Divided By God : America's Church-state Problem – and What We Should Do About It
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No description available for this book.
Learn more about this title from the Lisbon Public Library collection.
Library Journal Review : Starred Review. Feldman (NYU Law School; What We Owe Iraq: War and the Ethics of Nation Building) traces the evolution of the role of religion in American political life from the Colonial period to the present, paying particular attention to the development of legal doctrines. The First Amendment stipulates that Congress cannot pass laws prohibiting the free exercise of religion, yet throughout our country’s history, Americans have debated what role, if any, religion should have in government and how government should treat religion. Recent elections, legislation, confirmation proceedings, and Supreme Court decisions have fanned the embers of this ever-hot topic, causing them to ignite and produce intensely heated?and damaging?partisan rhetoric. This book has two great strengths: it offers a balanced overview of the subject, clearly articulating the sources of the differences between those who seek legislation that incorporates their religious values (“values evangelicals”) and those who feel the government must be secular (“legal secularists”), and it offers a reasonable approach for reconciling the differences between the two. An excellent, very readable work, deserving a wide audience; highly recommended for all libraries.?Thomas J. Baldino, Wilkes Univ., Wilkes-Barre, PA Copyright ? Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.