Content area
Full Text
Religion and the New Republic Faith in the Founding of America. Edited by James H. Hutson. (Lanham, Maryland: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc. 2000. Pp. viii, 213. $70.00.)
In June, 1998, a two-day symposium was held at the Library of Congress, chaired by Professor Jarolsav Pelikan, to celebrate the opening of a particularly well-done exhibition entitled, "Religion and the Founding of the American Republic." This book of seven essays consists of revisions of papers presented by the authors at that symposium (with the exception of Mark A. Noll's contribution, which is, as noted by the editor, an entirely new paper). Conscious of the continuing national debate over the place of religion in the public square, these scholars, who include historians, philosophers, and theologians, explore the role of religion in the founding of the United States. They are advocates for a variety of interpretations of both the colonial history and the "proper" relationship between church and state for our times.
John Witte, Jr., Director of the Law and Religion Program at Emory University Law School, analyzes the Massachusetts 1780 Constitution, with particular attention to the vision and work of John Adams, who favored a "tempered" form of religious freedom, at significant variance with the Jeffersonian ideal as exemplified in the 1779 Bill for the Establishment of Religious Freedom in Virginia. Adams had concluded that a dialectical approach was most beneficial, for it sought...