Home | Business News | Browse by Publication | F | Free Inquiry

A freethought classic: a look back at American secularism lets us look ahead.

Article Excerpt
Freethinkers: A History of American Secularism, by Susan Jacoby (New York: Metropolitan Books, 2004, ISBN 0805074422) 417 pp. Cloth $27.50.

Susan Jacoby's Freethinkers: A History of American Secularism is the freethought book of the year Make that the decade. OK, the century.

The twenty-first century may be young, but it's hard to believe anyone is going to top this achievement within the next ninety-six years. In Freethinkers, Jacoby succeeds in reclaiming a lost freethought heritage while boldly and without apology defending the secular state.

Jacoby takes aim at what she calls the "religiously correct" version of American history. Often promoted by TV preachers and their fundamentalist allies in politics, this skewed tale of America emphasizes the views of religious believers while downplaying or ignoring the considerable accomplishments of Enlightenment-era thinkers who dared to challenge the regressive political spawn of ultra-conservative Christianity.

And what were those achievements? For starters, little things called the Constitution, the Bill of Rights, and the very idea of religious freedom. Jacoby rightly notes that Enlightenment champions like James Madison and Thomas Jefferson cannot take all the credit for religious liberty in America and its attendant wall of separation between church and state--but they certainly played a major role. In a marriage that seems unimaginable today, religious skeptics like Jefferson joined forces with dissenting evangelical leaders to secure religious freedom. Once their rights were secure, many evangelicals became less passionate about defending religious liberty. As their numbers grew, they gradually switched sides.

Not so the freethinkers. Freethought support for complete intellectual and religious liberty...

View this article FREE - Now for a Limited Time, try Goliath Business News
Free for 3 Days!