000			02798cam a2200313 i 4500
001			17753898
003			OSt
005			20201021102903.0
008			130528s2014 mau b 001 0 eng
010			_a 2013021352
020			_a9780674724754 (hbk.)
020			_a0674724755 (hbk.)
040			_aDLC _beng _cDLC _erda
042			_apcc
043			_an-us---
050	0	0	_aKF4783 _b.S644 2014
082	0	0	_a342.7308/52 _223
100	1		_aSmith, Steven D. _q(Steven Douglas), _d1952- _eauthor.
245	1	4	_aThe rise and decline of American religious freedom / _cSteven D. Smith.
300			_a223 pages ; _c24 cm
504			_aIncludes bibliographical references (pages 173-213) and index.
505	0		_aPrologue : the standard story and the revised version -- American religious freedom as Christian-pagan retrieval -- The accidental First Amendment -- The religion question and the American settlement -- Dissolution and denial -- The last chapter? -- Epilogue : whither (religious) freedom?
520			_aOverview: Familiar accounts of religious freedom in the United States often tell a story of visionary founders who broke from the 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. He makes the case that the American achievement was not a rejection of Christian commitments but a retrieval of classic Christian ideals of freedom of the church and freedom of conscience. Smith maintains that the distinctive American contribution to religious freedom was not in the First Amendment, which was intended merely to preserve the political status quo in matters of religion. What was important was the 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. Rather than 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 --
650		0	_aFreedom of religion _zUnited States.
650		0	_aChurch and state _zUnited States.
906			_a7 _bcbc _corignew _d1 _eecip _f20 _gy-gencatlg
942			_2ddc _cE-BOOK
999			_c45998 _d45998