Bruce Ledewitz

Church, State, and the Crisis in American Secularism

• Gebundenes Buch

Produktbeschreibung

There are two church-state crises today. The first is a crisis in interpreting the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. Since 1947, the United States Supreme Court has promised government neutrality toward religion. But the public square is not neutral. The national motto is "In God We Trust" and the Pledge of Allegiance denominates us a nation "under God". The public square is not even neutral among religions. Government displays of the Ten Commandments and other biblical images are common and have been upheld as constitutional. The second crisis lies in the heart of a rapidly secularizing America. Because prominent atheists identify religion as an enemy, secularists are led into unthinking opposition not only to religious imagery but to all that religion represents, including the objectivity of values. Secularism is thus in danger of descending into relativism. What is needed to resolve these crises is a vision of the Establishment Clause that the American people can accept-one that honors religion while recognizing America's religious pluralism. In Church, State, and the Crisis of American Secularism, law professor and secularist Bruce Ledewitz offers that vision. Ledewitz argues that religious images, including references to God, contain secular meanings. Since the Declaration of Independence, religious imagery has been used to represent the objectivity of values and the universality of human rights. Government today should be permitted to utilize religious imagery to support similar secular ideals. This tradition is known as higher law. It teaches that there are objective standards of right and wrong, true and false, beautiful and ugly. The higher law tradition is secular and religious. Ledewitz's higher law proposal offers a justification of religious imagery in the public square that believers and nonbelievers can both accept. It invites the formation of a new political coalition and an end to the religious culture wars.

Produktdetails

• Verlag: Indiana University Press
• Seitenzahl: 312
• Erscheinungstermin: 1. Juni 2011
• Englisch
• Abmessung: 236mm x 161mm x 29mm
• Gewicht: 612g
• ISBN-13: 9780253356345
• ISBN-10: 0253356342
• Artikelnr.: 32730743

Autorenporträt

Bruce Ledewitz is Professor of Law at Duquesne University School of Law and author of American Religious Democracy: Coming to Terms with the End of Secular Politics and Hallowed Secularism: Theory, Belief, Practice. Ledewitz is a recognized expert in the fields of constitutional law and criminal law.

Inhaltsangabe

Preface
Introduction
I. The Establishment Clause Crisis
1. What We Say: The Supreme Court's Promise of Government Neutrality Toward
Religion
2. What We Do: The Failure of the Supreme Court to Redeem the Promise of
Government Neutrality
3. Why Only the People and Not History Can Resolve the Establishment Clause
Crisis
4. Proposals That Have Failed to Resolve the Establishment Clause Crisis
II. Using Government Speech and Higher Law to Resolve the Establishment
Clause Crisis
5. The Establishment of Higher Law
6. Using Religious Symbols to Establish Higher Law
7. Applying Higher Law in Church/State Issues
III. Using the Higher Law Establishment Clause to Save Secularism
8. The Failure of Secularism under the New Atheism
9. The New New Secularism and the Higher Law
10. Is God a Universal Symbol?
11. The New Politics of Higher Law Secularism
Conclusion: Perfecting Democracy
Notes
Bibliography
Index