Law and Religion in American History
Public Values and Private Conscience

This is a sweeping history of the relationship between law and religion in America from the colonial era to the present day.

Mark Douglas McGarvie (Author)

9781107150935, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 19 July 2016

312 pages, 7 b/w illus.
23.5 x 15.8 x 2 cm, 0.54 kg

'This book provides a timely and tightly focused study of the many ways in which politically active Christians have attempted to influence public policy since the founding of the Republic, and the manner in which courts have responded to such efforts. Highly Recommended.' William G. Ross, Journal of Church and State

This book furthers dialogue on the separation of church and state with an approach that emphasizes intellectual history and the constitutional theory that underlies American society. Mark Douglas McGarvie explains that the founding fathers of America considered the right of conscience to be an individual right, to be protected against governmental interference. While the religion clauses enunciated this right, its true protection occurred in the creation of separate public and private spheres. Religion and the churches were placed in the private sector. Yet, politically active Christians have intermittently mounted challenges to this bifurcation in calling for a greater public role for Christian faith and morality in American society. Both students and scholars will learn much from this intellectual history of law and religion that contextualizes a four-hundred-year-old ideological struggle.

Introduction
1. Prologue: colonial America perpetuates state religion
2. Revolution in thought and social organization: the legal
hegemony of Jeffersonian liberalism, 1776–1828
3. A Christian counter-revolution and a new vision of American society, 1828–65
4. Regulating behavior and teaching morals: the uses of religion, 1865–1937
5. The rights revolution, 1937–2014
6. Epilogue: the significance of history and a reconsideration of original intent
Bibliographic essay
Index.

Subject Areas: Legal history [LAZ], Religion & politics [HRAM2], History of the Americas [HBJK]