No establishment of religion : America's original contribution to religious liberty / edited by T. Jeremy Gunn, John Witte, Jr.

Enhanced descriptions from Syndetics:

The First Amendment guarantee that "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion" rejected the millennium-old Western policy of supporting one form of Christianity in each nation and subjugating all other faiths. The exact meaning and application of this American innovation, however, has always proved elusive. Individual states found it difficult to remove traditional laws that controlled religious doctrine, liturgy, and church life, and that discriminated against unpopular religions. They found it even harder to decide more subtle legal questions that continue to divide Americans today: Did the constitution prohibit governmental support for religion altogether, or just preferential support for some religions over others? Did it require that government remove Sabbath, blasphemy, and oath-taking laws, or could they now be justified on other grounds? Did it mean the removal of religious texts, symbols, and ceremonies from public documents and government lands, or could a democratic government represent these in ever more inclusive ways? These twelve essays stake out strong and sometimes competing positions on what "no establishment of religion" meant to the American founders and to subsequent generations of Americans, and what it might mean today.

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CHOICE Review

Given the First Amendment's references to both the establishment and the free exercise of religion, it seems counterintuitive to devote an extended volume almost exclusively to the establishment clause, but Gunn and Witte (both, Emory Univ.) have collected 13 solid essays that portray the clause as a major American contribution to Western thought. Contributors are a virtual Who's Who in the field and include (in order of presentation) T. Jeremy Gunn, Michael W. McConnell, Mark D. McGarvie, David Little, Paul Finkelman, Ralph Ketcham, Derek H. Davis, Carl H. Esbeck, Daniel L. Dreisbach, Steven K. Green, Thomas C. Berg, Kent Greenawalt, and Martin E. Marty. Most trace the roots of disestablishment to colonial America and believe that the concept is similar to, if not identical with, that of separation of church and state. Although recognizing rival interpretations, most contributors further believe that the Supreme Court was justified in incorporating the establishment clause into the Fourteenth Amendment. So many of the essayists reference and critique Philip Hamburger's provocative views in his Separation of Church and State (CH, Dec'02, 40-2112) that the book would have profited from an essay by him. Summing Up: Recommended. Upper-division undergraduate, graduate, and research collections. J. R. Vile Middle Tennessee State University