The Myth of American Religious Freedom

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Author :
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.

The Rise and Decline of American Religious Freedom

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Author :
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.

Exporting Freedom

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Publisher : Harvard University Press
ISBN 13 : 9780674286023
Total Pages : 0 pages
Book Rating : 4.2/5 (86 download)

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Book Synopsis Exporting Freedom by : Anna Su

Download or read book Exporting Freedom written by Anna Su and published by Harvard University Press. This book was released on 2016-01-04 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Religious freedom is widely recognized today as a basic human right, guaranteed by nearly all national constitutions. Exporting Freedom charts the rise of religious freedom as an ideal firmly enshrined in international law and shows how America’s promotion of the cause of individuals worldwide to freely practice their faith advanced its ascent as a global power. Anna Su traces America’s exportation of religious freedom in various laws and policies enacted over the course of the twentieth century, in diverse locations and under a variety of historical circumstances. Influenced by growing religious tolerance at home and inspired by a belief in the United States’ obligation to protect the persecuted beyond its borders, American officials drafted constitutions as part of military occupations—in the Philippines after the Spanish-American War, in Japan following World War II, and in Iraq after 2003. They also spearheaded efforts to reform the international legal order by pursuing Wilsonian principles in the League of Nations, drafting the United Nations Charter, and signing the Helsinki Accords during the Cold War. The fruits of these labors are evident in the religious freedom provisions in international legal instruments, regional human rights conventions, and national constitutions. In examining the evolution of religious freedom from an expression of the civilizing impulse to the democratization of states and, finally, through the promotion of human rights, Su offers a new understanding of the significance of religion in international relations.

Religious Liberty in Crisis

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Author :
Publisher : Encounter Books
ISBN 13 : 164177181X
Total Pages : 192 pages
Book Rating : 4.6/5 (417 download)

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Book Synopsis Religious Liberty in Crisis by : Ken Starr

Download or read book Religious Liberty in Crisis written by Ken Starr and published by Encounter Books. This book was released on 2021-04-13 with total page 192 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: What was unfathomable in the first two decades of the twenty-first century has become a reality. Religious liberty, both in the United States and across the world, is in crisis. As we navigate the coming decades, We the People must know our rights more than ever, particularly as it relates to the freedom to exercise our religion. Armed with a proper understanding of this country’s rich tradition of religious liberty, we can protect faith through any crisis that comes our way. Without that understanding, though, we’ll watch as the creeping secular age erodes our freedom. In this book, Ken Starr explores the crises that threaten religious liberty in America. He also examines the ways well-meaning government action sometimes undermines the religious liberty of the people, and how the Supreme Court in the past has ultimately provided us protection from such forms of government overreach. He also explores the possibilities of future overreach by government officials. The reader will learn how each of us can resist the quarantining of our faith within the confines of the law, and why that resistance is important. Through gaining a deep understanding of the Constitutional importance of religious expression, Starr invites the reader to be a part of protecting those rights of religious freedom and taking a more active role in advancing the cause of liberty.

The Rise of Religious Liberty in America

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Author :
Publisher :
ISBN 13 :
Total Pages : 580 pages
Book Rating : 4.:/5 (6 download)

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Book Synopsis The Rise of Religious Liberty in America by : Sanford Hoadley Cobb

Download or read book The Rise of Religious Liberty in America written by Sanford Hoadley Cobb and published by . This book was released on 1902 with total page 580 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Our Dear-Bought Liberty

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Author :
Publisher : Harvard University Press
ISBN 13 : 067424723X
Total Pages : 369 pages
Book Rating : 4.6/5 (742 download)

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Book Synopsis Our Dear-Bought Liberty by : Michael D. Breidenbach

Download or read book Our Dear-Bought Liberty written by Michael D. Breidenbach and published by Harvard University Press. This book was released on 2021-05-25 with total page 369 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: How early American Catholics justified secularism and overcame suspicions of disloyalty, transforming ideas of religious liberty in the process. In colonial America, Catholics were presumed dangerous until proven loyal. Yet Catholics went on to sign the Declaration of Independence and helped to finalize the First Amendment to the Constitution. What explains this remarkable transformation? Michael Breidenbach shows how Catholic leaders emphasized their churchÕs own traditionsÑrather than Enlightenment liberalismÑto secure the religious liberty that enabled their incorporation in American life. Catholics responded to charges of disloyalty by denying papal infallibility and the popeÕs authority to intervene in civil affairs. Rome staunchly rejected such dissent, but reform-minded Catholics justified their stance by looking to conciliarism, an intellectual tradition rooted in medieval Catholic thought yet compatible with a republican view of temporal independence and church-state separation. Drawing on new archival material, Breidenbach finds that early American Catholic leaders, including Maryland founder Cecil Calvert and members of the prominent Carroll family, relied on the conciliarist tradition to help institute religious toleration, including the Maryland Toleration Act of 1649. The critical role of Catholics in establishing American churchÐstate separation enjoins us to revise not only our sense of who the American founders were, but also our understanding of the sources of secularism. ChurchÐstate separation in America, generally understood as the product of a Protestant-driven Enlightenment, was in key respects derived from Catholic thinking. Our Dear-Bought Liberty therefore offers a dramatic departure from received wisdom, suggesting that religious liberty in America was not bestowed by liberal consensus but partly defined through the ingenuity of a persecuted minority.

Sacred Liberty

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Publisher : HarperCollins
ISBN 13 : 0062743163
Total Pages : 565 pages
Book Rating : 4.0/5 (627 download)

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Book Synopsis Sacred Liberty by : Steven Waldman

Download or read book Sacred Liberty written by Steven Waldman and published by HarperCollins. This book was released on 2019-05-07 with total page 565 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Sacred Liberty offers a dramatic, sweeping survey of how America built a unique model of religious freedom, perhaps the nation’s “greatest invention.” Steven Waldman, the bestselling author of Founding Faith, shows how early ideas about religious liberty were tested and refined amidst the brutal persecution of Catholics, Baptists, Mormons, Quakers, African slaves, Native Americans, Muslims, Jews and Jehovah’s Witnesses. American leaders drove religious freedom forward--figures like James Madison, George Washington, the World War II presidents (Roosevelt, Truman, and Eisenhower) and even George W. Bush. But the biggest heroes were the regular Americans – people like Mary Dyer, Marie Barnett and W.D. Mohammed -- who risked their lives or reputations by demanding to practice their faiths freely. Just as the documentary Eyes on the Prize captured the rich drama of the civil rights movement, Sacred Liberty brings to life the remarkable story of how America became one of the few nations in world history that has religious freedom, diversity and high levels of piety at the same time. Finally, Sacred Liberty provides a roadmap for how, in the face of modern threats to religious freedom, this great achievement can be preserved.

Liberty in the Things of God

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Author :
Publisher : Yale University Press
ISBN 13 : 0300226632
Total Pages : 247 pages
Book Rating : 4.3/5 (2 download)

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Book Synopsis Liberty in the Things of God by : Robert Louis Wilken

Download or read book Liberty in the Things of God written by Robert Louis Wilken and published by Yale University Press. This book was released on 2019-04-09 with total page 247 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From one of the leading historians of Christianity comes this sweeping reassessment of religious freedom, from the church fathers to John Locke In the ancient world Christian apologists wrote in defense of their right to practice their faith in the cities of the Roman Empire. They argued that religious faith is an inward disposition of the mind and heart and cannot be coerced by external force, laying a foundation on which later generations would build. Chronicling the history of the struggle for religious freedom from the early Christian movement through the seventeenth century, Robert Louis Wilken shows that the origins of religious freedom and liberty of conscience are religious, not political, in origin. They took form before the Enlightenment through the labors of men and women of faith who believed there could be no justice in society without liberty in the things of God. This provocative book, drawing on writings from the early Church as well as the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, reminds us of how "the meditations of the past were fitted to affairs of a later day."

The Religion Clauses

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Publisher : Oxford University Press, USA
ISBN 13 : 0190699736
Total Pages : 241 pages
Book Rating : 4.1/5 (96 download)

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Book Synopsis The Religion Clauses by : Erwin Chemerinsky

Download or read book The Religion Clauses written by Erwin Chemerinsky and published by Oxford University Press, USA. This book was released on 2020 with total page 241 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "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"--

With God on Our Side

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Publisher : Broadway
ISBN 13 : 0767922573
Total Pages : 464 pages
Book Rating : 4.7/5 (679 download)

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Book Synopsis With God on Our Side by : William Curtis Martin

Download or read book With God on Our Side written by William Curtis Martin and published by Broadway. This book was released on 2005 with total page 464 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The rise of the Religious Right is one of the most important political and cultural stories of our time. To many, this controversial movement threatens to upset the nation's delicate balance of religious and secular interests. To others, the Religious Right is valiantly struggling to preserve religious liberty and to prove itself as the last, best hope to save America's soul. In With God on Our Side --the first balanced account of conservative Christians' impact on post-war politics--William Martin paints a vivid and authoritative portrait of America's most powerful political interest group. Although its members now number between forty and sixty million people, the Religious Right has not always carried the tremendous--and growing--political clout it enjoys today. A hundred years ago, scattered groups of conservative Christians worked fervently to spread the Gospel, but their involvement in politics was marginal. Early in this century, however, a series of charismatic and ambitious leaders began transforming the movement; by the election of John F. Kennedy as our first Catholic president, the Religious Right had found its voice. Politics and religion began mixing as never before. From Richard Nixon's strategic manipulation of Graham's religious influence in the 1970s, to Ronald Reagan's association with Falwell's Moral Majority in the 1980s, to the Christian Coalition's emergence as a slick, sophisticated political machine, the line separating the pulpit from the presidency became increasingly blurred. Now, preachers such as Graham, Falwell, and Pat Robertson preside over ministries so vast and well organized that most politicians can ill afford to ignore their views--or lose their votes. In recent years, the Religious Right's political influence has propelled it into spheres beyond pure politics. Race relations, abortion and reproductive rights, school curricula, the nature and role of the family--conservative Christians have embraced all of these socially charged issues, and their activism has irrevocably altered the way America confronts its thorniest problems. How does a free society draw the line between Church and State without removing religious conviction from public life? What motivates individual Americans to do battle in the culture wars? Most importantly, when politicians and religiously motivated activists join forces, who holds the reins? Drawing on over 100 new interviews with key figures in the movement, William Martin brilliantly captures the spirit of the age as he explores both sides of this dramatic debate. Written in conjunction with the producers of the public television series of the same name, this landmark book is essential reading for all Americans--conservative and liberal, fundamentalist and atheist--who care about the spiritual health and political future of our country. From the Hardcover edition.

The Future of Religious Freedom

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Author :
Publisher : Oxford University Press
ISBN 13 : 0199930899
Total Pages : 385 pages
Book Rating : 4.1/5 (999 download)

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Book Synopsis The Future of Religious Freedom by : Allen D. Hertzke

Download or read book The Future of Religious Freedom written by Allen D. Hertzke and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2013 with total page 385 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Based on a symposium held in Istanbul, Turkey.

The Naked Public Square

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Publisher : Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing
ISBN 13 : 9780802800800
Total Pages : 300 pages
Book Rating : 4.8/5 (8 download)

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Book Synopsis The Naked Public Square by : Richard John Neuhaus

Download or read book The Naked Public Square written by Richard John Neuhaus and published by Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing. This book was released on 1986 with total page 300 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Underlying the many crises in American life, writes Richard John Neuhaus, is a crisis of faith. It is not enough that more people should believe or that those who believe should believe more strongly. Rather, the faith of persons and communities must be more compellingly related to the public arena. "The naked public square"--which results from the exclusion of popular values from the public forum--will almost certainly result in the death of democracy. The great challenge, says Neuhaus, is the reconstruction of a public philosophy that can undergird American life and America's ambiguous place in the world. To be truly democratic and to endure, such a public philosophy must be grounded in values that are based on Judeo-Christian religion. The remedy begins with recognizing that democratic theory and practice, which have in the past often been indifferent or hostile to religion, must now be legitimated in terms compatible with biblical faith. Neuhaus explores the strengths and weaknesses of various sectors of American religion in pursuing this task of critical legitimation. Arguing that America is now engaged in an historic moment of testing, he draws upon Protestant, Catholic, and Jewish thinkers who have in other moments of testing seen that the stakes are very high--for America, for the promise of democratic freedom elsewhere, and possibly for God's purpose in the world. An honest analysis of the situation, says Neuhaus, shatters false polarizations between left and right, liberal and conservative. In a democratic culture, the believer's respect for nonbelievers is not a compromise but a requirement of the believer's faith. Similarly, the democratic rights of those outside the communities of religious faith can be assured only by the inclusion of religiously-grounded values in the common life. The Naked Public Square does not offer yet another partisan program for political of social change. Rather, it offers a deeply disturbing, but finally hopeful, examination of Abraham Lincoln's century-old question--whether this nation or any nation so conceived and so dedicated can long endure.

Annual Report on International Religious Freedom 2007, February 2008, 110-2 Report, *

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Author :
Publisher :
ISBN 13 :
Total Pages : 848 pages
Book Rating : 4.:/5 (319 download)

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Book Synopsis Annual Report on International Religious Freedom 2007, February 2008, 110-2 Report, * by :

Download or read book Annual Report on International Religious Freedom 2007, February 2008, 110-2 Report, * written by and published by . This book was released on 2008 with total page 848 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

God of Liberty

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Author :
Publisher : Basic Books
ISBN 13 : 0465022774
Total Pages : 306 pages
Book Rating : 4.4/5 (65 download)

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Book Synopsis God of Liberty by : Thomas S Kidd

Download or read book God of Liberty written by Thomas S Kidd and published by Basic Books. This book was released on 2010-10-05 with total page 306 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A "thought-provoking, meticulously researched" testament to evangelical Christians' crucial contribution to American independence and a timely appeal for the same spiritual vitality today (Washington Times). At the dawn of the Revolutionary War, America was already a nation of diverse faiths-the First Great Awakening and Enlightenment concepts such as deism and atheism had endowed the colonists with varying and often opposed religious beliefs. Despite their differences, however, Americans found common ground against British tyranny and formed an alliance that would power the American Revolution. In God of Liberty, historian Thomas S. Kidd offers the first comprehensive account of religion's role during this transformative period and how it gave form to our nation and sustained it through its tumultuous birth -- and how it can be a force within our country during times of transition today.

Religious Liberty in America

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Publisher :
ISBN 13 :
Total Pages : 288 pages
Book Rating : 4.3/5 (91 download)

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Book Synopsis Religious Liberty in America by : Louis Fisher

Download or read book Religious Liberty in America written by Louis Fisher and published by . This book was released on 2002 with total page 288 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: It is often assumed that the judiciary—especially the Supreme Court—provides the best protection of our religious freedom. Louis Fisher, however, argues that only on occasion does the Court lead the charge for minority rights. More likely it is seen pulling up the rear. By contrast, Congress frequently acts to protect religious groups by exempting them from general laws on taxation, social security, military service, labor, and countless other statutes. Indeed, legislative action on behalf of religious freedom is an American success story, but one that renowned constitutional authority Fisher argues has been poorly understood by most of us. Taking in the full span of American history, Fisher demonstrates that over the course of two centuries of American government Congress has often been in the forefront of establishing and protecting rights that have been neglected, denied, or unrecognized by the Court-and that statutory provisions far outstrip, in both number and importance, the court cases that have expanded religious rights. In this concise and insightful book, Fisher presents a series of important case studies that explain how Supreme Court rulings on religious liberty have been challenged and countermanded by public pressures, legislation, and independent state action. He tells how religious groups interested in securing the rights of conscientious objectors received satisfaction by taking their cases to Congress, not the courts; how public uproar over a 1940 Supreme Court ruling sustaining compulsory flag-salutes resulted in a court reversal; and how Congress intervened in a 1986 ruling upholding a military prohibition of skullcaps for Jews. By describing other controversies such as school prayer, Indian religious freedom, the religious use of peyote, and statutory exemptions for religious organizations, Fisher convincingly demonstrates that we must understand the political and not just the judicial context for the safeguards that protect religious minorities. As this book shows, the origin and growth of an individual's right to believe or not believe—and the securing of that right—has occurred almost entirely outside the courtroom. Religious Liberty in America persuasively challenges judicial supremacists on church-state issues and provides a highly readable introduction for all students and citizens concerned with their right to believe as they wish.

The End of White Christian America

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Author :
Publisher : Simon and Schuster
ISBN 13 : 1501122290
Total Pages : 320 pages
Book Rating : 4.5/5 (11 download)

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Book Synopsis The End of White Christian America by : Robert P. Jones

Download or read book The End of White Christian America written by Robert P. Jones and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2016-07-12 with total page 320 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "The founder and CEO of Public Religion Research Institute (PRRI) and columnist for the Atlantic describes how white Protestant Christians have declined in influence and power since the 1990s and explores the effect this has had on America, "--NoveList.

Imagining Judeo-Christian America

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Author :
Publisher : University of Chicago Press
ISBN 13 : 022666385X
Total Pages : 361 pages
Book Rating : 4.2/5 (266 download)

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Book Synopsis Imagining Judeo-Christian America by : K. Healan Gaston

Download or read book Imagining Judeo-Christian America written by K. Healan Gaston and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 2019-11-13 with total page 361 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “Judeo-Christian” is a remarkably easy term to look right through. Judaism and Christianity obviously share tenets, texts, and beliefs that have strongly influenced American democracy. In this ambitious book, however, K. Healan Gaston challenges the myth of a monolithic Judeo-Christian America. She demonstrates that the idea is not only a recent and deliberate construct, but also a potentially dangerous one. From the time of its widespread adoption in the 1930s, the ostensible inclusiveness of Judeo-Christian terminology concealed efforts to promote particular conceptions of religion, secularism, and politics. Gaston also shows that this new language, originally rooted in arguments over the nature of democracy that intensified in the early Cold War years, later became a marker in the culture wars that continue today. She argues that the debate on what constituted Judeo-Christian—and American—identity has shaped the country’s religious and political culture much more extensively than previously recognized.