Customer Reviews

Bleached Faith: The Tragic Cost When Religion Is Forced into the Public Square (Stanford Law Books)

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I enjoyed this book and the way it presents past court cases, but this was tainted with the author's naive understanding of religion. The author wants the varied religions to view the role of religion the way he does, but clearly all the litigation shows they don't. The author also repeatedly speaks of how religions discuss issues that science can't, but he never mentions the role of ethics, which do quite fine functioning without religion. This allows him to assume that religion has a privileged position. He also focuses on answers to big questions as the role of religion, which seems far more analytical a role than the emotional role that religion plays for most.

The author also seems to reject as misguided the actual religious doctrines that Americans believe in. If an individual believes in the literal interpretation of Genesis and that their god wants a theocracy, then the things that cheapen the author's conception of religion begin to seem sensible in the context of fundamentalist's disturbing view. The author repeatedly states why he feels religion is valuable, yet he is describing a religion that many religious Americans don't practice.

What I found most objectionable in the author's analysis is his use of terms like "meaningful religion" and his claim that religion is a guardian of "timeless faith and values." "Meaningful religion" is nonsensical, since he gives no argument to show that the religion he supports is meaningful and the religion he likely wouldn't, like Biblical genocides and oppression of women in certain theocracies, isn't meaningful. The idea that religion is a guardian of timeless faith and values shows a serious disconnect from any understanding of history and theology. It is the development of ethics and humanism that has tempered the xenophobia, oppression, genocides, and judgmental nature of the roots of our former religions. It is just as easy to say that it is the secular ethicist who needs to guard human values against the dangers of religious belief.

This book approaches the issue of separation of church and state from the point of view that such separation is positive (and almost essential) for the protection of religious values. The author offers a well-reasoned point of view that comes from a different angle than most books discussing this issue. This viewpoint is supported by arguments showing that the constitutional conditions placed on public displays of religious symbols cheapens them through secularization and that efforts to promote curricula such as intelligent design denigrate religion and have the practical effect of casting religion in a disparaging light. Anyone who is interested in the discourse of religion and government should read this book because it is offers the perspective that subjecting religion into the governmental sphere is more likely to harm religion than promote it.