All Americans, liberal or conservative, religious or not, can agree that religious freedom, anchored in conscience rights, is foundational to the U.S. democratic experiment. But what freedom of conscience means, what its scope and limits are, according to the Constitution—these are matters for heated debate. At a moment when such questions loom ever larger in the nation’s contentious politics and fraught policy-making process, this timely book offers invaluable historical, empirical, philosophical, and analytical insight into the American constitutional heritage of religious liberty. As the contributors to this interdisciplinary volume attest, understanding religious freedom demands taking multiple perspectives. The historians guide us through the legacy of religious freedom, from the nation’s founding and the rise of public education, through the waves of immigration that added successive layers of diversity to American society. The social scientists discuss the swift, striking effects of judicial decision making and the battles over free exercise in a complex, bureaucratic society. Advocates remind us of the tensions abiding in schools and other familiar institutions, and of the major role minorities play in shaping free exercise under our constitutional regime. And the jurists emphasize that this is a messy area of constitutional law. Their work brings out the conflicts inherent in interpreting the First Amendment—tensions between free exercise and disestablishment, between the legislative and judicial branches of government, and along the complex and ever-shifting boundaries of religion, state, and society. What emerges most clearly from these essays is how central religious liberty is to America’s civic fabric—and how, under increasing pressure from both religious and secular forces, this First Amendment freedom demands our full attention and understanding.

Rather than wield religion as a weapon or a ruse in irrational appeals, the book attempts to reimagine a shared American mythos and ethos, by reminding us of our shared stake in creating an America committed to the life of all peoples and species and to the full developments of our capabilities as an exercise of liberty.

Product Description: Connections are suggested among diverse subjects which can remind the reader both of fundamental issues with respect to religion and politics and of the complications of efforts to develop public-policy measures dealing with church/state issues, constitutional applications, and the understanding in the modern world of Life and Death...read more

Product Description: What an incomparable gift Lee Greenwood gave us with 'God Bless the U.S.A', a song ingrained in America's soul. It endures as one of the most loved patriotic songs of the last century. This legendary, award-winning country music artist now offers personal insights into America's challenges and her future in his book, Does God Still Bless the U...read more

Product Description: This comparative analysis of the constitutional law of religion-state relations in the United States and Germany focuses on the principle of state neutrality. A strong emphasis on state neutrality, a notoriously ambiguous concept, is a shared feature in the constitutional jurisprudence of the US Supreme Court and the German Federal Constitutional Court, but neutrality does not have the same meaning in both systems...read more

Alabama chief justice Roy Moore believes the state should acknowledge the moral principles on which America was founded and that it is not illegal to do so. While the separation of church and state may be a credible and legitimate tenet, Moore contends it has been largely misconstrued and abused during the last forty years.

Product Description: Why do secular states pursue different policies toward religion? This book provides a generalizable argument about the impact of ideological struggles on the public policy making process, as well as a state-religion regimes index of 197 countries...read more

In this timely and compelling account of the contribution to immigrant rights made by religious activists in post-1965 and post-9/11 America, Pierrette Hondagneu-Sotelo provides a comprehensive, close-up view of how Muslim, Christian, and Jewish groups are working to counter xenophobia. Against the hysteria prevalent in today's media, in which immigrants are often painted as a drain on the public coffers, inherently unassimilable, or an outright threat to national security, Hondagneu-Sotelo finds the intersection between migration and religion and calls attention to quieter voices, those dedicated to securing the human dignity of newcomers. Based on years of fieldwork conducted in California's major centers as well as in Chicago, this book considers Muslim Americans defending their civil liberties after 9/11, Christian activists responding to death and violence at the U.S-Mexico border, and Christian and Jewish clergy defending the labor rights of Latino immigrants. At a time when much attention has been given to religious fundamentalism and its capacity to incite violent conflict, God's Heart Has No Borders revises our understanding of the role of religion in social movements and demonstrates the nonviolent power of religious groups to address social injustices.

Evaluates the ways in which dialogues between modern voters and people of faith have impacted American politics, examining how the polarization between 'red' and 'blue' groups reflects core belief systems, an understanding of which the author believes is vital to the explanation of how the nation elects its leaders. 20,000 first printing.

Product Description: How closely connected should church and state be? May a state endorse the role and meaning of religion at all? Can it treat distinct religious groups differently? This book addresses these questions and more through a portrayal and comparison of the legal systems of Germany, Israel, France, and the United States...read more

A study of apocalyptic Christianity assesses the beliefs of the fifty million Americans who believe that the apocalypse will occur during their lifetimes and their involvement in debates over gay rights, foreign policy, and abortion.