Rediscovering America's Sacred Ground: Public Religion and Pursuit of the Good in a Pluralistic America

by Barbara A. McGraw

Book Overview

Barbara A. McGraw, JD, PhD, is Professor of Social Ethics, Law and Public Life and Director of the Center for Engaged Religious Pluralism at Saint Mary's College of California. She is coeditor (with Jo Renee Formicola) of Taking Religious Pluralism Seriously: Spiritual Politics on America's Sacred Ground and coauthor (with Robert S. Ellwood) of Many Peoples, Many Faiths: Women and Men in the World Religions, Ninth Edition.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0791457060
• ISBN13: 9780791457061
• Release Date: April 2003
• Publisher: State University of New York Press
• Length: 259 Pages
• Weight: 1.30 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.6" x 5.9" x 9.1"

Customer Reviews

An important an provocative book on chuch and state relations

Here is an important and provocative book on church state relations, addressing today's polarized debate on America's moral foundation. The book is well written and well balanced, with both a historical and a contemporary section. McGraw writes for the "educated reader", and there are echoes of her work as a professor at Saint Mary's College in California. The primary question is this: what sort of political/religious framework did our Founder's intend to create? Part I is the excellent historical section which explores the intentions of the founding generation, with an especially good discussion on the "political theology" of John Locke and its influence on the Framers. Then McGraw points to two aspects of the Founders' views which might seem contradictory, but both of which must be affirmed. First, she argues that virtually all the founders were religious in outlook, and felt religion to be important both personally and culturally. But secondly, she argues, although they were religious in their outlook, they had no thought whatever of establishing a Christian America --- precisely because of their deeply held religious views regarding freedom of conscience. What they intended was a governmental system in which no religious (or other worldview) would dominate all others. Any society thus dominated cannot be a Good Society. In Part II McGraw enters into today's debate about the place of religion in the Public Square. Examining such writers as Thomas Flynn, M. Stanton Evans, Stephen Carter and John Rawls, she dissects the views of the secular left, the religious right, and the accomodationists. As McGraw sees it, America's foundational principle is simply this: since liberty and equality are derived from God, no one has a rightful claim to dominance. I highly recommend this book. It's needed by all in the current church/state debates who feel that their particular Truth should prevail ---which is all of us at times! Read and be challenged.