"This volume offers a novel reading of the American constitutional experiment in religious liberty. The First Amendment, John Witte, Jr. argues, is a synthesis of both the theological convictions and the political calculations of the eighteenth-century American founders. The founders incorporated six interdependent principles into the First Amendment - liberty of conscience, freedom of exercise, equality of faiths, plurality of confessions, disestablishment of religion, and separation of church and state.

Witte uses these principles to analyze the free exercise and establishment case law of the last two centuries. He then illustrates the virtues of his principled approach through analysis of the thorny contests over tax exemptions for religions and the role of religion in the public school, among others." "This volume serves both as a provocative primer for students and a pristine restatement for specialists in law, religion, history, politics, and American studies."--BOOK JACKET.