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Book Church State Constitutional Issues

Download or read book Church State Constitutional Issues written by Doanld Drakeman and published by Praeger. This book was released on 1991-03-30 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Church-State Constitutional Issues explores the often-debated and always topical issue of the relationship between church and state as outlined in the First Amendment. Donald L. Drakeman takes an interdisciplinary approach to examine the meaning of the establishment clause, demonstrating how the studies of law, religion, history, and political science provide insight into this relationship, which, since the nation's inception, has been difficult to define. The study first chronicles the Supreme Court's decision regarding the interpretation of the establishment clause from the early 19th century to the present. This legal history is subsequently viewed from a cultural perspective as Drakeman traces both the background of the First Amendment and how the relationship of church and state has developed on its journey through the court system. The volume moves towards further understanding of this complex issue as it concludes with a new interpretation of the establishment clause derived from previous information as well as further legal and political interpretive material.

Book Church  State  and Original Intent

Download or read book Church State and Original Intent written by Donald L. Drakeman and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2010 with total page 383 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This provocative book shows how the justices of the United States Supreme Court have used constitutional history, portraying the Framers' actions in a light favoring their own views about how church and state should be separated. Drakeman examines church-state constitutional controversies from the Founding Era to the present, arguing that the Framers originally intended the establishment clause only as a prohibition against a single national church.

Book That Godless Court

    Book Details:
  • Author : Ronald Bruce Flowers
  • Publisher : Westminster John Knox Press
  • Release : 2005-01-01
  • ISBN : 9780664228910
  • Pages : 244 pages

Download or read book That Godless Court written by Ronald Bruce Flowers and published by Westminster John Knox Press. This book was released on 2005-01-01 with total page 244 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The religion clauses of the First Amendment, which seem simple and clear, have been and continue to be controversial in their application. Church-state issues have never been more complex, controversial, and divisive than they are today. In this helpful and instructive book, Ronald B. Flowers explains clearly and concisely the intricacies and implications of Supreme Court decisions in the volatile area of church-state relations. This is an ideal primer for those Americans who have listened to the debates about what the Supreme Court has and has not said about the relationship between church and state, and where the boundaries between the two have been eroded. It is also ideal for use in the classroom, specifically in undergraduate courses in religion and the court, introductions to U.S. constitutional law, constitutional law and politics, and the Supreme Court. The book is also a helpful tool for pastors, clarifying contemporary church-state issues that impact their churches and parishioners directly and indirectly.

Book The Wall of Separation

Download or read book The Wall of Separation written by Frank Joseph Sorauf and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2015-03-08 with total page 409 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This is the story of some of the most anguished constitutional controversies of our time, those involving the issue of separation of church and state. Few questions stimulated debate as intense as that over prayer in public schools and public aid to parochial schools. In contrast to previous studies, which have focused on the substance of the issues, Frank J. Sorauf's book concentrates on the judicial process in its social and political context. The author discusses all sixty-seven cases in this area of litigation decided by high American appellate courts from 1951 to 1971. He has interviewed the plaintiffs, attorneys, and members of the groups bringing suit, and describes their strategies and goals, their successes and failures. The community context in which the cases developed, as well as the judges and the courts deciding them, is described and analyzed. Originally published in 1976. The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.

Book Religion and the Law

    Book Details:
  • Author : Elizabeth Eddy
  • Publisher : Routledge
  • Release : 2017-08-02
  • ISBN : 9781138531734
  • Pages : 127 pages

Download or read book Religion and the Law written by Elizabeth Eddy and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2017-08-02 with total page 127 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: There are few issues as controversial as where to draw the line between church and state. The framers of the Constitution's Bill of Rights began their blueprint for freedom by drawing exactly such a line. The first clauses of the First Amendment provide: "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof." The justices of the Supreme Court have not been wanting for advice from self-appointed guardians. The difficulty with such advice is that the contestants are more convincing when they criticize their opponents' interpretations than when they seek to establish the validity of their own.Religion and the Law examines the actions and words of the Supreme Court in applying constitutional language to the controversies that have come before it. Lest such an effort be reduced to recitation, these cases are measured against a "neutral principle" that will give the most appropriate scope to the religion clauses in such a manner as to provide guidance for legislatures and courts. This neutral principle has been framed in reliance on the Aristotelian axiom that "it is the mark of an educated man to seek precision in each class of things just so far as the nature of the subject admits."One of the fundamental difficulties with the contemporary discussion of the "hot button" issue has been the failure to distinguish two separable problems: the constitutional issue--in the narrow sense of the meaning to be given to the language of the First Amendment by the Supreme Court--and the broader question of the ideal relationship that should exist between church and state. This is a classic study by one of the great theorists of American constitutional law.

Book Separating Church and State

Download or read book Separating Church and State written by Steven K. Green and published by Cornell University Press. This book was released on 2022-03-15 with total page 330 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Steven K. Green, renowned for his scholarship on the separation of church and state, charts the career of the concept and helps us understand how it has fallen into disfavor with many Americans. In 1802, President Thomas Jefferson distilled a leading idea in the early American republic and wrote of a wall of separation between church and state. That metaphor has come down from Jefferson to twenty-first-century Americans through a long history of jurisprudence, political contestation, and cultural influence. This book traces the development of the concept of separation of church and state and the Supreme Court's application of it in the law. Green finds that conservative criticisms of a separation of church and state overlook the strong historical and jurisprudential pedigree of the idea. Yet, arguing with liberal advocates of the doctrine, he notes that the idea remains fundamentally vague and thus open to loose interpretation in the courts. As such, the history of a wall of separation is more a variable index of American attitudes toward the forces of religion and state. Indeed, Green argues that the Supreme Court's use of the wall metaphor has never been essential to its rulings. The contemporary battle over the idea of a wall of separation has thus been a distraction from the real jurisprudential issues animating the contemporary courts.

Book Why the Religious Right Is Wrong About Separation of Church and State

Download or read book Why the Religious Right Is Wrong About Separation of Church and State written by Robert Boston and published by Prometheus Books. This book was released on 2010-09-30 with total page 281 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Award-winning journalist Robert Boston lambastes the zealots of the Religious Right for spreading misinformation about the constitutional principle of the separation of church and state. Boston reveals how a band of ultraconservative religious groups with a political agenda - led primarily by televangelist Pat Robertson - is conducting a systematic war aginst the separation of church and state. The tactics of these groups are designed to exploit unfounded fears and turn the American people against the separationist principle. They will not rest, Boston says, until the United States has become a theocracy. To expose the Religious Right's blatant distortions of U.S. history and correct its skewed analysis of legal rulings, Boston objectively reviews the evolution of church/state relations in the United States and looks at how the separation principle has been applied by the courts. He also examines efforts by sectarian groups to win government support for their schools, the school prayer issue, the history of the free exercise of religion, and the controversial role of religion in the public square. Published in cooperation with Americans United for the Separation of Church and State

Book When Free Exercise and Nonestablishment Conflict

Download or read book When Free Exercise and Nonestablishment Conflict written by Kent Greenawalt and published by Harvard University Press. This book was released on 2017-06-19 with total page 305 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “Congress shall make no law reflecting an establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.” The First Amendment aims to separate church and state, but Kent Greenawalt examines many situations in which its two clauses—the Nonestablishment Clause and the Free Exercise Clause—point in opposite directions. How should courts decide?

Book Church State Issues in America Today

Download or read book Church State Issues in America Today written by Ann W. Duncan and published by Bloomsbury Publishing USA. This book was released on 2007-12-30 with total page 841 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Church and state issues are in the news now more than ever before. Political and religious leaders alike are negotiating shaky ground as they balance their religious/moral and political perspectives with their roles as leaders. New technologies push the boundaries of moral consensus by creating new controversies such as those involving stem-cell research and medical measures to sustain or end the lives of the terminally ill. The Supreme Court continues to work to clarify the fuzzy line between religion and politics as it addresses cases regarding abortion, school prayer, and the Pledge of Allegiance, among other issues. Further controversies only lead to further divisions among Americans. Church and state issues are in the news now more than ever before. Political and religious leaders alike are negotiating on shaky ground as they balance their religious/moral and political perspectives with their roles as leaders. New technologies push the boundaries of moral consensus by creating new controversies such as those involving stem-cell research and medical measures to sustain or end the lives of the terminally ill. The Supreme Court continues to work to clarify the fuzzy line between religion and politics as it addresses cases regarding abortion, school prayer, and the Pledge of Allegiance, among other issues. Further controversies only lead to further divisions among Americans. At the beginning of the 21st century, there are as many interpretations of this separation as there are interpretations of particular issues such as abortion or school vouchers. This three-volume collection summarizes the history and current status of issues involving the separation of church and state through chapters examining the backgrounds, relevant constitutional concerns, and variety of perspectives on specific controversies. Framed by a general discussion of the history of the separation between church and state and through careful attention to subjects such as capital punishment, gay marriage, and clergy support of political leaders, there emerges an incredibly complex, enlightening, and provocative picture for anyone with an interest in the unique nature of religion in the United States of America.

Book Issues in Religious Liberty

    Book Details:
  • Author : United States. Congress. Senate. Committee on the Judiciary. Subcommittee on the Constitution
  • Publisher :
  • Release : 1985
  • ISBN :
  • Pages : 874 pages

Download or read book Issues in Religious Liberty written by United States. Congress. Senate. Committee on the Judiciary. Subcommittee on the Constitution and published by . This book was released on 1985 with total page 874 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Book Religion and the Law

    Book Details:
  • Author : Philip B. Kurland
  • Publisher : Transaction Publishers
  • Release : 2009-01-01
  • ISBN : 0202368556
  • Pages : 130 pages

Download or read book Religion and the Law written by Philip B. Kurland and published by Transaction Publishers. This book was released on 2009-01-01 with total page 130 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: There are few issues as controversial as where to draw the line between church and state. The framers of the Constitution's Bill of Rights began their blueprint for freedom by drawing exactly such a line. The first clauses of the First Amendment provide: "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof." The justices of the Supreme Court have not been wanting for advice from self-appointed guardians. The difficulty with such advice is that the contestants are more convincing when they criticize their opponents' interpretations than when they seek to establish the validity of their own. Religion and the Law examines the actions and words of the Supreme Court in applying constitutional language to the controversies that have come before it. Lest such an effort be reduced to recitation, these cases are measured against a "neutral principle" that will give the most appropriate scope to the religion clauses in such a manner as to provide guidance for legislatures and courts. This neutral principle has been framed in reliance on the Aristotelian axiom that "it is the mark of an educated man to seek precision in each class of things just so far as the nature of the subject admits." One of the fundamental difficulties with the contemporary discussion of the "hot button" issue has been the failure to distinguish two separable problems: the constitutional issue--in the narrow sense of the meaning to be given to the language of the First Amendment by the Supreme Court--and the broader question of the ideal relationship that should exist between church and state. This is a classic study by one of the great theorists of American constitutional law.

Book Disestablishment and Religious Dissent

Download or read book Disestablishment and Religious Dissent written by Carl H. Esbeck and published by University of Missouri Press. This book was released on 2019-11-15 with total page 460 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: On May 10, 1776, the Second Continental Congress sitting in Philadelphia adopted a Resolution which set in motion a round of constitution making in the colonies, several of which soon declared themselves sovereign states and severed all remaining ties to the British Crown. In forming these written constitutions, the delegates to the state conventions were forced to address the issue of church-state relations. Each colony had unique and differing traditions of church-state relations rooted in the colony’s peoples, their country of origin, and religion. This definitive volume, comprising twenty-one original essays by eminent historians and political scientists, is a comprehensive state-by-state account of disestablishment in the original thirteen states, as well as a look at similar events in the soon-to-be-admitted states of Vermont, Tennessee, and Kentucky. Also considered are disestablishment in Ohio (the first state admitted from the Northwest Territory), Louisiana and Missouri (the first states admitted from the Louisiana Purchase), and Florida (wrestled from Spain under U.S. pressure). The volume makes a unique scholarly contribution by recounting in detail the process of disestablishment in each of the colonies, as well as religion’s constitutional and legal place in the new states of the federal republic.

Book The Church State Debate

    Book Details:
  • Author : Emma Long
  • Publisher : Bloomsbury Publishing
  • Release : 2012-03-29
  • ISBN : 1441111441
  • Pages : 290 pages

Download or read book The Church State Debate written by Emma Long and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2012-03-29 with total page 290 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Establishment Clause of the First Amendment governs the relationship between the institutions of the church and those of the state; the Supreme Court, as arbiter of the Constitution, has, since 1947, sought to determine where the line between the two should be drawn. This book shows how and why the Court drew the line in particular cases and how and why the lines that were drawn by the Court had an impact on the relationship between institutions of government and the Church, shaping US politics and society. Using the Supreme Court's cases as a framework, the book shows how the constitutional underpinnings of church-state debates shaped the political, economic, and social debate on the issue, and explores broader debates about religion and American society. This book maintains that the Court cases cannot be understood separately from the context from which they arose and that legal factors are only part of a broader picture for a historical understanding of the Court and Establishment Clause cases.

Book Religion and the American Constitutional Experiment

Download or read book Religion and the American Constitutional Experiment written by John Witte, Jr. and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2016-03-11 with total page 425 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This accessible introduction tells the American story of religious liberty from its colonial beginnings to the latest Supreme Court cases. The authors provide extensive analysis of the formation of the First Amendment religion clauses and the plausible original intent or understanding of the founders. They describe the enduring principles of American religious freedom--liberty of conscience, free exercise of religion, religious equality, religious pluralism, separation of church and state, and no establishment of religion--as those principles were developed by the founders and applied by the Supreme Court. Successive chapters analyze the two hundred plus Supreme Court cases on religious freedom--on the free exercise of religion, the roles of government and religion in education, the place of religion in public life, and the interaction of religious organizations and the state. A final chapter shows how favorably American religious freedom compares with international human rights norms and European Court of Human Rights case law. Lucid, comprehensive, multidisciplinary, and balanced, this volume is an ideal classroom text and armchair paperback. Detailed appendices offer drafts of each of the religion clauses debated in 1788 and 1789, a table of all state constitutional laws on religious freedom, and a summary of every Supreme Court case on religious liberty from 1815 to 2015. Throughout the volume, the authors address frankly and fully the hot button issues of our day: religious freedom versus sexual liberty, freedom of conscience and its limitations, religious group rights and the worries about abuse, faith-based legal systems and their place in liberal democracies, and the fresh rise of anti-Semitism, Islamophobia, and anti-Christianity in America and abroad. For this new edition, the authors have updated each chapter in light of new scholarship and new Supreme Court case law (through the 2015 term) and have added an appendix mapping some of the cutting edge issues of religious liberty and church-state relations.

Book Church  State  and Freedom

    Book Details:
  • Author : Leo Pfeffer
  • Publisher : Wipf and Stock Publishers
  • Release : 2018-05-02
  • ISBN : 1725239574
  • Pages : 848 pages

Download or read book Church State and Freedom written by Leo Pfeffer and published by Wipf and Stock Publishers. This book was released on 2018-05-02 with total page 848 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "I believe that complete separation of church and state is one of those miraculous things which can be best for religion and best for the state, and the best for those who are religious and those who are not religious." - Leo Pfeffer Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof. These sixteen words epitomize a radical experiment unique in human history . . . It is the purpose of this book to examine how this experiment came to be made, what are the implications and consequences of its application to democratic living in America today, and what are the forces seeking to frustrate and defeat that experiment. (From the Foreword)

Book Politics   According to the Bible

Download or read book Politics According to the Bible written by Wayne A. Grudem and published by Zondervan. This book was released on 2010-09-28 with total page 626 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Should Christians be involved in political issues? This comprehensive and readable book presents a political philosophy from the perspective that the Gospel pertains to all of life, including politics. Politics—According to the Bible is an in-depth analysis of conservative and liberal plans to do good for the nation, evaluated in light of the Bible and common sense. Evangelical Bible professor, and author of the bestselling book Systematic Theology, Wayne Grudem unpacks and rejects five common views about Christian influence on politics: "compel religion," "exclude religion," "all government is demonic," "do evangelism, not politics," and "do politics, not evangelism." Instead, he defends a position of "significant Christian influence on government" and explains the Bible's teachings about the purpose of civil government and the characteristics of good or bad governments. Grudem provides a thoughtful analysis of over fifty specific and current political issues dealing with: The protection of life. Marriage, the family, and children. Economic issues and taxation. The environment. National defense Relationships to other nations. Freedom of speech and religion. Quotas. And special interests. Throughout this book, he makes frequent application to the current policies of the Democratic and Republican parties in the United States, but the principles discussed here are relevant for any nation.

Book The First Liberty

    Book Details:
  • Author : William Lee Miller
  • Publisher :
  • Release : 2003
  • ISBN : 9780878408993
  • Pages : 280 pages

Download or read book The First Liberty written by William Lee Miller and published by . This book was released on 2003 with total page 280 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: At a time when the concept of religion-based politics has taken on new and sometimes ominous tones--even within the United States--it is not only right, but also urgently necessary that William Lee Miller revisit his profound exploration of the place of religious liberty and church and state in America. For this revised edition of The First Liberty, Miller has written a pointed new introduction, discussing how religious liberty has taken on deeper dimensions in a post-9/11 world. With new material on recent Supreme Court cases involving church-state relations and a new concluding chapter on America's religious and political landscape, this volume is an eloquent and thorough interpretation of how religious faith and political freedom have blended and fused to form part of our collective history-and most importantly, how each concept must respect the boundaries of the other. Though many claim the United States to be a "Christian Nation," Miller provides a fascinatingly vivid account of the philosophical skirmishes and political machinations that led to the "wall of separation" between church and state. That famous phrase is Jefferson's, though it does not appear in the Declaration of Independence nor in the Constitution. But Miller follows this seminal idea from three great standard-bearers of religious liberty: Jefferson, Madison, and Roger Williams. Jefferson, who wrote the Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom, the precursor of the First Amendment of the Constitution; James Madison, who was politically responsible for Virginia's acceptance of religious liberty and who, a few years later, helped draft the Bill of Rights; and the even earlier figure, the radical dissenter Roger Williams, who propounded the idea of religious freedom not as a rational secularist but out of a deeply held spiritual faith. Miller re-creates the fierce and vibrant debate among the founding fathers over the means of establishing public virtue in the absence of established religion--a debate that still reverberates in today's passionate arguments about civil rights, school prayer, abortion, Christmas crèches, conscientious objection during warfare--and demonstrates how the right to hold any religious belief has dynamically shaped American political life.