So Help Me God: The Founding Fathers and the First Great Battle Over Church and State
Books / Hardcover
Books › Religion › Religion, Politics & State
ISBN: 0151011850 / Publisher: Harcourt, September 2007
A prominent expert in religion and historian of American politics examines the role established religion has played in the administrations of American presidents, from Washington to the present
Read More
Today’s dispute over the line between church and state (or the lack thereof) is neither the first nor the fiercest in our history. In a powerful retelling of the birth of the American body politic, religious historian Forrest Church describes our first great culture war—a tumultuous yet nearly forgotten conflict that raged from George Washington’s presidency to James Monroe’s. On one side of the battle, the proponents of order—Federalists, Congregationalists, New Englanders—believed that the only legitimate ruler of men is God. On the other side, the defenders of liberty—republicans, Baptists, Virginians—cheered the Enlightenment and the French Revolution, and believed that only the separation of church and state would preserve man’s freedom. Would we be a nation under God, or with liberty for all? In this vigorous history, Forrest Church offers a new vision of our earliest presidents’ beliefs, reshaping assumptions about the debates that still reverberate across our land.
Read Less