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Divided by God: America's Church-State Problem--and What We Should Do About It
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Product Description
Even before George W. Bush gained reelection by wooing religiously devout "values voters," it was clear that church-state matters in the United States had reached a crisis. With Divided by God, Noah Feldman shows that the crisis is as old as this country--and looks to our nation's past to show how it might be resolved.
Today more than ever, ours is a religiously diverse society: Muslim, Hindu, and Buddhist as well as Catholic, Protestant, and Jewish. And yet more than ever, committed Christians are making themselves felt in politics and culture.
What are the implications of this paradox? To answer this question, Feldman makes clear that again and again in our nation's history diversity has forced us to redraw the lines in the church-state divide. In vivid, dramatic chapters, he describes how we as a people have resolved conflicts over the Bible, the Pledge of Allegiance, and the teaching of evolution through appeals to shared values of liberty, equality, and freedom of conscience. And he proposes a brilliant solution to our current crisis, one that honors our religious diversity while respecting the long-held conviction that religion and state should not mix.
Divided by God speaks to the headlines, even as it tells the story of a long-running conflict that has made the American people who we are.
Product Details
- Amazon Sales Rank: #532019 in Books
- Published on: 2006-06-27
- Released on: 2006-06-27
- Original language: English
- Number of items: 1
- Binding: Paperback
- 320 pages
Customer Reviews
A well written history
While I find Mr. Feldman solution to the Church-State problem overly simplistic and probably unworkable, I found the book in general to be very useful. It helps one to understand the series of events that have brought the United States to today's church/state quagmire. The history leading up to a situation is always useful in understanding that situation (and possibly finding solutions and compromises to solve problems.)
The majority of Mr. Feldman's book deals with the history of how we arrived at where we are today. It is readable, not overly verbose and easy to follow and understand. Mr. Feldman has written with little or no editorial content in describing the history of the church/state problem. He is to be congratulated for this effort and his book read in the context of the clear concise history he presents.
Good accessible overview of the subject
Feldman's book is an intelligently written discussion of both the history of church-state law in the U.S. and the current debates that engage our society. Feldman works his way from the founding to the latest Supreme Court decisions of the last 15 years which have reshaped the interpretation of the Establishment Clause; the result is a fascinating overview of the legal and cultural evolution of America's ideas about church and state.
The great strength of this book is its focus on ideas and their development. Feldman does an excellent job laying out the reasoning used by various sides of the church-state debates over the last 200 years; he also frequently critiques these historical arguments, not as a partisan, but as more of a guide to these debates.
There are two larger issues that were problematic for me in this book:
First, I think Feldman's discussion of the church-state arguments made by the framers of the Constitution is too cursory and somewhat oversimplified. The Founding-era debates were arguably the most sophisticated and philosophically complex of all in American church-state history, and a bulkier, more rigorous chapter would have been better. After having read such great historical studies on this era as "The Sacred Fire of Liberty," "Original Meanings," and "The Founding Fathers and The Place of Religion in America," I was disappointed in this part of Feldman's book.
Second, I think Feldman overemphasizes the partisan divide over church and state in our contemporary culture. This sentence captures Feldman's outlook:
"...no single, unified theory or logical reason can explain the arrangements we now have. They are the product of an ongoing battle. The field has changed, some objectives have been captured and others lost, and disorder reigns."
Probably only the most active players and partisans would view the current status as an 'ongoing battle' where 'some objectives have been captured.' Most reasonable Americans are likely to find many of the recent Supreme Court decisions relying on Justice O'Connor's 'endorsement test' a fair compromise in tune with the deeper principle motivating the First Amendment. At the very least, I doubt that most Americans fall neatly into either of the two warring camps Feldman describes, although there are activist groups that certainly do fit.
This is a great book - one of best books on the subject I have read covering the specific legal and cultural arguments over all of American history and not just a specific era. I highly recommend it.
Informative, interesting study of church-state issues
In Divided by God, Noah Feldman has crafted an important book that explores the history of the separation between church and state and from that history, proposes what we should do about this issue in the future. What helps Feldman with the book not only is that he is fairly neutral, but he also is not afriad to interject his opinion when necessary (he favors reasonable public symbolic religion, but not public financing of religion). This allows for an approach that is captivating.
Don't worry if you're afraid you won't share Feldman's opinions, though. The history takes up at least 3/4 of the book, with the rest focusing on the present and the future. Feldman louds and critcizes both sides of the debate--but it the end, the background information is what helps form the reader's opinion the most. From what really happened when the framers drafted the constitution all the way to the formation of what we call evangelicalism and secularism today, Feldman fills in the blanks of what we already know. The background and the answers aren't clear-cut, but this book helps shine light in the dark places of the issue.
