• Introduction
• Establishment at the founding
• Framing the First Amendment
• Disestablishment in the states
• Application of the Establishment Clause to the states
• The rise and fall of the lemon test
• Accommodation of religious exercise
• No-aid separation, neutrality, and religious schools
• Prayer, bible reading, and coercion
• Conflicts over symbols
• Church autonomy
• Conclusion: Neutrality beyond the Establishment Clause

"The Establishment Clause of the First Amendment, "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion," may be the most contentious and misunderstood provision of the entire U.S. Constitution. It lies at the heart of America's culture wars. But what, exactly, is an "establishment of religion"? And what is a law "respecting" it? Many commentators reduce the clause to "the separation of church and state." This implies that church and state are at odds, that the public sphere must be secular, and that the Establishment Clause is in tension with the Free Exercise of Religion Clause. All of these implications misconstrue the Establishment Clause's original purpose and enduring value for a religiously pluralistic society. The clause facilitates religious diversity and guarantees equality of religious freedom by prohibiting the government from coercing or inducing citizens to change their religious beliefs and practices. This book details the theological, political, and philosophical underpinnings of the Establishment Clause, state disestablishment, and the disestablishment norms applied to the states by the Fourteenth Amendment. Americans in the early Republic were intimately acquainted with the laws used in England, the colonies, and early states to enforce religious uniformity. The Establishment Clause was understood to prohibit the government from incentivizing such uniformity. This book shows how the U.S. Supreme Court has largely implemented these purposes in cases addressing prayer in school, state funding of religious schools, religious symbols on public property, and limits on religious accommodations"-- Provided by publisher

• Introduction
• History
• Religion in the regulatory state
• The power of the purse
• Religion and the government's influence on culture
• What is "religion?"

"Casebook on Religion and the Constitution/First Amendment"-- Provided by publisher