The Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom: Its Evolution and Consequences in American History [Hardcover]

This volume originates from a symposium held in 1985 at the Univeristy of Virginia.The famous Jeffersonian document that foreshadowed the Constitution's guarantee of religious liberty is followed from its drafting through a decade long struggle for adoption.The famous Jeffersonian document that foreshadowed the Constitution's guarantee of religious liberty is followed from its drafting through a decade long struggle for adoption.This book examines the famous Jefferson document that foreshadowed the Constitution's guarantee of religious liberty, the Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom. Jefferson wrote the Virginia Statute and shepherded it through a decade-long struggle for adoption. The statute reflects two key Revolutionary principles: absolute freedom of religious conscience and the separation of church and state.Editors' preface; The statute of Virginia for religious freedom; 1. The Virginia statute two hundred years later Martin E. Marty; 2. Colonial religion and liberty of conscience Edwin S. Gaustad; 3. Religious Freedom and the desacralization of politics J. G. A. Pocock; 4. The political theory of Thomas Jefferson Thomas E. Buckley, S. J.; 5. James Madison, the statute for religious freedom, and the crisis of republican convictions Lance Banning; 6. 'The rage of malice of the old serpent devil': the dissenters and the making and remaking of the Virginia statute for religious freedom Rhys Isaac; 7. 'Quota of imps' John T. Noonan, Jr; 8. Jeffersonian religious liberty and American pluralism Cushing Strout; 9. Religion and civil virtue in America: Jefferson's statute reconsidered David Little; 10. The priority of democracy to philosophy Richard Rorty; 11. Madison's 'detached memoranda': then and now Leo Pfeffer; 12. The Supreme Court and the serpentine wall A. E. Dick Howard; Index.