Religious Freedom: History, Cases, and Other Materials On The Interaction of Religion and Government Book

This casebook is a reworking of Judge Noonan's collection of materials published by Macmillan in 1987 under the title, The Believer and the Powers That Are: Cases, History and Other Data Bearing on the Relation of Religion and Government. The frequent requests of teachers for these materials has led to this updated version. One of the greatest strengths of Judge Noonan's materials is that they illustrate the powerful interaction between law and religion over many centuries. Part III describes various approaches to religious freedom that have emerged in contemporary controversies since 1940, when the Supreme Court first applied the Religion Clause of the First Amendment to the states. One might be tempted to leap over the historical materials in Parts I and II, but that would be short-sighted. One cannot understand, let alone intelligently criticize, the approaches of the courts and the political branches to religious freedom in the recent past, without a deep appreciation of the roots of these controversies in the ancient and medieval world (Part I) and in the American experience (Part II).