The First Liberty: America's Foundation in Religious Freedom, Expanded and UpdatedGeorgetown University Press, 07.03.2003 - 296 Seiten 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. |
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... Christian Nation , " Miller reveals the true philosophi- cal and political scaffolding that helped to build the famous " wall of separation " between church and state . Miller traces this fundamental American principle through the three ...
... Christian " invaders marching into the heart of Islam's holi- est lands ; attacking , killing , raping ; the streets of Jerusalem running with blood . For Americans that was a long time ago and had nothing to do with us , in this new ...
... Christian Europe that advanced from strength to strength , while the Islamic civilization of the Middle East suffered a loss of creativity , of energy , and of power . The United States is the distinctive product of exactly those move ...
... Christianity on the ground floor . The colonists built not on the accumulated deposit of Catholic , feudal , monarchical Europe but on the rocks and hills and trees and streams of a New England and a Penn's Woods and an Eastern Shore ...
... Christianity of Europe at any time . It is not the land of " Crusaders and Jews , " or officially even of ... Christian believers ; pro- ponents of all sorts held that , far from damaging the prospects of reli- gion in America ...
Inhalt
1 | |
The Vocation of James Madison | 69 |
This Conscience Is Found in All Mankind | 127 |
A Fixed Star in Our Constitutional Constellation | 187 |
Concluding Notes on Liberty Shaping a Culture | 233 |
Thomas Jefferson A Bill for Establishing Religious Freedom 1777 | 255 |
James Madison Memorial and Remonstrance | 257 |
Acknowledgments and Sources | 265 |
Index | 271 |