Author Description
In 1947, The Supreme Court Embraced The Concept Of Church-state Separation As Shorthand For The Meaning Of The Establishment Clause Of The First Amendment. The Concept Became Embedded In Court's Jurisprudence And Remains So Today. Yet Separation Of Church And State Is Not Just A Legal Construct; It Is Embedded In The Culture. Church-state Separation Was A Popular Cultural Ideal, Chiefly For Protestants And Secularists, Long Before The Supreme Court Adopted It As A Constitutional Principle. While The Court's Church-state Decisions Have Impacted Public Attitudes--particularly Those Controversial Holdings Regarding Prayer And Bible Reading In Public Schools--the Idea Of Church-state Separation Has Remained Relatively Popular; Recent Studies Indicate That Approximately Two-thirds Of Americans Support The Concept, Even Though They Disagree Over How To Apply It. In The Follow Up To His 2010 Book The Second Disestablishment, Steven K. Green Sets Out To Do Examine The Development Of Modern Separationism From A Legal And Cultural Perspective. The Third Disestablishment Examines The Dominant Religious-cultural Conflicts Of The 1930s-1950s Between Protestants And Catholics, But It Also Shows How Other Trends And Controversies During Mid-century Impacted Both Judicial And Popular Attitudes Toward Church-state Separation: The Jehovah's Witnesses' Cases Of The Late-30s And Early-40's, Cold War Anti-communism, The Religious Revival And The Rise Of Civil Religion, The Advent Of Ecumenism, And The Presidential Campaign Of 1960. The Book Then Examines How Events Of The 1960s-the School Prayer Decisions, The Reforms Of Vatican Ii, And The Enactment Of Comprehensive Federal Education Legislation Providing Assistance To Religious Schools-produced A Rupture In The Protestant Consensus Over Church-state Separation, Causing Both Evangelicals And Religious Progressives To Rethink Their Commitment To That Principle. Green Concludes By Examining A Series Of Church-state Cases In The Late-60s
Menrva's Summary
THE THESIS
How did the cultural and legal consensus surrounding the separation of church and state in America fracture during the mid-twentieth century? Steven K. Green, a legal scholar and historian, utilizes a combination of judicial records and cultural analysis to investigate the transition from a Protestant-dominated ideal of separationism to the complex, contested landscape of the late 1960s. The book argues that the mid-century period served as a critical turning point where Cold War pressures, ecumenical shifts, and specific Supreme Court rulings dismantled the previous agreement on how religious institutions should interact with the state.
THE SCOPE MAP
What You Will Find
- Analysis of the Jehovah's Witnesses' legal challenges in the 1930s and 1940s.
- Examination of the impact of Cold War anti-communism on religious identity.
- Review of the 1960 presidential election and its influence on church-state discourse.
- Discussion of the Vatican II reforms and their effect on American Protestant-Catholic relations.
Scope Limits
- The analysis focuses primarily on the American context and does not provide a global history of secularism.
- The text concludes its primary investigation in the late 1960s, leaving subsequent decades of legal development outside its immediate scope.
THE AUTHORITY PERSPECTIVE
Scholars and legal historians recognize this work as a significant contribution to the study of American religious history and constitutional jurisprudence. Readers frequently note the academic density of the prose, which provides a thorough examination of the shifting alliances between religious groups and the judiciary during the mid-twentieth century.
Page Count:
480
Publication Date:
2018-01-01
Publisher:
Oxford University Press
ISBN-10:
0190908157
ISBN-13:
9780190908157
Religion
History
Politics
Constitutional Law
Law
American History