Religious Liberty - Legal
Roger Williams and the Creation of the American Soul: Church, State and the Birth of Liberty. John M. Barry. A revelatory look at how Roger Williams shaped the nature of religion, political power, and individual rights in America. For four hundred years, Americans have wrestled with and fought over two concepts that define the nature of the nation: the proper relation between church and state and between a free individual and the state. Acclaimed historian John M. Barry explores the development of these fundamental ideas through the story of the man who was the first to link religious freedom to individual liberty, and who created in America the first government and society on earth informed by those beliefs. The story is essential to the continuing debate over how we define the role of religion and political power in modern American life.
The Godless Constitution: A Moral Defense of the Secular State. Isaac Kramnick and R. Laurence Moore. The Godless Constitution is a ringing rebuke to the religious right's attempts, fueled by misguided and inaccurate interpretations of American history, to dismantle the wall between church and state erected by the country's founders. The authors, both distinguished scholars, revisit the historical roots of American religious freedom, paying particular attention to such figures as John Locke, Roger Williams, and especially Thomas Jefferson, and examine the controversies, up to the present day, over the proper place of religion in our political life.
Dateline: Sunday, U.S.A.: The Story of Three and a Half Centuries of Sunday-law Battles in America. Warren L. Johns. A well-documented study into the history and growth of the Sunday laws in the United States.
Liberty In the Things of God: The Christian Origins of Religious Freedom. Robert Louis Wilken. From one of the leading historians of Christianity comes this sweeping reassessment of religious freedom, from the church fathers to John Locke.
American Apocalypse. Dwight K. Nelson. Is America superior to the rest of the world? Pastor Dwight K. Nelson says no. And it is into this tension—that America is exceptional but not superior—that this book steps. In these pages, readers will examine a troubling piece of the Apocalypse. Many scholars conclude that this apocalyptic scenario is a cryptic depiction of American exceptionalism turned tragic. Is there hope for America?Lay down the saga of this nation beside the unblinking eye of divine prophecy to find answers. Where is America’s help and America’s hope? How can a divided nation regain the Lord’s favor? Find out in The American Apocalypse.
Separation of Church and State: A History. Steven K. Green. Prof. Green is a constitutional lawyer and historian, and long time advocate of church state separation. Thi is as good an overview of the rise and fall of separationism as anyone has written, and it is readable.
Taking America Back for God: Christian Nationalism in the United States. Andrew L. Whitehead and Samuel L. Perry. This is a study by sociologists, not a critical take down. Folks on both sides of the debate will find useful, objective analysis here of just what constitutes Christian Nationalism, and who.
The Power Worshippers: Inside the Dangerous Rise of Religious Nationalism. Katherine Stewart. A lot has happened since this was published in 2019, but it remains one of the most insightful explorations from the inside, by a journalist who has worn out shoe leather in attending church services, and political rallies, and conducting interviews day in and day out, and getting to the heart of this religious/ political movement.
The Kingdom, the Power and the Glory: American Evangelicals in an Age of Extremism. Tim Alberta. The author is a preacher’s kid who was raised in the church and became a prominent journalist. This is both a highly personal, and insightful account by someone who understands from the inside what is happening with the evangelical wing of Christianity. It is very readable, and a must read for those interested in the influence of evangelical politics in America.
Original Intent: Chief Justice Rehnquist and the Course of American Church/State Relations. Derek Davis. We hear a great deal about “original intent” these days, and how the Supreme Court should interpret the Constitution according to what the founding fathers intended. Derek Davis is one of the foremost American scholars of church/state law and history, having served as the director of the church state studies program at Baylor University. Davis does an excellent job of explaining the significant impact that Rehnquist has had on the development of constitutional law of church/state relations.
The Yoder Case: Religious Freedom, Education and Parental Rights. Shawn Francis Peters. One of the high marks for the free exercise of religion in the Supreme Court was its decision exempting Amish children from compulsory attendance at high school. This book recounts the story of that amazing case.
Why Churches Should Not Pay Taxes. Dean M. Kelley. The author was one of the towering figures in the interfaith and religious freedom community during his lifetime. Today, as secular scholars increasingly question various religious tax exemptions, this book remains a classic defense of a basic part of the separation of church and state, protecting the independence and autonomy of religious bodies.
Battleground: One Mother’s Crusade, the Religious Right, and the Struggle for our Schools. Stephen Bates. What happens when a mother wants to exempt her children from reading books in public school that she believes are Satanic, and in conflict with her religious beliefs and values? What happens when a community is torn apart by conflict over its schools, a conflict that rages in the courts in a small town in Tennessee? Bates does a marvelous job of telling the story.
Church Discipline and the Courts. Lynn Buzzard and Thomas S. Brandon, Jr. The issue of church discipline can be explosive, and is certainly quite sensitive. How a church handles discipline issues, the conflicting rights of individual church members to privacy and to avoid reputational injury as against a church’s associational rights and right to exercise discipline provide a fascinating and difficult area for the law to address. The authors are lawyers and experts in the field.
Mere Creatures of the State? A View from the Courtroom. William Bentley Ball. One of the most prominent lawyers handling religious liberty cases gives a highly readable account of cases, with his perspective on the crucial religious liberty issues at stake.
The Federalist Papers. James Madison, Alexander Hamilton, John Jay. This should be at the top of our reading lists today. What does it mean for the U.S. to have a republican form of government? Why does it matter? What were our founding fathers really thinking, when they gave us this dysfunctional mess of a Federal government with the three branches. This book is as relevant as ever, maybe more so today.
Money, Lies and God. Katherine Stewart. Inside the movement to destroy American Democracy. This is, indeed, an inside look at the evangelical church in America today, by a critic who has been an outsider looking in for many years. This is investigative reporting on what this reporter is seeing and hearing and witnessing, first hand, not some advocate’s crafted take down of an opposition viewpoint. Those who care about how the church is viewed by those outside need to understand, because we the church have made Jesus irrelevant and the enemy of those outside the church.
The Violent Take it By Force. Matthew D. Taylor. The Christian Movement that is Threatening Our Democracy. Taylor is a Christian who analyzes and comprehends the political significance of the spiritual developments within a radical wing of the Pentecostal movement known as the New Apostolic Reformation. This little known movement is a global phenonomen, boasting hundreds of millions of adherents, hundreds of Apostles and Thousands of Prophets. You ignore its beliefs, its power and influence and its goals at the peril of our democracy.