Journal of Church and State articles from September 2008

Journal of Church and State archives from September 2008

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

"The meaning of separation of church and state in the First Amendment".(response to article by Joseph M. Dawson in this issue, p. 677)
September 22, 2008... Joseph M. Dawson wrote this essay for the Journal of Church and State when he was 80 years old--five years after retiring as the first executive director of the Baptist Joint Committee on Public Affairs. Titled "The Meaning of Separation of...

Why Conservative Churches Are Growing: A Study in Sociology of Religion.(Book review)
September 22, 2008... Why Conservative Churches Are Growing: A Study in Sociology of Religion, By Dean M. Kelley. New York: Harper and Row, 1972. 184pp. The tendency in the life of American religious groups throughout the twentieth century until the 1960s was...

Transforming the Powers: Peace, Justice, and the Domination System.(Book review)
September 22, 2008... Transforming the Powers: Peace, Justice, and the Domination System. Edited by Ray Gingerich and Ted Grimsrud. Minneapolis, Minn.: Fortress Press, 2006. 227pp $20.00. This anthology pays tribute to Walter Wink and his pioneering trilogy on...

States of Exile: Visions of Diaspora, Witness, and Return.(Book review)
September 22, 2008... States of Exile: Visions of Diaspora, Witness, and Return. By Alain Epp Weaver. Foreword by Daniel Boyarin. Scottdale, Pa.: Herald Press, 2008. 215pp. $18.99 paper. Alain Epp Weaver's States of Exile argues for a political theology that...

Christian Political Ethics.(Book review)
September 22, 2008... Christian Political Ethics. Edited by John A. Coleman. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 2008. 312 pp. $21.95 paper. Militant secularists like Sam Harris and Christopher Hitchins condemn Christianity (and other of the world's...

Healing for a Broken World: Christian Perspectives on Public Policy.(Book review)
September 22, 2008... Healing for a Broken World. Christian Perspectives on Public Policy. By Steve Monsma. Wheaton, Ill.: Crossway Books, 2008. 224pp. $16.99. This book is written by a Christian evangelical for fellow evangelicals, a powerful force in American...

According to the Scriptures? The Challenge of Using the Bible in Social, Moral and Political Questions.(Book review)
September 22, 2008... According to the Scriptures?: The Challenge of Using the Bible in Social, Moral and Political Questions. By J. W. Rogerson. London: Equinox, 2007. 109 pp. $24.95 paper. British biblical scholar J. W. Rogerson in According to the...

Capitalism and Christianity, American Style.(Book review)
September 22, 2008... Capitalism and Christianity, American Style. By William E. Connolly. Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press, 2008. 192 pp. $74.95 cloth, $21.95 paper. Over the past several decades, William Connolly has developed a political theory rooted in...

The Origins of Christian Anti-Internationalism: Conservative Evangelicals and the League of Nations.(Book review)
September 22, 2008... The Origins of Christian Anti-Internationalism: Conservative Evangelicals and the League of Nations. By Markku Ruotsila. Washington, D.C.: Georgetown University Press, 2008. 246 pp. $49.95. Markku Ruotsila is an adjunct professor of...

The Gods of War: Is Religion the Primary Cause of Violent Conflict?(Book review)
September 22, 2008... The Gods of War: Is Religion the Primary Cause of Violent Conflict? By Meic Pearse. Downers Grove, Ill.: Inter Varsity Press Books, 2007. 231pp. $18.95. Meic Pearse's The Gods of War, like Caesar's Gaul, seemingly falls into three parts....

In the Name of Heaven: 3,000 Years of Religious Persecution.(Book review)
September 22, 2008... In the Name of Heaven: 3,000 Years of Religious Persecution. By Mary Jane Engh. Amherst, N. Y.: Prometheus Books, 2007. 235 pp. $25.00. Mary Jane Engh introduces In the Name of Heaven by promulgating the dearth of general histories of...

The Political Origins of Religious Liberty.(Book review)
September 22, 2008... The Political Origins of Religious Liberty. By Anthony Gill. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2008. 263 pp. $23.99. This complex and carefully argued work, by a political scientist at the University of Washington adopts a novel...

Islam and the Secular State: Negotiating the Future of Shari'a.(Book review)
September 22, 2008... Islam and the Secular State: Negotiating the Future of Shari'a. By Abdullahi Ahmed An-Na'im. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2008. $35.00. Na'im's book will interest those who want to follow the contestation raging in...

Who Speaks for Islam? What a Billion Muslims Really Think.(Book review)
September 22, 2008... Who Speaks for Islam? What a Billion Muslims Really Think. By John L. Esposito and Dalia Mogahed. New York: Gallup Press, 2007. 204pp. $22.95. Between 2001 and 2007 leading American independent polling group, Gallup, Inc., conducted the...

Evangelical Christianity and Democracy in Africa.(Book review)
September 22, 2008... Evangelical Christianity and Democracy in Africa. Edited by Terence O. Ranger. New York: Oxford University Press, 2008. 267pp. $99.00 cloth, $29.95 paper. Sub-Saharan Africa does not have many functioning democracies, but it has a large...

State and Society in Eighteenth Century France: A Study of Political Revolution in Languedoc.(Book review)
September 22, 2008... State and Society in Eighteenth Century France: A Study of Political Revolution in Languedoc. By Stephen Miller. Washington, D.C.: Catholic University of America Press, 2008. xi + 322pp. 39.95. The relations among social classes of the old...

Hitler's Priests: Catholic Clergy and National Socialism.(Book review)
September 22, 2008... Hitler's Priests: Catholic Clergy and National Socialism. By Kevin P. Spicer, C.S.C. DeKalb, Ill.: Northern Illinois University Press, 2008. 375 pp. $34.95. Kevin P. Spicer, a member of the Congregation of the Holy Cross and the Church...

Vatican Secret Diplomacy: Joseph P. Hurley and Pope Pius XII.(Book review)
September 22, 2008... Vatican Secret Diplomacy: Joseph P. Hurley and Pope Pius XII. By Charles R. Gallagher, S.J. New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 2008. 283pp. $40.00. This book is more about Archbishop Hurley than Pius XII. It tells a fascinating...

The Politics of Latino Faith: Religion, Identity, and Urban Community.(Book review)
September 22, 2008... The Politics of Latino Faith: Religion, Identity, and Urban Community. By Catherine E. Wilson. New York: New York University Press, 2008. 320pp. $75.00 cloth, $25.00 paper. This study is an incisive contribution to the growing research on...

Religion in American Politics: A Short History.(Book review)
September 22, 2008... Religion in American Politics: A Short History. By Frank Lambert. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 2008. $24.95. Had it been tackled by a less capable historian, Religion in American Politics: A Short History, could have been a...

Native Americans and the Christian Right: The Gendered Politics of Unlikely Alliances.(Book review)
September 22, 2008... Native Americans and the Christian Right: The Gendered Politics of Unlikely Alliances. By Andrea Smith. Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press, 2008. 356 pp. $23.95 paper. Native Americans and the Christian Right is a livery and ambitious...

America, Amerikkka: Elect Nation and Imperial Violence.(Book review)
September 22, 2008... America, Amerikkka: Elect Nation and Imperial Violence. By Rosemary Radford Ruether. London: Equinox, 2007. 291pp. $90.00 cloth, $24.95 paper. This provocatively titled book tells a bold and difficult story, if not one that is entirely...

The Great Awakening: Reviving Faith and Politics in a Post-Religious Right Americaa.(Book review)
September 22, 2008... The Great Awakening. Reviving Faith & Politics in a Post-Religious Right America. By Jim Wallis. New York: HarperCollins Publishers, 2008. 336 pp. $ 25.95 paper. Slavery's demise, women's suffrage, and civil rights for African-Americans...

The Values Campaign? The Christian Right and the 2004 Elections.(Book review)
September 22, 2008... The Values Campaign? The Christian Right and the 2004 Elections. Edited by John C. Green, Mark J. Rozell, & Clyde Wilcox. Washington, D.C.: Georgetown University Press, 2006. 273pp. $44.95 cloth, $26.95 paper. The Values Campaign is the...

God Speaks to Us, Too: Southern Baptist Women on Church, Home and Society.(Book review)
September 22, 2008... God Speaks to Us, Too: Southern Baptist Women on Church, Home & Society. By Susan M. Shaw. Lexington, Ky.: University Press of Kentucky, 2008. 322pp. $40.00. Susan M. Shaw, associate professor and director of the Women Studies Program and...