is an ode to every American who came before us, and a tribute to the children who will carry its message into our future.

Divided by Faith

Author : Michael O. Emerson
Publisher : Oxford University Press, USA
ISBN 13 : 9780195147070
Total Pages : 228 pages
Book Rating : 4.1/5 (47 download)

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Book Synopsis Divided by Faith by : Michael O. Emerson

Download or read book Divided by Faith written by Michael O. Emerson and published by Oxford University Press, USA. This book was released on 2001 with total page 228 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Through a nationwide survey, the authors of this study conclude that US Evangelicals may actually be preserving the racial chasm, not through active racism, but because their theology hinders their ability to recognise systematic injustice.

The Founding Myth

Author : Andrew L. Seidel
Publisher : Sterling
ISBN 13 : 9781454943914
Total Pages : 368 pages
Book Rating : 4.9/5 (439 download)

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Book Synopsis The Founding Myth by : Andrew L. Seidel

Download or read book The Founding Myth written by Andrew L. Seidel and published by Sterling. This book was released on 2021-10-12 with total page 368 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Was America founded on Judeo-Christian principles? Are the Ten Commandments the basis for American law? In the paperback edition of this critically acclaimed book, a constitutional attorney settles the debate about religion's role in America's founding. In today's contentious political climate, understanding religion's role in American government is more important than ever. Christian nationalists assert that our nation was founded on Judeo-Christian principles, and advocate an agenda based on this popular historical claim. But is this belief true? The Founding Myth answers the question once and for all. Andrew L. Seidel builds his case by comparing the Ten Commandments to the Constitution and contrasting biblical doctrine with America's founding philosophy, showing that the Declaration of Independence contradicts the Bible. Thoroughly researched, this persuasively argued and fascinating book proves that America was not built on the Bible and that Christian nationalism is un-American. Includes a new epilogue reflecting on the role Christian nationalism played in fomenting the January 6, 2021, insurrection in DC and the warnings the nation missed.

Faith in Action

Author : Richard L. Wood
Publisher : University of Chicago Press
ISBN 13 : 0226905969
Total Pages : 366 pages
Book Rating : 4.2/5 (269 download)

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Book Synopsis Faith in Action by : Richard L. Wood

Download or read book Faith in Action written by Richard L. Wood and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 2002-09-15 with total page 366 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Over the past fifteen years, associations throughout the U.S. have organized citizens around issues of equality and social justice, often through local churches. But in contrast to President Bush's vision of faith-based activism, in which groups deliver social services to the needy, these associations do something greater. Drawing on institutions of faith, they reshape public policies that neglect the disadvantaged. To find out how this faith-based form of community organizing succeeds, Richard L. Wood spent several years working with two local groups in Oakland, California—the faith-based Pacific Institute for Community Organization and the race-based Center for Third World Organizing. Comparing their activist techniques and achievements, Wood argues that the alternative cultures and strategies of these two groups give them radically different access to community ties and social capital. Creative and insightful, Faith in Action shows how community activism and religious organizations can help build a more just and democratic future for all Americans.

Founding Faith

Author : Steven Waldman
Publisher : Random House Trade Paperbacks
ISBN 13 : 0812974743
Total Pages : 306 pages
Book Rating : 4.8/5 (129 download)

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Book Synopsis Founding Faith by : Steven Waldman

Download or read book Founding Faith written by Steven Waldman and published by Random House Trade Paperbacks. This book was released on 2009-03-10 with total page 306 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The culture wars have distorted the dramatic story of how Americans came to worship freely. Many activists on the right maintain that the United States was founded as a “Christian nation.” Many on the left contend that the First Amendment was designed to boldly separate church and state. Neither of these claims is true, argues Beliefnet.com editor in chief Steven Waldman. With refreshing objectivity, Waldman narrates the real story of how our nation’s Founders forged a new approach to religious liberty. Founding Faith vividly describes the religious development of five Founders. Benjamin Franklin melded the Puritan theology of his youth and the Enlightenment philosophy of his adulthood. John Adams’s pungent views on religion stoked his revolutionary fervor and shaped his political strategy. George Washington came to view religious tolerance as a military necessity. Thomas Jefferson pursued a dramatic quest to “rescue” Jesus, in part by editing the Bible. Finally, it was James Madison who crafted an integrated vision of how to prevent tyranny while encouraging religious vibrancy. The spiritual custody battle over the Founding Fathers and the role of religion in America continues today. Waldman at last sets the record straight, revealing the real history of religious freedom to be dramatic, unexpected, paradoxical, and inspiring.

The Transformation of American Religion

Author : Alan Wolfe
Publisher : University of Chicago Press
ISBN 13 : 0226905187
Total Pages : 321 pages
Book Rating : 4.2/5 (269 download)

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Book Synopsis The Transformation of American Religion by : Alan Wolfe

Download or read book The Transformation of American Religion written by Alan Wolfe and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 2005-04 with total page 321 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this astounding account, a leading sociologist demonstrates that religion in America has become so tamed and softened that it hardly serves any of its original functions.

Defending American Religious Neutrality

Author : Andrew Koppelman
Publisher : Harvard University Press
ISBN 13 : 0674071077
Total Pages : 316 pages
Book Rating : 4.6/5 (74 download)

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Book Synopsis Defending American Religious Neutrality by : Andrew Koppelman

Download or read book Defending American Religious Neutrality written by Andrew Koppelman and published by Harvard University Press. This book was released on 2013-01-01 with total page 316 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Although it is often charged with hostility toward religion, First Amendment doctrine in fact treats religion as a distinctive human good. It insists, however, that this good be understood abstractly, without the state taking sides on any theological question. Here, a leading scholar of constitutional law explains the logic of this uniquely American form of neutrality—more religion-centered than liberal theorists propose, and less overtly theistic than conservatives advocate. The First Amendment’s guarantee of freedom of religion is under threat. Growing numbers of critics, including a near-majority of the Supreme Court, seem ready to cast aside the ideal of American religious neutrality. Andrew Koppelman defends that ideal and explains why protecting religion from political manipulation is imperative in an America of growing religious diversity. Understanding American religious neutrality, Koppelman shows, can explain some familiar puzzles. How can Bible reading in public schools be impermissible while legislative sessions begin with prayers, Christmas is an official holiday, and the words “under God” appear in the Pledge of Allegiance? Are faith-based social services, public financing of religious schools, or the teaching of intelligent design constitutional? Combining legal, historical, and philosophical analysis, Koppelman shows how law coherently navigates these conundrums. He explains why laws must have a secular legislative purpose, why old, but not new, ceremonial acknowledgments of religion are permitted, and why it is fair to give religion special treatment.

Beyond Religious Freedom

Author : Elizabeth Shakman Hurd
Publisher : Princeton University Press
ISBN 13 : 0691176221
Total Pages : 216 pages
Book Rating : 4.6/5 (911 download)

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Book Synopsis Beyond Religious Freedom by : Elizabeth Shakman Hurd

Download or read book Beyond Religious Freedom written by Elizabeth Shakman Hurd and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2017-02-14 with total page 216 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In recent years, North American and European nations have sought to legally remake religion in other countries through an unprecedented array of international initiatives. Policymakers have rallied around the notion that the fostering of religious freedom, interfaith dialogue, religious tolerance, and protections for religious minorities are the keys to combating persecution and discrimination. Beyond Religious Freedom persuasively argues that these initiatives create the very social tensions and divisions they are meant to overcome. Elizabeth Shakman Hurd looks at three critical channels of state-sponsored intervention: international religious freedom advocacy, development assistance and nation building, and international law. She shows how these initiatives make religious difference a matter of law, resulting in a divide that favors forms of religion authorized by those in power and excludes other ways of being and belonging. In exploring the dizzying power dynamics and blurred boundaries that characterize relations between "expert religion," "governed religion," and "lived religion," Hurd charts new territory in the study of religion in global politics. A forceful and timely critique of the politics of promoting religious freedom, Beyond Religious Freedom provides new insights into today's most pressing dilemmas of power, difference, and governance.