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The Struggle between “Religion and Nonreligion”: Jefferson, Backus, and the Dissonance of America's Founding Principles

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  26 July 2007

J. JUDD OWEN
J. JUDD OWEN
Affiliation:
Emory University
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Abstract

The prevailing view of both the U.S. Supreme Court and liberal theory in America is that liberal principles are neither essentially religious nor essentially secular, but somehow foundationally neutral, or in the words of the Court neutral between “religion and nonreligion.” This essay challenges the cogency of this view through a comparative examination of two strong defenders of religious freedom from the American revolutionary era: Thomas Jefferson and Isaac Backus. Jefferson, the Enlightenment rationalist, and Backus, the Calvinist-Baptist, may initially seem tailor-made for this foundational neutrality, but closer examination reveals that religious freedom for them was not only an extension of their radically opposed views on religion but also an instrument for the promotion of those views throughout society. The ambiguity of America's founding principles is best understood, not through the notion of neutrality, but as the product of a yet unsettled struggle between devout religion and secular Enlightenment.

Type
ARTICLES
Information
American Political Science Review , Volume 101 , Issue 3 , August 2007 , pp. 493 - 503
Copyright
© 2007 by the American Political Science Association

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