The Godless Constitution: The Case Against Religious Correctness

By: Isaac Cramnick and R. Laurence Moore

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Synopsis: Scholars Kramnick (government, Cornell) and Moore (history, Cornell) have abandoned the "scholarly apparatus" of footnotes and bibliography in favor of an impassioned polemic on separation of church and state aimed at a popular audience. They present the case that strict separation of church and state, while a source of debate from the nation's founding onward, was indeed the intent of the founders. The vision of a limited, secular state populated by a religious and moral citizenry was at the heart of the new American republic. Using well-selected historical examples, they distinguish "between a religiously informed politics and the politics of religious correctness." The debate about the proper balance between church and state continues today, perhaps approaching its highest pitch since the Constitutional period. The authors ably present a timely and important topic in this election year in all its historical context and complexity.