AN UNSTEADY ‘WALL OF SEPARATION’: A FEW CONSIDERATIONS

Authors

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.54561/prj1401173s

Keywords:

separation of Church and State, Thomas Jefferson, christianity, epistemology, USA

Abstract

This is a polemical essay concerning the "wall of separation" between church and state in the United States of America. The author observes that there is a political struggle between defenders of religion, primarily Christians, on the one hand, and secularists on the other. Typical reasons given by secularists for a hard and fast division between church and state, and/or religion and politics, are historical, constitutional, and cultural. Underlying all of these reasons perhaps is the idea that faith is cognitively inferior to knowledge and therefore has no place in the public square. The author vigorously contests each aspect of the secularists' position and explores in further detail the epistemological distinctions between faith and knowledge.

References

Apple Michael W., Official Knowledge, Routledge, New York, 2000.

Behe Michael J., Darwin’s Black Box, The Free Press, New York, 1996.

Berlinski David, “The Deniable Darwin”, in: Darwinism, Design, and Public Education, John Angus Campbell and Steven C. Meyer (eds), Michigan State University Press, 2003.

Breger Louis, Freud: Darkness in the Midst of Vision, John Wiley & Sons, Inc., New York, 2000.

Bultmann Rudolf, Jesus Christ and Mythology, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1958.

Burtt Edwin Arthur, The Metaphysical Foundations of Modern Science, Doubleday Anchor Books, Garden City, 1954.

Dahl Robert A., How Democratic Is the American Constitution?, Yale University Press, 2003.

Dawson Christopher, Religion and Culture, The Catholic University Press of America, Washington, D.C., 2013.

Dennett Daniel C., Darwin’s Dangerous Idea., Touchstone, New York, 1995.

Dialogues of Alfred North Whitehead, Recorded by Lucien Price, Mentor Book, New York, 1954.

Dreisbach Daniel L., Thomas Jefferson and the Wall of Separation Between Church and State, New York University Press, 2002.

Eliot T.S., Christianity and Culture, Harcourt Brace & Company, New York, 1976.

Elk Grove Unified School District v. Newdow, 542 U.S. 1, 4-10 (2004).

Everson v. Board of Education, 330 U.S. 1 (1947).

Gettier Edmund, Is Justified True Belief Knowledge?, 1963, available at: http://fitelson.org/proseminar/gettier.pdf, accessed September 4, 2019.

Gregg Samuel, John Stuart Mill’s Intolerant Faith and the Religion of Liberalism, Public Discourse: The Journal of the Witherspoon Institute, June 19, 2017, available at: https://www.thepublicdiscourse.com/2017/06/19529/, accessed September 4, 2019.

Hamburger Philip, Separation of Church and State, Harvard University Press, 2002.

Herman Judith, Trauma and Recovery, Basic Books, New York, 1997.

Huntington Samuel P., The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order, , Simon & Schuster Paperbacks, New York, 1996.

James William, Essays on Faith and Morals, R. B. Perry (ed.), The World Publishing Company, New York, 1962.

Jefferson Thomas, “A Bill for Establishing Religious Freedom”, in: Toward Benevolent Neutrality: Church, State, and the Supreme Court, Robert T. Miller and Ronald B. Flowers (eds.), Markham Press Fund, Waco, 1987.

Kant Immanuel, Critique of Judgment, Translated by J. H. Bernard, Hafner Publishing Company, New York 1968.

Kant Immanuel, Critique of Practical Reason, Translated by Lewis White Beck, The Liberal Arts Press, New York, 1956.

Kant Immanuel, Critique of Pure Reason, Translated by Norman Kemp Smith, St. Martin’s Press, New York, 1965.

Kierkegaard Soren, Concluding Unscientific Postscript to Philosophical Fragments, Edited and translated by H.V.Hong and E.H. Hong, Princeton University Press, 1992.

Kronman Anthony T., Education’s End: Why Our Colleges and Universities Have Given Up on the Meaning of Life, Yale University Press, 2007.

Latour Bruno and Woolgar Stevem, Laboratory Life: The Construction of Scientific Facts, Princeton University Press, 1986.

Lemon v. Kurtzman, 403 U.S. 602 (1971).

Marsh v. Chambers, 463 U.S. 783 (1983).

Mehl-Madrona Lewis, Healing the Mind Through the Power of Story, Bear & Company, Rochester, 2010.

Neuhaus John Richard, The Naked Public Square, Grand Rapids, W. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 1984.

Ookerjee Sheryar, Human Reason and Its Enemies, Promilla & Co. Publishers, Chicago, 2009.

Plantinga Alvin, Warranted Christian Belief, Oxford University Press, 2000.

Plato, “Theaetetus”, in: Plato’s Theory of Knowledge, Translated with commentary by Francis M. Cornford, The Bobbs-Merrill Company, Inc., New York, 1957.

Pojman Louis P., The Theory of Knowledge: Classical and Contemporary Readings, Wadsworth Publishing Company, Belmont, 1993.

Pollard William G., Chance and Providence, Charles Scriber’s Sons, New York, 1958.

Rawls John, Political Liberalism, Columbia University Press, 1996.

Reid Thomas, An Inquiry into the Human Mind on the Principles of Common Sense, Derek R. Brookes (ed.), Pennsylvania State University Press, University Park, 2000.

Ritschl Albrecht, The Christian Doctrine of Justification and Reconciliation, Reference Book Publishers Inc., Clifton, 1966.

Rorty Richard, Truth and Progress, Philosophical Papers, Cambridge University Press, 1998.

Sandoiu Ana, “Too Many Values? Intolerance, Anti-Relativism and Richard Rorty”, Four By Three Magazine, available at: https://www.fourbythreemagazine.com/issue/saturation/intolerance-anti-relativism-richard-rorty, accessed September 4, 2019.

Schleiermacher Friedrich, The Christian Faith, Edited and translated by H.R. Mackintosh and J.S. Stewart, Harper & Row, New York, 1963.

Shapin Stephen, A Social History of Truth, The University of Chicago Press, 1995.

Smith L. Scott, America Unraveling, Father’s Press, Lee’s Summit, 2008.

Smith L. Scott, Does the Idea of God Belong in Politics? A Response to the ‘Political Liberalism’ of John Rawls, Politics and Religion Journal, Vol. 12, No. 2, 2018.

Smith L. Scott, Freud and Adler on Agency and Determinism in the Shaping of the Personality, The Journal of Individual Psychology, Vol. 59, Vol. 3, 2003.

Sokal Alan and Bricmont Jean, Fashionable Nonsense: Postmodern Intellectuals’ Abuse of Science, Picador Press, New York, 1998.

Stark Rodney, The Victory of Reason, Random House Trade Paperbacks, New York, 2006.

Tillich Paul, Dynamics of Faith, Harper Torchbooks, New York, 1957.

Vile John R., “Established Churches in Early America”, in: The First Amendment Encyclopedia, available at: https://www.mtsu.edu/first-amendment/article/801/established-churches-in-early-america, accessed September 4, 2019.

Whitehead Alfred North, Adventures of Ideas, The Free Press, New York, 1967.

Whitehead Alfred North, Process and Reality,. The Free Press, New York, 1969.

Whitehead Alfred North, Science and the Modern World, The Free Press, New York 1967.

Wilfred M. McClay, Wilfred M., “Two Concepts of Secularism”, in: Religion Returns to the Public Square, Hugh Heclo and Wilfred M. McClay (eds), Woodrow Wilson Center Press, Washington, D.C., 2003.

Willard Dallas, Knowing Christ Today: Why We Can Trust Spiritual Knowledge, Harper One, New York, 2010.

Woods Thomas Jr., How the Catholic Church Built Western Civilization, Regnery Publishing Inc., Washington D.C., 2005.

Downloads

Published

2022-12-03

How to Cite

Smith, L. S. (2022). AN UNSTEADY ‘WALL OF SEPARATION’: A FEW CONSIDERATIONS. Politics and Religion Journal, 14(1), 173–190. https://doi.org/10.54561/prj1401173s