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November 29, 2019|Clarence Thomas, Fourteenth Amendment, Religious Establishment

Incorporating the Establishment Clause, Wrongly

by James R. Rogers|

Former Georgia Gov. Sonny Perdue, left, chats with Justice Clarence Thomas following Purdue’s swearing-in as the 31st U.S. Secretary of Agriculture at the Supreme Court, April 25, 2017. (USDA Photo / Alamy Stock Photo).
The structural guarantee of the Establishment Clause can be preserved even with protections that prevent restricting individuals' religious liberty.

July 7, 2017|Clash of Civilizations, Religious Establishment, Samuel Huntington, Tradition Project

The Clash of Traditions

by Mark L. Movsesian|

Professor Samuel Huntington photographed in his office at Harvard University. (Rick Friedman/Corbis via Getty Images)

The late political scientist Samuel Huntington’s famous book The Clash of Civilizations (1996) argued that culture, not economics or ideology, was the key to understanding world affairs after the Cold War’s end. Different civilizations, he argued—he identified nine, including the Western, Orthodox, Islamic, Sinic, and Hindu—with different histories, religions, and values, were now reasserting themselves after a brief period of quiescence. These different civilizations would inevitably clash with one another and with liberalism, an ideology that presumed itself universal, but which was actually the product of one of those civilizations, the Western. To expect non-Western civilizations to reject their own cultures and adopt liberalism wholesale, he argued, was folly.

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July 29, 2016|Conscience, Harvey Mansfield, Religious Establishment, Religious Liberty

Divine Rights and Human Rights

by Marc DeGirolami|

The eminent political theorist Harvey Mansfield once wrote that the “religious question” is the crucial one for the modern age, because it concerns the ultimate repository of authority and control. Is it human or is it divine?

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March 7, 2016|

Who Threatens Whom? Which Religion Needs Protection?

by D.G. Hart|

In response to: Reimagining Religion’s Distinctiveness in American Law

Many of my undergraduate students have trouble understanding the threat that religion might pose to the state. Often when teaching the Investiture Controversy, the 11th century contest between Pope Gregory VII and King Henry IV, the Holy Roman Emperor, over the appointment of bishops, I put to them the anachronistic question of whether the Pope has more power than the President of the United States. Most think the answer obvious. Since the President is the leader of the free world, presides over one of the most powerful nations in human history, and is the commander-in-chief of arguably the most potent military in…

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More Responses

The Clashes of Values that Leviathan Foments

by Ilya Shapiro

Kathleen Brady’s book The Distinctiveness of American Religion in Law: Rethinking Religion Clause Jurisprudence is a fascinating exposition of the changing role that religion plays in a rapidly secularizing society. What’s so special about religion? Why should courts treat it differently from non-religious belief systems? Why do we still mostly speak of religious free exercise…

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Reimagining Religion’s Distinctiveness: Kathleen Brady Replies to Her Critics

by Kathleen A. Brady

I would like to thank D.G. Hart and Ilya Shapiro for their thoughtful comments on my essay. Together their observations provide me with the opportunity to clarify some aspects of my account of religion’s distinctiveness and the implications of this distinctiveness for our understanding of the First Amendment’s religion clauses and other constitutional liberties. Professor Hart…

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May 18, 2012|John Adams, Massachusetts Constitution, Paul Rahe, Religious Establishment

John Adams and Religious Liberty: What Our Second President Can Teach Us About Constitutional Compromise

by Richard Samuelson|

John Adams’ name is in the news again.  And once again he is being misrepresented. As in life, so too in death.  In the past few month, then noted historian Rosemarie Zigarri wrote in the Washington Post that (in the Post’s words)  “John Adams believed that the state should provide support for ministers.”  In a much discussed essay on Ricochet, the distinguished historian Paul Rahe recently made the same claim.

Everyone knows that Adams wrote the Massachusetts Constitution of 1780, and everyone knows that Article III of the Constitution’s Declaration of Rights created a church establishment.  QED, it would appear.  The trouble is that Adams did not write Article III of the Massachusetts Constitution.  Indeed, he refused to write it because, in his words, “I found I could not sketch [it], consistent with my own sentiments of perfect religious freedom, with any hope of its being adopted by the Convention, so I left it to be battled out in the whole body.”  In that refusal lies an important story of democratic statesmanship.

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Book Reviews

A Mirror of the 20th-Century Congress

by Joseph Postell

Wright undermined the very basis of his local popularity—the decentralized nature of the House—by supporting reforms that gave power to the party leaders.

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The Graces of Flannery O'Connor

by Henry T. Edmondson III

O'Connor's correspondence is a goldmine of piercing insight and startling reflections on everything from literature to philosophy to raising peacocks.

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Liberty Classics

Rereading Politica in the Post-Liberal Moment

by Glenn A. Moots

Althusius offers a rich constitutionalism that empowers persons to thrive alongside one another in deliberate communities.

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James Fenimore Cooper and the American Experiment

by Melissa Matthes

In The American Democrat, James Fenimore Cooper defended democracy against both mob rule and majority tyranny.

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Podcasts

Stuck With Decadence

A discussion with Ross Douthat

Ross Douthat discusses with Richard Reinsch his new book The Decadent Society.

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Can the Postmodern Natural Law Remedy Our Failing Humanism?

A discussion with Graham McAleer

Graham McAleer discusses how postmodern natural law can help us think more coherently about human beings and our actions.

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Did the Civil Rights Constitution Distort American Politics?

A discussion with Christopher Caldwell

Christopher Caldwell discusses his new book, The Age of Entitlement.

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America, Land of Deformed Institutions

A discussion with Yuval Levin

Yuval Levin pinpoints that American alienation and anger emerges from our weak political, social, and religious institutions.

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About

Law & Liberty’s focus is on the classical liberal tradition of law and political thought and how it shapes a society of free and responsible persons. This site brings together serious debate, commentary, essays, book reviews, interviews, and educational material in a commitment to the first principles of law in a free society. Law & Liberty considers a range of foundational and contemporary legal issues, legal philosophy, and pedagogy.

The opinions expressed on Law & Liberty are solely those of the contributors to the site and do not reflect the opinions of Liberty Fund.
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