Free Exercise: Religion, the First Amendment, and the Making of America - Couverture rigide

Beneke, Chris

Couverture rigide

ISBN 10 : 0197767028 ISBN 13 : 9780197767023

Editeur : Oxford University Press Inc, 2025

Synopsis

CONGRESS SHALL MAKE NO LAW RESPECTING AN ESTABLISHMENT OF RELIGION, OR PROHIBITING THE FREE EXERCISE THEREOF. Those words, scratched on parchment in 1789, open the U.S. Constitution's First Amendment. From them, countless interpretations have been drawn. As a consequence, an astonishing variety of activities in modern America-prayer after football games, Bible reading in classrooms, company healthcare policies, the baking of wedding cakes, and Ten Commandment displays around courthouses-have been alternately authorized, prohibited, or modified.

In this compelling historical account, Chris Beneke explains how the religion clauses came into existence and how they were woven into American culture. He brings prominent early national figures to life, including George Washington, James Madison, and Thomas Paine, while chronicling the First Amendment's relationship to defining social conditions like slavery, civility, family life, and the free market. Beneke probes what kind of nation America was when the religion clauses were framed and what kind of nation it was becoming.

Going beyond traditional church-state scholarship, Beneke also demonstrates how white women, African Americans, Roman Catholics, Jews, and nonbelievers widened religious liberty's application and illuminated its boundaries. In doing so he makes a groundbreaking contribution to both constitutional history and the history of American pluralism.

A propos du livre

À propos de l?auteur

Chris Beneke is professor of History and Associate Dean for the First Year Experience and the Bentley Core at Bentley University. He has written extensively about the history of religious toleration, as well as essays on politics, religion, and sports for The Atlantic, The Chronicle of Higher Education, The New Republic, and The Washington Post.

Détails de l'édition

• Éditeur: Oxford University Press Inc
• Date d'édition: 2025
• Langue: anglais
• ISBN 10: 0197767028
• ISBN 13: 9780197767023
• Reliure: Relié
• Nombre de pages: 256
• Coordonnées du fabricant: non disponible