Faith and Freedom: Religious Liberty in America (Critical Issue) [Paperback]

Marvin E. Frankel (Author)

Book Description

Series: Critical Issue | Publication Date: January 31, 1995

The Hill and Wang Critical Issues Series: concise, affordable works on pivotal topics in American history, society, and politics.

Faith and Freedom offers an illuminating analysis of disputes over the religion clauses in the First Amendment. Frankel examines the most dramatic of the court cases concerned with these issues in the last half century--the claimed rights of Native Americans to use peyote in religious ceremonies, the demand of Amish parents to exempt their children from laws requiring school attendance, and many more. Arguing in the tradition of Roger Williams, Frankel suggests we must accept only the bare minimum of breaches between the religious domain and the state.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Frankel, former U.S. district judge has written an extended essay on separation of church and state. In light of the current clamor for a Constitutional amendment providing for school prayer, it is unfortunate that his book lacks contemporary urgency, sketching instead the history of U.S. religious liberty and summarizing court decisions over the decades not just on school prayer but on public buses for parochial schools, moments of silence, public creches and other religious displays, and on religious practices such as peyote use or animal sacrifice that violate criminal laws. He makes a good case for his position that the separation of church and state must be interpreted strictly in order to protect minorities, including such telling evidence as a Jewish schoolchild's testimony about being harassed after not praying during a mandated moment of silence. However, Frankel treats questions of religious liberty strictly as differences of religious belief and practice, ignoring the competing social and political agendas of religious groups. And his writing is often awkward and pretentious: "In what critics condemn as a crazily wavering line, but I tend to accept as good-faith efforts by fallible and nonuniform judges, there has been a diversity of cases and fine distinctions."
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal

Frankel, a distinguished jurist now in private practice, argues that the "wall of separation" between church and state must be kept almost unbreachable if religious liberty is to be preserved. By no means antireligious, he examines various court cases that have dealt with religious issues, explains the history behind them, and at times criticizes the reasoning of the Supreme Court. His purpose is to show that, where the wall has been kept high, the polyglot American community has benefited. He also deals with hard cases-alleged religious quackery, laws regulating the sale of kosher products-but comes down on the side of noninterference on the part of the government where there is no clearly secular issue at stake. A chapter on school vouchers is particularly timely. For general collections.
Augustine Curley, Newark Abbey, N.J.
Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 144 pages
• Publisher: Hill and Wang (January 31, 1995)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0809015757
• ISBN-13: 978-0809015757
• Product Dimensions: 8.3 x 5.5 x 0.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,992,934 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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