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  1. Home
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  3. God and the Founders
  • Cited by 17
Publisher:
Cambridge University Press
Online publication date:
June 2012
Print publication year:
2009
Online ISBN:
9780511627163
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511627163
Subjects:
Area Studies, American Studies, American Government, Politics and Policy, History, Colonial American History, Politics and International Relations
Information

Book description

Did the Founding Fathers intend to build a 'wall of separation' between church and state? Are public Ten Commandments displays or the phrase 'under God' in the Pledge of Allegiance consistent with the Founders' understandings of religious freedom? In God and the Founders, Dr Vincent Phillip Muñoz answers these questions by providing comprehensive interpretations of James Madison, George Washington, and Thomas Jefferson. By analyzing Madison's, Washington's, and Jefferson's public documents, private writings, and political actions, Muñoz explains the Founders' competing church-state political philosophies. Muñoz explores how Madison, Washington, and Jefferson agreed and disagreed by showing how their different principles of religious freedom would decide the Supreme Court's most important First Amendment religion cases. God and the Founders answers the question, 'What would the Founders do?' for the most pressing church-state issues of our time, including prayer in public schools, government support of religion, and legal burdens on individuals' religious consciences.

Reviews

'Vincent Philip Muñoz begins this fine book by pointing to a notorious scandal - that there is no evident logic to the opinions handed down over the last sixty years by the U. S. Supreme Court regarding church and state and that over time the confusion sown by the court has grown more seriousness. This state of affairs he traces to the fact that the Justices always cite the Founders in their opinions on this matter and get them wrong. To encourage greater clarity and thoughtfulness in their judicial deliberations, he demonstrates that George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, and James Madison were, in fact, at odds; he encourages the Justices to make a fully-informed choice between their positions; and he indicates which choice he thinks most reasonable.'

Paul Rahe - Hillsdale College

'An engaging, thoroughly researched, and well-written probe into the origins of one of America's most distinctive accomplishments - religious freedom - which also happens to be one of our most contentious contemporary constitutional issues. Muñoz is one of the country's brightest young scholars; his first major book should be required reading at the Supreme Court, and indeed wherever issues of religious freedom are discussed in America today.'

George Weigel - Ethics and Public Policy Center, Washington, DC

'I know of no other book that does so good a job of probing the theoretical statements of the founders, relating their theory to their practice and then making concrete applications to specific cases and issues. Most of the literature tries to come up with a generalized ‘consensus’ founding view, which Muñoz definitively shows is misguided. Most of the other literature remains at a level of generality that fails to show the concrete implications of the founders’ (different) positions. This book definitely makes a contribution to a field on which a great deal has indeed been written.'

Michael Zuckert - University of Notre Dame

'… this book takes a more systematic approach … Muñoz makes a convincing case …'

Source: History of Political Thought

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