Founding Faith: Providence, Politics, and the Birth of Religious Freedom in AmericaThe culture wars have distorted the dramatic story of how Americans came to worship freely. Many activists on the right maintain that the United States was founded as a “Christian nation.” Many on the left contend that the Founders were secular or Deist and that the First Amendment was designed to boldly separate church and state throughout the land. None of these claims are true, argues Beliefnet.com editor in chief Steven Waldman. With refreshing objectivity, Waldman narrates the real story of how our nation’s Founders forged a new approach to religious liberty, a revolutionary formula that promoted faith . . . by leaving it alone. |
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... Salem witch trials of 1692. Though the most famous example of Puritan ex- cess , the witch trials bear less on church - state issues than does the persecu- tion of the Quakers but , for several reasons , are still worth a quick review ...
... Salem witch trials well studied - the phenome- non of mass hysteria , the absurd standards of legal evidence - does not relate to the topic of this book . But there are two points of relevance . First , it was the Puritan theology that ...
... Salem witch trials , and Cotton Mather was still preaching in the small town of Boston until Ben was twenty - two . The world of the founding grandfathers shaped the attitudes of the Founding Fathers . So , let us now turn to our first ...
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Contents
18 | |
John Adams | 33 |
George Washington | 56 |
The pious infidel | 72 |
Natures God Meets the Supreme Judge | 86 |
James Madison | 93 |
A Diabolical Persecution | 100 |
The Mighty Current of Freedom | 107 |
Forgetting the Powerful Friend | 127 |
The First Amendment Compromise | 141 |
They Were Right | 188 |
Index | 209 |
207 | 243 |
Other editions - View all
Founding Faith: How Our Founding Fathers Forged a Radical New Approach to ... Steven Waldman No preview available - 2009 |