Journal of Church and State articles

Recent articles from Journal of Church and State

The European background of American freedom.
September 22, 2008... To reach the real sources of the American concept of freedom it would be necessary to explore the annals of antiquity. The search would lead at least as far back as the civilizations of the Hebrews and Greeks, from which came the social and spiritual roots of modern Western life. Though...

Religious conscience in colonial New England.
September 22, 2008... Religious freedom, unlike so many other American liberties, is largely an indigenous product. It is not an inheritance transplanted from Europe by the founding fathers, but is rather the outcome of peculiarly American circumstances and problems and is the end result of a slow and oftentimes...

The meaning of separation of church and state in the First Amendment.
September 22, 2008... The First Amendment of the Constitution of the United States, which heads the Bill of Rights, stipulates: "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof." The question that is immediately asked, however, is what exactly does...

Commentary: the European background of American freedom.".(response to article by John W. Shepard Jr. in this issue, p. 647)
September 22, 2008... Educator John W. Shepard, Jr., had recently retired from his position at Seinan Gakuin College in Fukuoka, Japan, and assumed a position in the Baylor history department. He had served under the Foreign Mission Board of the Southern Baptist Convention for 35 years. In this essay, writing from...

Religious freedom in America and the world: commentary on "religious conscience in colonial New England".(response to article by Robert T. Miller in this issue, p. 661)
September 22, 2008... There is much with which to agree in Miller's article. Indeed we find it insightful, and strongly concur with his final sentence: long before Europe had shaken loose her shackles of coerced religious conformity, the development of a fresh and more wholesome conscience brought...