000			03092cam a2200397 i 4500
001			ocn840460728
003			OCoLC
005			20251028093319.0
008			130528t20142014mau b 001 0 eng
010			_a 2013021352
035			_a(Sirsi) i9780674724754
040			_aDLC _erda _beng _cDLC _dYDX _dBTCTA _dOCLCO _dBDX _dUKMGB _dOCLCF _dYDXCP _dCDX _dCOO _dGUB _dCGU _dPUL _dEDK _dMXSCJ _dOCLCO _dDEBBG _dOCLCO _dMNF _dVF$
016	7		_a016557942 _2Uk
020			_a9780674724754 (alk. paper)
020			_a0674724755 (alk. paper)
035			_a(OCoLC)840460728
042			_apcc
043			_an-us---
050	0	0	_aKF 4783 _b.S645 2014
049			_aVF$A
100	1		_aSmith, Steven D. _q(Steven Douglas), _d1952- _eauthor.
245	1	4	_aThe rise and decline of American religious freedom / _cSteven D. Smith.
264		1	_aCambridge, Massachusetts : _bHarvard University Press, _c2014.
264		4	_c�2014
300			_a223 pages ; _c25 cm
336			_atext _2rdacontent
337			_aunmediated _2rdamedia
338			_avolume _2rdacarrier
505	0		_aPrologue: the standard story and the revised version -- American religious freedom as Christian-pagan retrieval -- The accidental First Amendment -- The religion question and the American settlement -- Dissolution and denial -- The last chapter? -- Epilogue: whither (religious) freedom?
520			_aOverview: Familiar accounts of religious freedom in the United States often tell a story of visionary founders who broke from the centuries-old patterns of Christendom to establish a political arrangement committed to secular and religiously neutral government. These novel commitments were supposedly embodied in the religion clauses of the First Amendment. But this story is largely a fairytale, Steven Smith says in this incisive examination of a much-mythologized subject. He makes the case that the American achievement was not a rejection of Christian commitments but a retrieval of classic Christian ideals of freedom of the church and freedom of conscience. Smith maintains that the distinctive American contribution to religious freedom was not in the First Amendment, which was intended merely to preserve the political status quo in matters of religion. What was important was the commitment to open contestation between secularist and providentialist understandings of the nation which evolved over the nineteenth century. In the twentieth century, far from vindicating constitutional principles, as conventional wisdom suggests, the Supreme Court imposed secular neutrality, which effectively repudiated this commitment to open contestation. Rather than upholding what was distinctively American and constitutional, these decisions subverted it. The negative consequences are visible today in the incoherence of religion clause jurisprudence and the intense culture wars in American politics.
504			_aIncludes bibliographical references (pages [173]-213) and index.
650		0	_aFreedom of religion _zUnited States.
650		0	_aChurch and state _zUnited States.
994			_aC0 _bVF$
999			_c134057 _d134057