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Founding Faith: Providence, Politics, and the Birth of Religious Freedom in America | 
 enlarge | Author: Steven Waldman
Creator: David Colacci
Publisher: BBC Audiobooks America
Category: Book
List Price: $29.95
Buy New: $17.76
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Avg. Customer Rating:  24 reviews
Sales Rank: 346442
Format: Audiobook
Media: Audio CD
Edition: Unabridged
Number Of Items: 8
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.5
Dimensions (in): 5.9 x 5.1 x 1
ISBN: 160283377X
Dewey Decimal Number: 323.442097309033
EAN: 9781602833777
ASIN: 160283377X
Publication Date: March 2008
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Condition: SATISFACTION GUARANTEED! NEW Book! May have remainder mark. Most orders ship within 1 BUSINESS DAY with ORDER CONFIRMATION.
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Product Description
A Clear-Headed Take on the Religion and Politics of Our Nation's Founding Fathers. The culture wars have distorted the dramatic story of how Americans came to worship freely. Many activists on the right maintain that the United States was founded as a "Christian nation." Many on the left contend that the Founders were secular or Deist and that the First Amendment was designed to boldly separate church and state throughout the land. None of these claims are true, argues Beliefnet.com Editor-in-Chief Steven Waldman. With refreshing objectivity, Waldman narrates the real story of how our nation's Founders forged a new approach to religious liberty, a revolutionary formula that promoted faith--by leaving it alone. The spiritual custody battle over the Founding Fathers and the role of religion in America continues today. Waldman provocatively argues that neither side in the culture war has accurately depicted the true origins of the First Amendment. He sets the record straight, revealing the real history of religious freedom to be dramatic, unexpected, paradoxical, and inspiring. Presented unabridged on 8 CDs.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 19 more reviews...
 The Multifarious Founders and Their Religious Views November 11, 2008
There are few questions that can get legal scholars, jurists, and ideologues as excited as the question of what the attitude of the American founders towards religion was. For the last fifty-or-so years, the issue has had no shortage of opinions written on the issue. Some feel that the founders advocated for complete seperation between religion and government. Others believe that the founders only wished to prevent establishing a national religion; anything short of that would have been acceptable.
This book (along with several others, like American Gospel) take the middle view. Profiling the seperate views of Franklin, Washington, Adams, Jerfferson, and Madison, Waldman an attempt to show that the founders themselves may have been of a divided mind on the question of how much religion and state should intermingle. The conclusion the author comes to: (a) the founders were as confused on the subject as we are, and had as many different opinions; (b) myths abound on both sides of the current church/state debates.
Waldman debunks two myths simulteneously myths. The founders were neither deists as the "left" supposes, or Christians of the variety that the "right" commonly supposes. While most of the founders were Christians, most were quite liberal by any conservative Christian standard. (Of Washington, Waldman notes that he was the type of Christian who would have gone to church "unless there was a good football game on." Of Jefferson, Waldman notes that he was a Christian only in the sense that he believed Christ to be a good moral philosopher.) While all the founders seemed to believe in a God active in the world (ruling out deism), most (excepting Adams) took the bible as highly metaphorical, rarely referred to Jesus Christ in writings, and made disparaging comments in private letters to do with organized religion.
Waldman's book is well-researched, very readable, and hard to argue with. He takes us from the early days of the colonies (where all but two states had strong political support for religion), through the Revolution and Constitutional Convention (where discussion of religion was always brief), all the way through Madison's death. The drafing of the first amendment is focused on quite heavily, and Waldman does a good job in showing how our Bill of Rights was more an act of political compromise than ideeological zest. (The first amendment went through multiple drafts, the final of which is the one using the vaguest, and thus most politically expedient, language.)
In the end, Waldman concludes that hoping for any "original intent" of our Founders on religion is hopeless. Like Jack Rakove's book "Original Meanings," Waldman reminds us through astute historical analysis that not only were their too many heads to have any single intent, but that even the founders (namely Franklin and Adams) had quite evolving and not always consistent internal views. They are not Gods whose views were fully formed, but humans whose views were nuanced and evolving.
A very good read for those who want a well-researched and -argued book on the Founding Faiths.
This should be required reading in school November 10, 2008
Finally a book that uses historical facts, instead of subjective opinions.
FANTASTIC FANTASTIC FANTASTIC!!!!!!!
A must read...
 An evenhanded view of our founding fathers October 21, 2008
Founding Faith is a very good, even-handed review of the attitudes and the possible intentions of the founding fathers, especially as it pertains to the contentious issue of separation of church and state.
While I would love to hear that the fathers intended this to be a strongly "christian nation" and others might wish to hear that they intended it to be a strictly "secular nation" the author makes the compelling case that neither extreme is the case. In listening to this book I got the impression that I was getting the whole story, rather than one side or the other.
I pulled the following points from the book:
1. The founding fathers did not all agree on the issue of separation.
2. While most of the fathers were very spiritual, not all would fit the classifications of "conservative" or "evangelical".
3. The 1st Ammendment was designed as much to protect "religion from the state" as to protect the "state from religion".
4. The biggest problem both in England and in the colonies was between christian denominations (Congregationalists against Quakers, Presbyterians against Baptists, etc) rather than religious versus atheist. The official denomination of the colony would collect taxes and make the laws specific to their creeds, to the detriment of the members of other denominations.
5. The fathers wrestled and compromised over the wording of the first ammendment but surely never envisioned the lengths to which their words would have been applied in 20th and 21st century America.
The book is interesting and full of quotes and insights into the lives of the various fathers. At times it gets a bit laborous but the author ties the pieces together nicely in the later chapters (CD 7) and brings it home. This is probably a book to read several times in order to fully understand all of the details.
"The Godly Roots Of Rebellion" & 'Saint' James Madison September 30, 2008
"Is an Ecclesiastical Establishment absolutely necessary to support civil society in a supreme Government?" So James Madison asked a Pennsylvanian friend in 1773 before making a huge contribution to the writing of the American Constitution.
"... at the time of ratification, few states had religious liberty of the sort that Madison wanted. All but two states had religious tests banning Jews, Unitarians, and agnostics from public office. Taxpayers supported the churches and ministers in MA, NH, CT, NJ, GA, NC, and SC. In some states, only Trinitarian Protestants could vote or testify in trials. It was considered blasphemy, and therefore illegal in some states, to criticize, reproach, or deny Christianity, the Trinity, Jesus Christ, or the Bible. Nontheists were restricted from owning property or giving money to certain charities; schools required religious services; and people were regularly prosecuted for not observing the Sabbath. All THAT, THE US CONSTITUTION LET STAND." (emphasis added)
"The First Amendment was a grand declaration that the federal government couldn't support or regulate religion---but it was also a grand declaration that states absolutely could." "That was part of the compromise that enabled the First Amendment to gain widespread support." p156
Then why, as some are prone to argue, wasn't God mentioned in the US Constitution? Or why didn't the founders give pride of place to religion therein?
"The new England colonies---MA, CT, NH---were dominated by Puritans and their Congregational churches. They disliked the Anglicans. VA, NC, SC, and GA were at one point or another dominated by the Church of England. They disliked Puritans." RI was more tolerant. PA gave protection to Quakers and other minorities. Thanks to the trading issue the Dutch embraced religious tolerance earlier than other countries. So New Amsterdam, before becoming NY, shared a bit of this inclination. Maryland was settled explicitly as a refuge for Catholics, through a land grant by Charles l to Catholic convert George Calvert, aka Lord Baltimore, in 1632. By 1681 Protestants outnumbered Catholics in MD 30 to 1. The Church of England was established soon after. By 1700 the colony prevented Catholics from inheriting or purchasing land; by 1704 catholic worship was prohibited; by 1716 public office holders were required to swear allegiance to the Church of England. And by 1718 Catholics were denied even the right to vote unless they did likewise."
Thus, one could easily argue, as James Madison himself did, that "The absence of God from the Constitution was pro-religion."
"Much of the population had been raised to believe that to ensure a religion's health, the state must support it. The Constitution demanded a paradigm shift, away from public responsibility and toward private." As George Washington said: "The path of true piety is so plain as to require but little political direction." To boot, "on the very day the House of Representatives passed the Bill of Rights, it approved a resolution for a `day of public thanksgiving and prayer to be observed...[for] the many signal favors of Almighty God.'" "It would not be until after the passage of the 14th Amendment in 1868 that states would fall under the restrictions of the US Constitution's Bill of Rights."
"The New World was settled to promote Christianity. For more than 150 years, colonial governments actively supported the dominant faith. Less acknowledged today is a point well understood by the Founding Fathers: Nearly all of these experiments in state encouragement of religion failed." p.3 Moreover, in the American colonies "Before 1690, 90% of churches were affiliated with dominant sects---Congregationalism or Anglicism. By 1770, only 35% were." "By the time of the Revolution, religious minorities were in the majority." This evolution, in turn, led to "the revolutionary view that political and religious freedom were intertwined." And the fact that Great Britain had a state church made it an almost effortless leap for many colonists to carryover their hostility to Britain's state church and Anglicanism into hostility for Great Britain itself. That is the author's view herein. That the 1726-60 Great Awakening in American colonies heavily influenced colonists towards being inclined, whence given some cause, to consider breaking with Great Britain. The author could just as easily called this book "The Godly Roots of Rebellion." The "break from Britain had many causes, but desire for religious freedom was one of them. In the South, the Church of England was the official religion, even though the majority of the population by that point was not Anglican. The oppressiveness of the Church seemed part and parcel of the royal tyranny." p195. Hence the revolutionary troops banner called by Pennsylvania's troops: "Resistance to Tyrants is Obedience to God." This message was also proposed (by Franklin) as part of the American national seal. p.107
The US Constitutional/Presidential oath: I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will faithfully execute the Office of President of the United States, and will to the best of my Ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States.
It wasn't put in the Constitution, it wasn't official in other words, but for Washington (not to mention other Founding Fathers) it apparently was not a stretch to add a coda to the above oath: "So help me God." As George Washington said, America was great first because of "cheapness of land" which allowed many to own property ...and secondly because of "civil and religious" liberty; civil and religious liberty being not at odds with each other, but being intrinsically connected. Cheers
PS: This book provides great internet links for the papers of Washington, Adams, Jefferson and many other archived historical resources. Consult the author's website for the details: Belief net . com
Fascinating, factual and entertaining September 26, 2008
If you enjoy discussing history, politics and religion, you will be fascinated by this fact-based review of what the founding fathers thought and believed as they designed this country's principles of religious freedom. Well researched and documented, it moves beyond the rhetoric often heard from today's advocates for one interpretation versus another regarding the separation of church and state. Instead of the partial picture each camp utilizes to promote its argument, Steven Waldman lays out the history of governments and religion that preceded the constitution, the various positions held by the founders that came together to agree on the fundamental principles of this country, and how the early precedents were set. This is a well written and entertaining insight into our way of life.
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