Why am I passionate about this?

I have long been fascinated by the messy, tumultuous intersection of religion, politics, and law in American history, and I have made it the focus of my professional pursuits as a constitutional attorney, academic, and author. I am especially interested in the founders’ views on the prudential and constitutional relations between church and state and religion’s contributions to civic life. Did the founders believe religion was an “indispensable support,” to use George Washington’s phrase, for republican government, or did they envision a secular polity committed to a separation between religion and the state? These questions engaged the founders, and they continue to roil political culture in the 21st century.  


I wrote...

Reading the Bible with the Founding Fathers

By Daniel L. Dreisbach,

Book cover of Reading the Bible with the Founding Fathers

What is my book about?

The American founders drew on diverse political traditions, including British constitutionalism, Enlightenment liberalism, and various expressions of republicanism. In most…

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The books I picked & why

Book cover of Separation of Church and State: Historical Fact and Current Fiction

Daniel L. Dreisbach Why did I love this book?

This is the book that first piqued my interest in the often contentious relations between church and state in American political and constitutional history, and it inspired my lifelong study of this topic. Although not without its problems, Robert L. Cord’s book offered a bracing critique of the U.S. Supreme Court’s mid-20th-century version of “history,” which the justices said confirmed the founders’ intent to erect a “high and impregnable” wall of separation between church and state.

The book questioned the foundations of the Court’s church-state jurisprudence and invited readers to reconsider the founding generation’s prudential and constitutional views on church-state relations.

By Robert L. Cord,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Separation of Church and State as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Book by Cord, Robert L.


Book cover of Separation of Church and State

Daniel L. Dreisbach Why did I love this book?

This is perhaps the most talked-about book of the last generation on church-state relations. It offers a sweeping survey of the conceptions and rhetoric of church-state separation in American political and legal traditions from colonial times to the mid-20th century.  

Philip Hamburger challenges the notion that “separation of church and state,” as developed in 20th-century jurisprudence, is a fundamental American principle deeply embedded in the nation’s political and constitutional traditions. Rather, he argues, the rhetoric of separation emerged from the cynical politics of late-18th-century disestablishment battles and was picked up in the next century by nativists seeking to marginalize Catholics (while preserving Protestant hegemony) and by liberals intent on establishing a secular polity. I read few pages in this book that failed to prompt reflection or challenge long-held assumptions.

By Philip Hamburger,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Separation of Church and State as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

In a powerful challenge to conventional wisdom, Philip Hamburger argues that the separation of church and state has no historical foundation in the First Amendment. The detailed evidence assembled here shows that eighteenth-century Americans almost never invoked this principle. Although Thomas Jefferson and others retrospectively claimed that the First Amendment separated church and state, separation became part of American constitutional law only much later.

Hamburger shows that separation became a constitutional freedom largely through fear and prejudice. Jefferson supported separation out of hostility to the Federalist clergy of New England. Nativist Protestants (ranging from nineteenth-century Know Nothings to twentieth-century members…


Book cover of Religion and the Founding of the American Republic

Daniel L. Dreisbach Why did I love this book?

This elegantly crafted book examines two centuries of American history with remarkable clarity and brevity, revealing a vital, sustained, and salutary role played by a vibrant religious culture in the colonies and new nation. James H. Hutson, former Chief of the Manuscript Division at the Library of Congress, wrote Religion and the Founding of the American Republic to accompany the Library’s 1998 exhibition of the same title.

I am also drawn to the book’s many visual images–paintings, photographs, cartoons, document facsimiles, etc.–illustrating religion’s role in American political culture. I often recommend this slender volume as the best short history of religion’s role in American public life from the colonial era to the early 19th century.

By James H. Hutson,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Religion and the Founding of the American Republic as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

In a clear and original treatment of a controversial topic, historian James H. Hutson describes the rise of organized religion in America and its interaction with government from the arrival of Protestant and Catholic groups in New England and the middle Colonies in the early 17th century to the establishment of new religious groups in the early decades of the 19th century. By interpreting the Puritans' arrival in New England in the context of European religious persecution, he lays the groundwork for his examination of the evolving relationship between church and state in America. The history of Rhode Island Baptists…


Book cover of Religion and the American Constitutional Experiment

Daniel L. Dreisbach Why did I love this book?

This is a thoughtful, balanced study of the history, traditions, controversies, theories, and jurisprudence that shaped the American experiment in religious liberty. Originally published by John Witte, Jr., an eminent scholar of law and religion, this book is now in its 5th edition with two co-authors. In that lively experiment, Witte writes, all religious faiths “had to stand on their own feet and on an equal footing with all other faiths,” free from coercion by or the support of civil government.

Drawing on theological, political, legal, and comparative sources and methods, the authors masterfully distill a complex and controversial story into a lucid and engaging narrative. I frequently pull this book off the shelf for basic information, commentary, and insights on the “essential rights and liberties” of religion in America.

By John Witte, Joel A. Nichols, Richard W. Garnett

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Religion and the American Constitutional Experiment as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

This accessible and authoritative introduction tells the American story of religious liberty from its colonial beginnings to the latest Supreme Court cases. The authors analyze closely the formation of the First Amendment religion clauses and describe the unique and enduring principles of the American experiment in religious freedom - liberty of conscience, free exercise of religion, religious equality, religious pluralism, separation of church and state, and no establishment of religion. Successive chapters map all of the 240+ Supreme Court cases on religious freedom - covering the free exercise of religion; the roles of government and religion in education; the place…


Book cover of Did America Have a Christian Founding?: Separating Modern Myth from Historical Truth

Daniel L. Dreisbach Why did I love this book?

Mark David Hall’s engaging book revisits the persistent myth that the American founding was a strictly secular project. He investigates, among other topics, whether the American founders were, as is often claimed, all deists who framed a strictly secular or even “godless” Constitution. Did the founders, he asks, erect a high wall of separation between church and state, thereby restricting religion’s role in public life? 

These are not questions of merely academic interest; rather, as Hall explains, they have implications for law and public policy today. His insightful book compels lay readers and seasoned scholars alike to reconsider conventional views regarding religion’s role in American history and political tradition.  

By Mark David Hall,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Did America Have a Christian Founding? as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

A distinguished professor debunks the assertion that America's Founders were deists who desired the strict separation of church and state and instead shows that their political ideas were profoundly influenced by their Christian convictions.

In 2010, David Mark Hall gave a lecture at the Heritage Foundation entitled "Did America Have a Christian Founding?" His balanced and thoughtful approach to this controversial question caused a sensation. C-SPAN televised his talk, and an essay based on it has been downloaded more than 300,000 times.

In this book, Hall expands upon this essay, making the airtight case that America's Founders were not deists.…


Explore my book 😀

Reading the Bible with the Founding Fathers

By Daniel L. Dreisbach,

Book cover of Reading the Bible with the Founding Fathers

What is my book about?

The American founders drew on diverse political traditions, including British constitutionalism, Enlightenment liberalism, and various expressions of republicanism. In most scholarly accounts, however, Christianity and its sacred text receive little attention, thus missing a critical source of influence on the founders. 

In my book, I contend that the Bible informed the founders’ experiment in republican government and ordered liberty. The founding generation looked to the Bible for insights into human nature, civic virtue, political authority, the rights and responsibilities of citizens, and other concepts essential to their political project. Documenting the Bible’s place in the nation’s founding corrects erroneous claims that it was a strictly secular undertaking and confirms that biblical Christianity was among the sources that informed the founders’ political thoughts, rhetoric, and practices.

Book cover of Separation of Church and State: Historical Fact and Current Fiction
Book cover of Separation of Church and State
Book cover of Religion and the Founding of the American Republic

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No Average Day: The 24 Hours of October 24, 1944

By Rona Simmons,

Book cover of No Average Day: The 24 Hours of October 24, 1944

Rona Simmons Author Of No Average Day: The 24 Hours of October 24, 1944

New book alert!

Why am I passionate about this?

I come by my interest in history and the years before, during, and after the Second World War honestly. For one thing, both my father and my father-in-law served as pilots in the war, my father a P-38 pilot in North Africa and my father-in-law a B-17 bomber pilot in England. Their histories connect me with a period I think we can still almost reach with our fingertips and one that has had a momentous impact on our lives today. I have taken that interest and passion to discover and write true life stories of the war—focusing on the untold and unheard stories often of the “Average Joe.”

Rona's book list on World War II featuring the average Joe

What is my book about?

October 24, 1944, is not a day of national remembrance. Yet, more Americans serving in World War II perished on that day than on any other single day of the war.

The narrative of No Average Day proceeds hour by hour and incident by incident while focusing its attention on ordinary individuals—clerks, radio operators, cooks, sailors, machinist mates, riflemen, and pilots and their air crews. All were men who chose to serve their country and soon found themselves in a terrifying and otherworldly place.

No Average Day reveals the vastness of the war as it reaches past the beaches in…

No Average Day: The 24 Hours of October 24, 1944

By Rona Simmons,

What is this book about?

October 24, 1944, is not a day of national remembrance. Yet, more Americans serving in World War II perished on that day than on December 7, 1941, when the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor, or on June 6, 1944, when the Allies stormed the beaches of Normandy, or on any other single day of the war. In its telling of the events of October 24, No Average Day proceeds hour by hour and incident by incident. The book begins with Army Private First-Class Paul Miller's pre-dawn demise in the Sendai #6B Japanese prisoner of war camp. It concludes with the death…


5 book lists we think you will like!

Interested in church and state, presidential biography, and Christianity?

Church And State 18 books
Christianity 686 books