The Theme Is Freedom could easily have been titled "Everything You Were Ever Taught Was Wrong."Author M. Stanton Evans challenges nearly every concept most of us have learned in history classes from elementary school to college - that our liberties stem from secular doctrines, that religious absolutes endanger freedom, and that the Bill of Rights created a "wall of separation" between religion and our public institutions.All of these teachings, states Evans, are refuted by the historical record.In heated debates over the religious right, school prayer, abortion, homosexuality, and other "social issues," it has become popular to argue that politics has no place for religious principles. Some have argued that any political theory that attempts to embrace both faith and freedom - such as American conservatism - must be incoherent, or even vicious. On these issues and others, Evans concludes, the "liberal history lesson" has misled us.Arguing both conceptually and as a matter of historical fact, Evans shows that Western liberty and America's free institutions are products of our religious faith, and cannot survive without it. He traces the development of our freedoms from the conflict of pagan and biblical religions, through the growth of British common law, to the establishment of representative bodies by religious settlers in America.The Theme Is Freedom presents a new reading of the American Revolution, the Declaration of Independence, the constitutional founding, and the religious clauses of the First Amendment. Evans draws the conclusion that our liberties have always been dependent on the religious traditions of the West - directly contrary to the accepted theory.Constitutional statecraft, popular sovereignty, social contract, and resistance to tyrannical power are among the matters Evans discusses.On every salient issue, The Theme Is Freedom stands conventional wisdom on its head. It will disturb some, encourage others, inform many, and above all, provide a view of American political history that liberals and conservatives alike will find provocative and surprising. Read Less