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Beyond Belief, Beyond Conscience: The Radical Significance of the Free Exercise of Religion
Today, Americans believe that the early colonists came to the New World in search of religious liberty. What we often forget is that they wanted religious liberty for themselves, not for those who held other views that they rejected and detested. Yet, by the mid-18th century, the colonists agreed that everyone possessed a sovereign right of conscience. How did this change develop? In Beyond Belief, Beyond Conscience, Pulitzer Prize-winning author Jack Rakove tracks the unique course of religious freedom in America.
He finds that, as denominations and sects multiplied, Americans became much more tolerant of the free expression of rival religious beliefs. During the Revolutionary era, he explains, most of the new states moved to disestablish churches and to give constitutional recognition to rights of conscience. These two developments explain why religious freedom originally represented the most radical right of all. No other right placed greater importance on the moral autonomy of individuals, or better illustrated how the authority of government could be limited by denying the state authority to act. Together, these developments made possible the great revival of religion in 19th-century America.
As Rakove explains, America's intense religiosity eventually created a new set of problems for mapping the relationship between church and state. He goes on to examine some of our contemporary controversies over church and state not from the vantage point of legal doctrine, but of the deeper history that gave the U.S. its own approach to religious freedom. In this book, he tells the story of how American ideas of religious toleration and free exercise evolved over time, and why questions of church and state still vex us.
He finds that, as denominations and sects multiplied, Americans became much more tolerant of the free expression of rival religious beliefs. During the Revolutionary era, he explains, most of the new states moved to disestablish churches and to give constitutional recognition to rights of conscience. These two developments explain why religious freedom originally represented the most radical right of all. No other right placed greater importance on the moral autonomy of individuals, or better illustrated how the authority of government could be limited by denying the state authority to act. Together, these developments made possible the great revival of religion in 19th-century America.
As Rakove explains, America's intense religiosity eventually created a new set of problems for mapping the relationship between church and state. He goes on to examine some of our contemporary controversies over church and state not from the vantage point of legal doctrine, but of the deeper history that gave the U.S. its own approach to religious freedom. In this book, he tells the story of how American ideas of religious toleration and free exercise evolved over time, and why questions of church and state still vex us.
- GenresLawNonfiction
224 pages, Hardcover
Published June 1, 2020
9 people are currently reading
64 people want to read
About the author
Jack N. Rakove
50 books50 followersJack Rakove is the William Robertson Coe Professor of History and American Studies and professor of political science and (by courtesy) law at Stanford, where he has taught since 1980. His principal areas of research include the origins of the American Revolution and Constitution, the political practice and theory of James Madison, and the role of historical knowledge in constitutional litigation. He is the author of six books, including Original Meanings: Politics and Ideas in the Making of the Constitution (1996), which won the Pulitzer Prize in History, and Revolutionaries: A New History of the Invention of America (2010), which was a finalist for the George Washington Prize, and the editor of seven others, including The Unfinished Election of 2000 (2001). He is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the American Philosophical Society, and a past president of the Society for the History of the Early American Republic.
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Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews
October 4, 2020
Jack Rakove (b. 1947) is the William Robertson Coe Professor of History and American Studies at Stanford and the winner of the 1997 Pulitzer Prize for History for Original Meanings: Politics and Ideas in the Making of the Constitution, a book that attempts to flatten expectations of finding certain constitutional interpretations in “originalism.”
In Beyond Belief, Beyond Conscience, Rakove first outlines the intellectual history of post-Reformation England to demonstrate how religious freedom developed amid conflict and persecution. He then moves on to delineate (in a most limpid manner) the influence of John Locke, Thomas Jefferson, and James Madison on the development of freedom of religion in America. Yet in doing so, Rakove also notes the ways in which religious freedom was advanced on the ground as courts wrestled with the practical problems posed in turn by Quakers, Catholics, Mormons, and Jehovah’s Witnesses.
In the end, after several tips-of-the-hat to historical humility, Rakove endorses what he calls “Madison’s razor”: that “the more we treat religion as a matter of private belief and voluntary associations that we pursue with other like-minded individuals, the more we appreciate it as a true wellspring of constitutional privacy, the better off we will be.” (185).
Unfortunately, Rakove does not appreciate the appearance of a new bully on the block, the undeclared religion of secularism. In 2020, no public intellectual, regardless of formal religious affiliation, could oppose abortion on demand or same-sex marriage without being declassed. And with thought leaders thus united—all the while denying that their views are in any way religious—those who take religion seriously compete at a serious disadvantage in the public square. Too bad the latter can’t shop among all the obstreperous Puritans, Mormons, Jehovah’s Witnesses, etc. of past centuries to create an amalgamated coalition in opposition—a “Group of Godfearers” perhaps—who despite ancient animosities would, with one voice, condemn as satanic what intellectuals of our own day endorse as “deeply egalitarian.” (184)
To Rakove, private belief is fine and private conscience is fine. What needs to be squelched are the many public consequences emanating from them. Actually, the means to do so already exists in a line of cases from Reynolds (1879) to Bob Jones University v. U.S. (1983) (the latter mentioned by Rakove but not explicated) in which religious liberties can be abridged on grounds of “fundamental national public policy.” That’s a gate wide enough to drive through any brainchild of secularism. We await only a more disposed Supreme Court.
In Beyond Belief, Beyond Conscience, Rakove first outlines the intellectual history of post-Reformation England to demonstrate how religious freedom developed amid conflict and persecution. He then moves on to delineate (in a most limpid manner) the influence of John Locke, Thomas Jefferson, and James Madison on the development of freedom of religion in America. Yet in doing so, Rakove also notes the ways in which religious freedom was advanced on the ground as courts wrestled with the practical problems posed in turn by Quakers, Catholics, Mormons, and Jehovah’s Witnesses.
In the end, after several tips-of-the-hat to historical humility, Rakove endorses what he calls “Madison’s razor”: that “the more we treat religion as a matter of private belief and voluntary associations that we pursue with other like-minded individuals, the more we appreciate it as a true wellspring of constitutional privacy, the better off we will be.” (185).
Unfortunately, Rakove does not appreciate the appearance of a new bully on the block, the undeclared religion of secularism. In 2020, no public intellectual, regardless of formal religious affiliation, could oppose abortion on demand or same-sex marriage without being declassed. And with thought leaders thus united—all the while denying that their views are in any way religious—those who take religion seriously compete at a serious disadvantage in the public square. Too bad the latter can’t shop among all the obstreperous Puritans, Mormons, Jehovah’s Witnesses, etc. of past centuries to create an amalgamated coalition in opposition—a “Group of Godfearers” perhaps—who despite ancient animosities would, with one voice, condemn as satanic what intellectuals of our own day endorse as “deeply egalitarian.” (184)
To Rakove, private belief is fine and private conscience is fine. What needs to be squelched are the many public consequences emanating from them. Actually, the means to do so already exists in a line of cases from Reynolds (1879) to Bob Jones University v. U.S. (1983) (the latter mentioned by Rakove but not explicated) in which religious liberties can be abridged on grounds of “fundamental national public policy.” That’s a gate wide enough to drive through any brainchild of secularism. We await only a more disposed Supreme Court.
October 5, 2024
“Madison observed in 1822, ‘Religion flourishes in greater purity, without than with the aid of Gov’t.’”
“In postrevolutionary America religious activity took place within an unregulated spiritual marketplace, where rival faiths and denominations competed to capture the faith and allegiance of ordinary, truth-seekers, making Americans the most religious society in the industrial world.”
“The prominence of conversion in American religious experience and the debate itsit sparked required ordinary men and women to agonize over the state of their souls, and to ask which denomination best answered their spiritual craving for salvation.”
“In the new republics of revolutionary America, the true challenge was to protect the rights of minorities and individuals against the collective will of the majority, acting through the legislative power of the state.”
”A principled belief in religious freedom as a right to be extended to all was not a value that the colonist gladly packed in the cultural baggage they carried from Britain.”
“The true republican doctrine was what Madison had prescribed: remove government from an enterprise it had no capacity to supervise or direct, make the free exercise of religion as private an activity as possible, and remember that the great objective of protecting religion was to secure the minority against the majority, and not to enforce the majority’s false claim to authority.”
“In postrevolutionary America religious activity took place within an unregulated spiritual marketplace, where rival faiths and denominations competed to capture the faith and allegiance of ordinary, truth-seekers, making Americans the most religious society in the industrial world.”
“The prominence of conversion in American religious experience and the debate itsit sparked required ordinary men and women to agonize over the state of their souls, and to ask which denomination best answered their spiritual craving for salvation.”
“In the new republics of revolutionary America, the true challenge was to protect the rights of minorities and individuals against the collective will of the majority, acting through the legislative power of the state.”
”A principled belief in religious freedom as a right to be extended to all was not a value that the colonist gladly packed in the cultural baggage they carried from Britain.”
“The true republican doctrine was what Madison had prescribed: remove government from an enterprise it had no capacity to supervise or direct, make the free exercise of religion as private an activity as possible, and remember that the great objective of protecting religion was to secure the minority against the majority, and not to enforce the majority’s false claim to authority.”
August 19, 2021
My two star rating is a direct reflection of the mismatch between author and reader. The subject of the book and I assume the content are timely and vital to both the immediate and long term future of our country. Unfortunately for me it was such a slog and struggle of a read, I feel even with dictionary and computer by my side to look up words and historical events, I missed as much as I understood. Sentences and paragraphs read and reread multiple times to try to parse their meaning. It would be a great text for an upper division college political science course where their might be a prof who could fill in the gaps. But it’s such an important book and topic that I wish it had been more easily accessible. Such a shame and missed opportunity. I’m not saying don’t read it. I’m just saying be prepared. It’s not written for a general audience.
November 28, 2024
The book is really good regarding its treatment of Madison and Jefferson and getting the reader into the historical reality. They gave birth to them in their impact on the historical development of the religion clause in the first amendment. Where the text gets a little bit more difficult to kinda deal with is in the last quarter of the book because of how he makes reference to and treats the cake issue in Colorado And the movement rather abruptly to a notion of religious liberty without really flushing that out more.
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March 4, 2021I really wanted to read this, it seemed like an interesting topic. But I just couldn't focus enough to make it past the first chapter - blame it on family life and too many interruptions, or a lack of attention span. I don't know. It's obviously very well researched and thought through, I just couldn't stick with it.
April 6, 2021
A concise, apolitical view of the development of the American understanding of freedom of religion. Very helpful for those interested in some of the more controversial political arguments currently swirling around the use of freedom of religion to justify advocating exemptions from civil laws.
August 6, 2021
A clear examination of why and how America got it’s constitutional rights of religious freedom. Particularly convincing in its description of how the elements of colonial society, religion, government, slavery and the broader American experience interacted to bring us to today.
Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews