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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... traditional religious beliefs , as did the French and Russian revolutionaries and per- haps Ataturk in Muslim Turkey . Neither the motive nor the result of this arrangement was an antireligious state or society or a nonreligious soci ...
... tradition , reason , the Inner Light — such as Roman Catholics and Quakers and later Unitarians . Article three would already have taken care of Jews . The Virginia committee , perhaps embarrassed by the contrast to the ringing ...
... tradition since Constantine , had assumed that the social order required a shared religious belief as its sys- tem of nurture and sanction and that religion was both a public good and a public responsibility and that therefore it ...
... tradition among " strict separationists " of assuring their hearers that they are no less devoted to religion than the proponents of projects such as the General Assessment : They only oppose compulsion in its behalf . Madison was no ...
... tradition and even on authority ( Biblical authority at least ) that Jefferson would find anathema . Yet they could all join in saying , " Almighty God hath created the mind free . " 2 Hypocrisy And Meanness ... that all attempts to ...
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 |