A provocative summons to rethink the role of religion in American law, politics and culture (Newsweek), this intriguing work uses liberal means to arrive at what are often considered conservative ends.

"Carter, a professor of law at Yale University and author of . . . Reflections of an Affirmative Action Baby {BRD 1992}, advances the thesis that American law and politics 'trivialize' religion by forcing the religiously faithful to subordinate their personal views to a public faith largely devoid of religion.Carter argues that religious faith can and must be a significant element of our public life, even as we affirm the importance of the separation of church and state.He accepts the place of prayer in education and in developing family values, and he questions accepted public policy in matters such as abortion, euthanasia, and capital punishment."(Libr J) Index.

"Rational argument rarely seems as warm, as human, as it does in this book...Carter leads the reader to contemplate the embattled constitutional wall between the state and religion, and he does so without furor, without dogma, with only the qualities he envisions in the ideal public square: moderation, restraint, respect." -- The NewYorker.

America, it is often noted, is the most religious nation in the Western world. At the same time, many political leaders and opinion makers have come to view any religious element in public discourse as a tool of the radical right for reshaping American society. In our sensible zeal to keep religion from dominating our politics, Stephen L. Carter argues, we have constructed political and legal cultures that force the religiously devout to act as if their faith doesn't really matter. This book explains how we can preserve the vital separation of church and state while embracing rather than trivializing the faith of millions of citizens or treating religious believers with disdain. What makes Carter's work so intriguing is that he uses liberal means to arrive at what are often considered conservative ends. Carter explains how preserving a special role for religious communities can strengthen our democracy. The book recovers the long tradition of liberal religious witness (for example, the antislavery, antisegregation, and Vietnam-era antiwar movements), and argues that the problem with the 1992 Republican convention was not the fact of open religious advocacy but the political positions being advocated. A vast array of issues appear in a new light: everything from religion in schools to the Reverend Sun Myung Moon's mass weddings, from abortion to the Branch Davidians.

Yale professor Stephen Carter deals with the de facto banishment of religion in American public life, explaining how we can preserve the vital separation of church and state while embracing rather than trivializing the faith of millions of believers.