Synopses & Reviews
A brilliant and urgent appraisal of one of the most profound conflicts of our timeEven before George W. Bush gained reelection by wooing religiously devout "values voters," it was clear that church-state matters in the United States had reached a crisis. With Divided by God, Noah Feldman shows that the crisis is as old as this country--and looks to our nation's past to show how it might be resolved.
Today more than ever, ours is a religiously diverse society: Muslim, Hindu, and Buddhist as well as Catholic, Protestant, and Jewish. And yet more than ever, committed Christians are making themselves felt in politics and culture.
What are the implications of this paradox? To answer this question, Feldman makes clear that again and again in our nation's history diversity has forced us to redraw the lines in the church-state divide. In vivid, dramatic chapters, he describes how we as a people have resolved conflicts over the Bible, the Pledge of Allegiance, and the teaching of evolution through appeals to shared values of liberty, equality, and freedom of conscience. And he proposes a brilliant solution to our current crisis, one that honors our religious diversity while respecting the long-held conviction that religion and state should not mix.
Divided by God speaks to the headlines, even as it tells the story of a long-running conflict that has made the American people who we are.
Review
"A reasoned, reasonable and consensus-seeking argument that is, of course, in danger of going unheard amid all the shouting." Kirkus Reviews
Review
"Compared with the thicket of sectarian tensions in Iraq and elsewhere in the Islamic world, America's religious conflicts must have seemed fairly easy to dispatch, and in Divided by God, Feldman sets out to do just that. The book takes a brisk, fair and fascinating tour through the history of church-state separation in America. It culminates in a plan for resolving the furies of the culture war that is theoretically elegant and historically grounded. Unfortunately, it is almost completely divorced from political realities and the facts on the ground." Michelle Goldberg, Salon.com (read the entire Salon.com review)
Synopsis
A brilliant and urgent appraisal of one of the most profound conflicts of our time. Even before George W. Bush gained reelection by wooing religiously devout "values voters," it was clear that church-state matters in the United States had reached a crisis. With
Divided by God, Noah Feldman shows that the crisis is as old as this country and looks to our nation's past to show how it might be resolved.
Today more than ever, ours is a religiously diverse society: Muslim, Hindu, and Buddhist as well as Catholic, Protestant, and Jewish. And yet more than ever, committed Christians are making themselves felt in politics and culture.
What are the implications of this paradox? To answer this question, Feldman makes clear that again and again in our nation's history diversity has forced us to redraw the lines in the church-state divide. In vivid, dramatic chapters, he describes how we as a people have resolved conflicts over the Bible, the Pledge of Allegiance, and the teaching of evolution through appeals to shared values of liberty, equality, and freedom of conscience. And he proposes a brilliant solution to our current crisis, one that honors our religious diversity while respecting the long-held conviction that religion and state should not mix.
Divided by God speaks to the headlines, even as it tells the story of a long-running conflict that has made the American people who we are.
About the Author
Noah Feldman, who teaches law at New York University, is the author of
After Jihad and
What We Owe Iraq. He lives in New York and Washington, D.C.