The Right to Be Wrong: Ending the Culture War Over Religion in America

by Kevin Seamus Hasson

In the running debate we call the "culture wars," there exists a great feud over religious diversity. One side demands that only their true religion be allowed in the public square; the other insists that no religions ever belong there. The Right to Be Wrong offers a solution, drawing its lessons from a series of stories--both contemporary and historical--that illustrates the struggle to define religious freedom. The book concludes that freedom for all is guaranteed by the truth about each of Our common humanity entitles us to freedom--within broad limits--to follow what we believe to be true as our consciences say we must, even if our consciences are mistaken. Thus, we can respect others' freedom when we're sure they're wrong. In truth, they have the right to be wrong.

Genres: History, Religion, Nonfiction, Cultural, Catholic, American History

192 pages, Paperback

First published November 1, 2005

Reviews

[Julie Davis · Rating 4 out of 5]

UPDATE: I wrote this way back in 2005 for Spero News but discovered that their site clips a good portion of the text. I'm rerunning it here to preserve the review because this is a book that still informs the way I deal with those with whom I disagree. In fact, I just mentioned it on A Good Story is Hard to Find, which is what made me look for this review.

----------

It seems as if our country is caught up in an endless religious war that is being fought with grim determination. No, this isn’t about the war on terror. It is about the annual battle over public nativity scenes at Christmas, the skirmishes over allowing school Halloween parties, whether Jews for Jesus are allowed to preach at the Los Angeles Airport, and much more. In short, it is about how much and what sort of religious freedom is granted in this country.

One side (dubbed “Pilgrims” in the book) wants to legally coerce any religious conscience with which they disagree while the other side (called “Park Rangers”) thinks that all religion must be purely private. Both seem prepared to battle to the death over these issues. The rest of us, that vast majority in the middle, duck and cover as best we can while wondering why we must always fight every detail of anything to do with religion. After all, it didn’t used to be this way. Did it?

Actually, it used to be much worse, as Kevin Hasson tells us in The Right to Be Wrong. He is a constitutional lawyer who now heads up a non-partisan, public-interest law firm that specializes in defending free religious expression for all faiths. Hasson asserts, “We defend all faiths but we are not relativists. On any given day, I think most of my clients are wrong. But I firmly believe that, in an important sense, they have the right to be wrong.” This is not a very long book and it is written in a conversational and easy style, but it packs a heavy punch.

Hasson cuts to the heart of the issue by turning our focus to conscience, that interior voice that won’t be still until we do the right thing. The core of any discussion about religion, according to Hasson, is that we recognize the inherent right of each person to follow his or her conscience just as we would wish them to allow us to follow ours.

Conscience won’t let us be satisfied with resting on the truth we already know, the good we already embrace. There is an unease we experience, an unease that pushes us on to seek ever-deeper truths and choose ever-better goods. Sometimes we ignore it; sometimes we try to suppress it. Conscience, however, demands that we attend to it and miss no opportunity to try to satisfy it. Conscience is forever insisting that we look here, or search there, or try this or that in our quest for the true and the good.

And then conscience still isn’t content. It won’t stand for the argument that searching alone should suffice. Conscience demands not only that we seek but that we embrace the truth we believe we’ve found. It insists that, at whatever cost, our convictions follow through into action. And it’s famously stubborn about this, sending generation after generation of dissidents to all sorts of deprivations in the name of integrity...

In the process of proving this point, Hasson takes the reader on a journey through the history of American religious liberty. We soon discover that there was precious little to be had before modern times. The Pilgrims, whose vaunted quest for tolerance landed them on American shores, quite knowingly practiced a double standard and forcefully suppressed any opposing opinions. We are shown why Roger Williams founded Maryland in order to practice true religious tolerance only to have the laws changed after he died. Similarly William Penn’s vision of religious liberty was soon practiced in quite a different way after his influence waned. James Madison emerges as a man who had a surprisingly accurate vision of religious liberty and, possibly, the influence to get the proper laws passed. It is all the more disappointing, then, to learn that he let Thomas Jefferson influence him to weaken them. As a result, Quakers, Catholics, and Jews were routinely discriminated against by one state after another. It is safe to say that for most of American history, you were free to practice any religion you liked, as long as you wanted to be Protestant.

This is the legacy that has put us in the position in which we find ourselves today. Without that history of intolerance, there would not be the backlash that insists there is no place at all for religion in public life. One could hardly blame the Park Rangers for insisting on suppressing public displays of religion except that, in their turn, they are so very extreme. Under the guise of religious freedom the Park Rangers have exercised their own form of oppression so effectively that ludicrous displays of celebration can be found everywhere: a public school system in Michigan offers “Breakfast with a Special Bunny” to avoid using the word Easter, another school system requires that the children exchange “special person cards” in lieu of valentines, and an Ohio bureaucrat explained a decorated tree in December by saying it was to celebrate Pearl Harbor Day. This in turn alarms the Pilgrims who push back even harder. Although it is clear to all bystanders that this is really about one side or the other getting their own way, both sides insist they are advocating universal religious freedom. No one on either side is practicing any true tolerance at all, just like the good old days, in fact.

... Ask either faction whether it believes religious liberty is a human right and you’ll get a passionate, tub-thumping — mostly hypocritical — speech in favor of the idea. That’s because religious freedom is so familiar, so American a concept that nobody can really admit to opposing it. That would be like opposing apple pie. So even those who are at each other’s throats over religious liberty have to insist they all absolutely love the stuff. Instead of confessing that they’re actually opposed to religious freedom for all, the Pilgrims and the Park Rangers among us equivocate. When they say they support “religious freedom,” the Pilgrims mean the freedom of their religion, while the Park Rangers mean freedom from others’ religions. That way, they can all sound so very American — they can say they’re in favor of something called religious freedom — and still be as oppressive as they want to be.

However, that is where Hasson’s insistence on the value of conscience is so valuable. By reminding us that conscience is the core of religious conviction, he takes us to the true turning point of religious liberty. This in turn frees us to totally disagree with another’s religious convictions while, with complete integrity, conceding that they do, indeed, have the right to be wrong. It is this attitude that allows Hasson to be in the position of being both invited to Hasidic Jewish weddings and also to be a guest speaker on the Arab network Al-Jazeera. His respect of the integrity of others’ consciences has earned him their respect in turn. That is the attitude that will help dig America out of our internal religious wars and just possibly bring us, at long last, true religious liberty.

[Joseph R. · Rating 5 out of 5]

Every December it happens. People complain about how their holy day is being ignored or trivialized. Others complain about Menorahs or Nativity sets being set up on public property. Outrage over too much or not enough or not the right religion turns into clickbait headlines on the internet, in print media, and on television. People squabble over the right to freedom of expression and freedom from expression of religion.

According to author Kevin Hasson, the problem lies between two extremes, two groups he calls Pilgrims and Park Rangers. Pilgrims have the truth, and they think that only that truth should be (and ought to be) displayed in public. The original Pilgrims came to Plymouth Colony fleeing religious persecution in England. Ironically, they began persecuting the non-Pilgrims who came on the trip and arrived later in what is now Massachusetts. After celebrating the first Thanksgiving with a day off to feast and enjoy themselves, the Pilgrims forbade any celebration of Christmas, which they knew was a Catholic innovation and not part of their pure Christian faith. Anyone who wanted to enjoy themselves in public places had to take it into their homes and not disturb the good, hardworking Pilgrims. Park Rangers deny that there is a definitive religious truth and that therefore there should be no public displays favoring any religion. Hasson tells the bizarre true story of a parking barrier set up in the wrong spot of a public park. At first, the Park Rangers wanted it removed. Then a local garden club said the barrier made a nice aesthetic balance, so it stayed. Then some New Agers saw it as a sacred representation of balance, and that was enough for the Park Rangers to get it moved out of public sight. The state can't sponsor a religious object on public property, can it? "You can celebrate in the privacy of your own home" is the conclusion of the Park Rangers, which is almost the same as the Pilgrims sending other Christians indoors on Christmas. Resolving these two extreme viewpoints is tricky but necessary.

The culture war over religion has played out again and again in America's history. Hasson uses historical events from the 1700s to modern day to bring up issues and insights. He advocates for a middle ground, where everyone needs to allow the religious views and expressions of others within reasonable limits. He appeals to the truth that we are all humans who search for the truth and have the conscientious obligation to follow that truth. Even if that truth is mistaken. Living by that understanding requires both vigilance and flexibility, because the issue will come up again and again in both new and old ways. If our history teaches us anything, we should learn the futility of being a Pilgrim or a Park Ranger. Also, the inhumanity of being a Pilgrim or a Park Ranger.

Highly recommended.

[Luke Hooper · Rating 4 out of 5]

Concise exploration of what religious freedom should look like in America today by examining what it has and hasn’t been since the first pilgrims came here in search of it.

“Religious diversity is thus a fact of life. It is neither good nor bad in itself. It can’t be outlawed and needn’t be glorified. It simply is. The question isn’t how to maximize diversity, nor how to minimize it. The question is how to live authentically in the midst of it, while allowing others to do the same.”

[Corrinne · Rating 4 out of 5]

Concise, clear, and compelling. Presents both historical and contemporary examples to give a good understanding of the need for religious liberty and how America has protected it

[Caleb Walker · Rating 5 out of 5]

Objective. Honest. Logical. Historical. Witty.
A bulletproof case for religious liberty for all.

[Cindy · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great thoughts on what religious freedom truly is and why it’s so vitally important - for believers and non-believers.

[Julie Davis · Rating 4 out of 5]

UPDATE: I wrote this way back in 2005 for Spero News but discovered that their site clips a good portion of the text. I'm rerunning it here to preserve the review because this is a book that still informs the way I deal with those with whom I disagree. In fact, I just mentioned it on A Good Story is Hard to Find, which is what made me look for this review.

----------

UPDATE 2: rereading this as a palliative to the brouhaha over the Supreme Court's decision to uphold religious conscience for the Hobby Lobby case. Pilgrims. Park Rangers. Both drive me nuts. This book is a good reminder that there is another way than always screaming at each other about extreme opposites. (For some reason this shows up as a new book instead of an updated version of the old one. It does have a new chapter ... I think ... but that's it other than any corrections made to the original.)

----------

It seems as if our country is caught up in an endless religious war that is being fought with grim determination. No, this isn’t about the war on terror. It is about the annual battle over public nativity scenes at Christmas, the skirmishes over allowing school Halloween parties, whether Jews for Jesus are allowed to preach at the Los Angeles Airport, and much more. In short, it is about how much and what sort of religious freedom is granted in this country.

One side (dubbed “Pilgrims” in the book) wants to legally coerce any religious conscience with which they disagree while the other side (called “Park Rangers”) thinks that all religion must be purely private. Both seem prepared to battle to the death over these issues. The rest of us, that vast majority in the middle, duck and cover as best we can while wondering why we must always fight every detail of anything to do with religion. After all, it didn’t used to be this way. Did it?

Actually, it used to be much worse, as Kevin Hasson tells us in The Right to Be Wrong. He is a constitutional lawyer who now heads up a non-partisan, public-interest law firm that specializes in defending free religious expression for all faiths. Hasson asserts, “We defend all faiths but we are not relativists. On any given day, I think most of my clients are wrong. But I firmly believe that, in an important sense, they have the right to be wrong.” This is not a very long book and it is written in a conversational and easy style, but it packs a heavy punch.

Hasson cuts to the heart of the issue by turning our focus to conscience, that interior voice that won’t be still until we do the right thing. The core of any discussion about religion, according to Hasson, is that we recognize the inherent right of each person to follow his or her conscience just as we would wish them to allow us to follow ours.

Conscience won’t let us be satisfied with resting on the truth we already know, the good we already embrace. There is an unease we experience, an unease that pushes us on to seek ever-deeper truths and choose ever-better goods. Sometimes we ignore it; sometimes we try to suppress it. Conscience, however, demands that we attend to it and miss no opportunity to try to satisfy it. Conscience is forever insisting that we look here, or search there, or try this or that in our quest for the true and the good.

And then conscience still isn’t content. It won’t stand for the argument that searching alone should suffice. Conscience demands not only that we seek but that we embrace the truth we believe we’ve found. It insists that, at whatever cost, our convictions follow through into action. And it’s famously stubborn about this, sending generation after generation of dissidents to all sorts of deprivations in the name of integrity...

In the process of proving this point, Hasson takes the reader on a journey through the history of American religious liberty. We soon discover that there was precious little to be had before modern times. The Pilgrims, whose vaunted quest for tolerance landed them on American shores, quite knowingly practiced a double standard and forcefully suppressed any opposing opinions. We are shown why Roger Williams founded Maryland in order to practice true religious tolerance only to have the laws changed after he died. Similarly William Penn’s vision of religious liberty was soon practiced in quite a different way after his influence waned. James Madison emerges as a man who had a surprisingly accurate vision of religious liberty and, possibly, the influence to get the proper laws passed. It is all the more disappointing, then, to learn that he let Thomas Jefferson influence him to weaken them. As a result, Quakers, Catholics, and Jews were routinely discriminated against by one state after another. It is safe to say that for most of American history, you were free to practice any religion you liked, as long as you wanted to be Protestant.

This is the legacy that has put us in the position in which we find ourselves today. Without that history of intolerance, there would not be the backlash that insists there is no place at all for religion in public life. One could hardly blame the Park Rangers for insisting on suppressing public displays of religion except that, in their turn, they are so very extreme. Under the guise of religious freedom the Park Rangers have exercised their own form of oppression so effectively that ludicrous displays of celebration can be found everywhere: a public school system in Michigan offers “Breakfast with a Special Bunny” to avoid using the word Easter, another school system requires that the children exchange “special person cards” in lieu of valentines, and an Ohio bureaucrat explained a decorated tree in December by saying it was to celebrate Pearl Harbor Day. This in turn alarms the Pilgrims who push back even harder. Although it is clear to all bystanders that this is really about one side or the other getting their own way, both sides insist they are advocating universal religious freedom. No one on either side is practicing any true tolerance at all, just like the good old days, in fact.

... Ask either faction whether it believes religious liberty is a human right and you’ll get a passionate, tub-thumping — mostly hypocritical — speech in favor of the idea. That’s because religious freedom is so familiar, so American a concept that nobody can really admit to opposing it. That would be like opposing apple pie. So even those who are at each other’s throats over religious liberty have to insist they all absolutely love the stuff. Instead of confessing that they’re actually opposed to religious freedom for all, the Pilgrims and the Park Rangers among us equivocate. When they say they support “religious freedom,” the Pilgrims mean the freedom of their religion, while the Park Rangers mean freedom from others’ religions. That way, they can all sound so very American — they can say they’re in favor of something called religious freedom — and still be as oppressive as they want to be.

However, that is where Hasson’s insistence on the value of conscience is so valuable. By reminding us that conscience is the core of religious conviction, he takes us to the true turning point of religious liberty. This in turn frees us to totally disagree with another’s religious convictions while, with complete integrity, conceding that they do, indeed, have the right to be wrong. It is this attitude that allows Hasson to be in the position of being both invited to Hasidic Jewish weddings and also to be a guest speaker on the Arab network Al-Jazeera. His respect of the integrity of others’ consciences has earned him their respect in turn. That is the attitude that will help dig America out of our internal religious wars and just possibly bring us, at long last, true religious liberty.

[George P. · Rating 5 out of 5]

 Kevin Seamus Hasson, The Right to Be Wrong: Ending the Culture War over Religion in America, 2nd ed. (New York: Image, 2012). Paperback

The story of religious freedom in America is, as Kevin Seamus Hasson tells it, the story of the conflict of conscience against Puritans and Park Rangers. Puritans—named after the Plymouth settlers—“want to use the state to coerce the religious consciences of those with whom they disagree.” Park Rangers—hilariously named after a group of hapless San Francisco bureaucrats (read their story on pages 3–4)—“insist…that only a society that owns no truth at all can be safe for freedom.” Puritans represent aggressive religion, Park Rangers aggressive secularism. While they appear contradictory at first, they make the same underlying assumption: In the public square, one does not have the right to be wrong.

Hasson narrates the 400-year battle of conscience against its foes briskly and humorously. Part One, “Learning the Hard Way,” shows how colonial Americans—with few notable exceptions—persecuted minority faiths, whether Protestant, Catholic, or Jewish. In New England, the Puritan establishment persecuted—through exile, torture, and execution—radicals within their own dissenting, Congregationalist tradition (e.g., Roger Williams and Anne Hutchinson), as well as Quakers. In the South, the Anglican establishment discriminated against, among others, Baptists. Other colonies—such as Rhode Island, Maryland, and Pennsylvania—were tolerant with a degree of Protestant diversity, but also drafted laws that legally privileged Protestants over Catholics and Jews.

Part Two, “Groping for a Right,” narrates the evolution of religious freedom from “toleration” to “right.” The former conceives of religious freedom as a grant of government policy. What government gives, however, it also can take away. The latter conceives of religious freedom as something that inheres in the human person, which can be claimed against government policy. In American history, the clearest expression of the latter view—the one that prevails today—is the First Amendment to the United States Constitution, which begins: “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof…” But, as Hasson notes, in its original context, the First Amendment, while admirable, applied only to the federal government. It left the state’s various established churches intact. Indeed, it was designed to do precisely that.

Part Three, “Authentic Freedom,” traces developments in religious freedom after the passage of the Fourteenth Amendment. That amendment, passed in 1865 in the aftermath of the Civil War, extended both citizenship and “the privileges or immunities of citizens” to “[a]ll persons born or naturalized in the United States.” In ensuing years, the Supreme Court ruled that the privileges and immunities clause incorporated, to varying degrees, the Bill of Rights against the states. The application of the First Amendment’s free exercise clause was straightforward: No government agency (state, federal, county, municipal) could prohibit a citizen’s free exercise of religion. But what does the incorporation of the establishment clause against the states mean when one of the express intentions of that clause was to leave state establishments of religion intact? If you understand that conundrum, you understand much of the confusion surrounding the Supreme Court’s religious freedom jurisprudence.

Part Three also reflects on why it is important for government to recognize religious freedom. There are, of course, theological arguments in favor of religious freedom, those of Roger Williams, for example. But as Hasson points out, theological arguments in favor of religious freedom are persuasive only to persons who share the arguer’s theological assumptions. In the public square, a broader argument for religious freedom, based on widely shared assumptions, is needed. Here is Hasson’s summary of that argument:

The best reason…for recognizing the full scope of religious freedom is that it’s the quintessentially human thing to do. Conscience, as we’ve seen through the book…is our humanity at its best. It’s what drives us to pursue our mind’s quest for the true, and our heart’s search for the good—our quest for God, ultimately—and then insists that we express and live accordingly to what we believe we’ve found. And it’s what entitles us to religious liberty.

In other words, conscience arbitrates what we think to be true and what we feel to be right, and then requires us to live—socially, publicly—accordingly. Allowing people to live according to conscience creates a genuinely diverse society, one where people arrange their affairs according to their best lights, in cooperation with and without coercion by others. Claiming religious freedom as a right for yourself entails that you recognize in others a right to be wrong (at least according to your rights). Only by recognizing this right to be wrong can we end the culture war over religion, in which Puritans try to impose a one-size-fits all religion on a religiously diverse populace and Park Rangers try to scrub the public square of any reference to religion at all.

The Right to Be Wrong is a short read (154 pages of text), but it narrates the history of American religious freedom quickly and neatly summarizes the argument in favor of a broad construal of it. Highly recommended.

P.S. If you found my review helpful, please vote “Yes” on my Amazon.com review page.

[Sheila · Rating 3 out of 5]

I liked the premise of this book: everyone should be able to act according to their conscience as long as they're not hurting someone else. It makes sense. I liked what I learned about American history, and I liked Hasson's use of the terms "pilgrims" and "park rangers" to discuss various extreme responses to religious freedom issues. I was hoping for a little more discussion at the end of how we might move into a more balanced mindset about religion. I felt like the book introduced a lot of really important material and then stopped. Then again, this isn't a simple issue-- so maybe there's another book that needs to be written.

[Todd Stockslager · Rating 5 out of 5]

Short and well-argued explication of the history, role, and status of religious regulation and religious liberty in American government. Hasson makes the complex simple by defining the extremes ("Pilgrims" who want only their religious freedoms protected in public, and "Park Rangers", who want all religion banned from public places), explaining their sources, and why they are both wrong.

Hasson speaks from the front line as the founder and director of the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty, and uses examples from history and his personal legal file that exactly define the issues in easily-understood pictures. Indeed, if my review suggests a lugubrious academic treatise of fine print, I have failed to convey the humor in this classic; it is actually fun to read.

Here's the really short version:

1. Tolerance of all religious practices, which was given some trial during the colonial days, but almost universally abandoned for establishment of state-favored religion and severe restrictions on religious expression, is not a lasting or good solution because "tolerance based solely on the government's benevolence lasts only as long, and as far, as the benevolence does. Don't blink; you might miss it."

2. Religious freedom must be established as a human right, which predates, precedes, and precludes legal rights and restriction.

3. The Constitution and the First Amendment made steps towards establishing free expression as a human right, but were limited by political compromises to accommodate the needs of ratification and state's rights.

4. The state of judicial interpretation of the First Amendment is a mess, but one that can be informed and reformed as we remember and take seriously points 1 and 2.

[Anagha Uppal · Rating 4 out of 5]

Is a society that comes to agree on all matters of conscience necessarily a better society? It should be taken for granted that two individuals who are left to discuss something as fundamental and steadfast as religion will argue. However, this does not mean that the two must take up arms to defend their stance. Indeed, even if one knows that the other is utterly ridiculous in his beliefs, his “right to be wrong” must be accepted and the two conflicting individuals may cohabitate peaceably. This is Kevin Hasson’s startlingly simple solution to resolve the conflict created by pluralism. We humans are very social animals. We mourn, celebrate and experience life together. A "don't ask, don't tell" policy in religious matters is therefore a repression of human nature. Instead, keeping in mind the urge we feel to experience as a community, we must be open to others finding their God in their own ways. As Hasson states, mere tolerance is no longer a valid option. Humans have a natural right to believe (or disbelieve) whatever they prefer.

This policy of acceptance can be applied to almost any sphere of life. Abortion, gay rights, and gun control are continually in the news because of their controversial nature. If a multicultural society can learn to respect everyone's opinions as his or her natural right, the world may not flare into as much violence and disillusionment as it does today. In fact, the wide variety of opinions on these and other topics is what enables us to become progressively better citizens: by learning to be open-minded, and weighing the pros and cons of each position, we can finally make a wise decision individually and as a nation.

[Alice · Rating 3 out of 5]

Everyone knows the Pilgrims came to America because they believed in religious freedom, right? Wrong. They oppressed those of other beliefs, because they believed that they alone had the truth.
In The Right to Be Wrong, the author discussions the slow and incredibly painful development of the concept of religious freedom. (Kevin Seamus Hasson belongs to a nonpartisan, interfaith, public law firm that protects the free expression of all religious traditions.)

If you enjoy history or political science, you will enjoy the way the author causes you to think your way through American history. In a breezy style, he shows that some of the various colonies had a rudimentary concept of tolerance that excluded certain minorities, such as Catholics and Jews--or even the wrong kind of Protestants. The Founding Fathers engaged in lively debate about the concept of rights, and whether or not they had a role in the new constitution. Their own personal practices (such as Jefferson owning slaves) reveal their confusion about the source and definition of rights.

Bottom line: we can respect others' freedom even when we're sure they're wrong. In other words, as humans we have the right to be wrong! (Who said, "I disagree with what you say but defend to the death your right to say it?" He was close.)

[Dawn · Rating 2 out of 5]

I received this book through the GoodReads giveaway program. While my usual reading palate does not lean toward nonfiction, the premise of this book struck my interest as a timely discussion.

Kevin Hasson presents an easy read through portions of American history that has led us to the present day polarizations between the Pilgrims (the zealots loudly holding fast to their religion in the face of others) and the Park Rangers(those who see freedom of religion as as the freedom from the influence of religion). Hasson shows that this divide is long-standing. The hope that he offers is "That even when we can't agree on who God is, we can and should agree on who we are. We are each unique persons. We all thirst for the true and the good. And we all have consciences that drive us in our quest to find the true and the good, and then insist that we embrace and express publicly what we believe we've found. If we can agree on this much then we share a profound truth: The truth about man is that man is born to seek freely the truth about God." Now, if it could be so easily practiced as spoken.

[Jim Davis · Rating 3 out of 5]

The Right to be Wrong is an interesting read, but far from as interesting as it could be.

While the writer Kevin Seamus Hasson gives an excellent portrait of American history, he hardly tackles the modern problems of ending the culture war in America over religion.

The book goes on ad nauseam about the plight of Pilgrims and Quakers but fails to connect the dots to our modern problems such as, faith in public schools, abortion, radical Islam, gay marriage and the forcing of Catholic hospitals to use contraception.

I would definitely recommend this book to anyone seeking it as a historical reference of the discussion America's founding fathers had about religious freedom. I would not recommend this book however to anyone seeking to "End the culture war over religion in America", which is in fact the books subtitle.

In conclusion, this book doesn't step out of the comfort zone when discussing contemporary religious and political issues. In fact, it barely tries.

[Skyler · Rating 3 out of 5]

Hasson argues that we, as humans, have a right to freedom of religion. It is a fundamental truth that as humans we feel compelled to obey are consciences. So who are we to deny one person their conscience if it just so happens to disagree with ours? They have the right to be wrong. Wrong, as I see it. With this book you'll get interesting historical background on religion in America and compelling arguments for a culture truly free to explore diverse religions of the world. This book is great and all the Park Rangers and Pilgrims out there are doing themselves and their communities a great disservice by neglecting this book and its message.

[Harrison Vetter · Rating 5 out of 5]

Hasson’s work is a concise, entertaining, and all-around well-written exploration of religious freedom in America and beyond. Contrasting the positions of Pilgrims (their religion only) and Park Rangers (no religion at all) on the place of religion in public, he emphasizes the importance of recognizing that we all are driven to obey our consciences, and argues that we all thus have a natural right to religious freedom. We all possess the right to be wrong - even in the public sphere, as we are social creatures free (and most often inclined) to organize our entire lives around our beliefs.

[Emily Mishler · Rating 4 out of 5]

I won a copy of this book through a goodreads giveaway.

Hasson does an excellent job at putting the matters at hand (namely religious freedom/the separation of church and state) clearly and simply in a fairly unbiased manner as far as I could tell. He tells the history of religious freedom (or repression as the case may be) in America as well as bringing in examples from other countries and cultures. Well written and an engaging read.

[Beth · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a must read. He starts with the history of why we know intolerance is bad. Kevin makes clear the difference between recognizing that people have a right to their opinions and beleiving that all opinions are equally true.

[Shannon Ratliff · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is not a book I would normally read, but my brother highly recommended it. It actually turned out to have some amazingly wonderful ideas and prompted very interesting discussion with my 10th grade daughter... Read with an open mind... for sure!

[Jeffery · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great book on a divisive topic. My biggest complaint-It's a little too short! However, it makes it's points well. We should celebrate our religious diversity and protect everyone's rights, not force everyone into a PC bubble or insist that we should favor one religion over another. Great read.

[Josh Tatum · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is an excellent start for the person asking why we should protect the free exercise of religion.

[Erdahs]

Won as part of the Goodreads first reads program. Review to come.