Separation of Church and State: Founding Principle of Religious Liberty

Frank Lambert tackles the central claims of the Religious Right "historians" who insist that America was conceived as a "Christian State," that modern-day "liberals" and "secularists" have distorted and/or ignored the place of religion in American history, and that the phrase "the separation of church and state" does not appear in any of the founding documents and is, therefore, a myth created by the Left. He discusses what separates "bad" history from "good" history, and concludes that the self-styled "historians" of the Religious Right create a "useful past" that enlists the nation's founders on behalf of present-day conservative religious and political causes. Lambert believes that the most effective means of critiquing such misuse of history is sound historical investigation that considers all the evidence, not just that which support's an author's biases, and draws reasonable conclusions grounded in historical context.