Godless Citizens in a Godly Republic: Atheists in American Public Life

by Isaac Kramnick, R. Laurence Moore

Overview

If the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution protects religious liberty, why doesn’t it protect atheists?

God occupies our nation’s consciousness, even defining to many what it means to be American. Nonbelievers have often had second-class legal status and have had to fight for their rights as citizens.

As R. Laurence Moore and Isaac Kramnick demonstrate in their sharp and convincing work, avowed atheists were derided since the founding of the nation. Even Thomas Paine fell into disfavor and his role as a patriot forgotten. Popular Republican Robert Ingersoll could not be elected in the nineteenth century due to his atheism, and the suffragette Elizabeth Cady Stanton was shunned when she questioned biblical precepts about women’s roles.

Moore and Kramnick lay out this fascinating history and the legal cases that have questioned religious supremacy. It took until 1961 for the Supreme Court to ban religious tests for state officials, despite Article 6 of the Constitution. Still, every one of the fifty states continues to have God in its constitution. The authors discuss these cases and more current ones, such as Burwell v. Hobby Lobby Stores, Inc., which address whether personal religious beliefs supersede secular ones.

In Godless Citizens in a Godly Republic, the authors also explore the dramatic rise of an "atheist awakening" and the role of organizations intent on holding the country to the secular principles it was founded upon.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780393254969
Publisher:	Norton, W. W. & Company, Inc.
Publication date:	08/21/2018
Pages:	256
Sales rank:	1,212,332
Product dimensions:	5.60(w) x 8.30(h) x 0.90(d)

About the Author

Isaac Kramnick is professor emeritus of government at Cornell University.

R. Laurence Moore is professor emeritus of history and American studies at Cornell University

Table of Contents

About Citations and Sources xi

Prologue xiii

Part 1 Atheists in America: Their Past

1 The invention of Religious Liberty 3

2 Atheism Becomes Un-American 18

3 The Political Cost of Nonbelief in Nineteenth-Century America 44

4 A Secular Equivalent of Religious Worship 72

Part 2 Atheists in America: Their Present

5 One Nation Under God 87

6 Fifty States Under God 110

7 Unequal Citizens Under God 129

8 The Atheist Awakening 154

Epilogue: Atheists and a Virtuous Republic 195

Notes, Citations, And Useful Reading 205

Acknowledgments 211

Index 213

Editorial Reviews

07/02/2018
From the pages of state constitutions to the seats of Congress, Moore and Kramnick (The Godless Constitution: The Case Against Religious Correctness) search for places for the godless in American politics and find few. Beginning with the country’s roots in England, with its official state church, the United States’ protection of religious liberties excludes one group: nontheists and their nonbelief in a religion or deity. The authors explain that 18th- and 19th-century Americans associated morality with religion, so eschewing one was considered a rejection of the other. The tensions of the Cold War reinforced this historical bias, with rhetoric tying communism to atheism and implying a corresponding relationship between belief and patriotism. The concept of the dangerous, un-American—or worse, anti-American—atheist paved the way for the addition of “Under God” to the Pledge of Allegiance in 1954 and “In God We Trust” to America’s currency in 1957, and constrained nontheists’ chances at public office and judicial seats. Synopses of pivotal Supreme Court cases demonstrate how atheists, agnostics, humanists, secularists, and nontheists are frequently cast as an amoral minority. Through cautious and sensitive comparisons between nontheists and other marginalized groups, the authors present the marginalization of nontheists as an equal rights issue. This accessible and sincere book usefully makes explicit often-unspoken currents in American political life. (Aug.)

Publishers Weekly

An illuminating read on an increasingly important aspect of American history and politics. With more Americans eschewing religion, such a book is both timely and warranted.

Phil Zuckerman

2018-05-28
A survey of the social and political status of atheists in 21st-century America.As Moore (Emeritus, American Studies and History/Cornell Univ.) and Kramnick (Emeritus, Government/Cornell Univ.), who co-authored The Godless Constitution: A Moral Defense of the Secular State, 2005, etc., define it, atheism sweeps wide and includes deists, agnostics, and secular humanists, comprising perhaps 20 percent of the U.S. population. The authors demonstrate at length that atheists in America—a country whose colonies were founded largely along religious lines—have historically suffered not just public scorn, but also prosecutions for blasphemy and such legal impediments as being denied the right to testify in court or to serve in public office. They provide concise but thorough summaries of judicial arguments and opinions that have justified striking down the most overtly discriminatory laws but leave in place less intrusive practices like prayer at public events. The authors further assert that private opinions disfavoring atheism nevertheless remain influential and that large majorities assume that "to be irreligious is to be 'un-American,' " an attitude actively encouraged during the Cold War. Various organizations of the current supposed "Atheist Awakening" are intent on remedying that through advertising, political activism, and largely unsuccessful legal assaults on remaining vestiges of religious observance and expression in government. Moore and Kramnick map the edges of conflict over the uneasy balance between atheists' rights not to be coerced into insincere professions of belief and believers' rights to express a conviction that religion is a fundamental bedrock of civil society. While supportive of the atheists' cause, their work is not as polemical as that of some of their colleagues; they are content to set out the issues atheist activists are now pressing. Some of these will likely strike readers as frivolous or as quixotic attempts to drive religion entirely from the public square, something no American government at any level has ever committed to doing.An impassioned review of the demands of a little-considered minority.

Kirkus Reviews

As American demographics trend increasingly secular, religious conservatives are trying harder than ever to define the nation’s law and politics in their terms. Meanwhile, seeing secularism under attack, nonbelievers are standing up and speaking out as never before. Godless Citizens in a Godly Republic provides unique and valuable insight into these culture wars.

David Niose

Godless Citizens is a well-considered, well-written, and arguably important book. It should be read by anyone who sees themselves as having had to live on the short end of things in an America fighting at any cost to be defined as Christian. Moore and Kramnick give us ample reason to take heart.

Daniel Thomas Moran - Humanist

This compact and thorough work is a perfect introduction to atheism in America.

Booklist

Godless Citizens in a Godly Republic provides exactly what we need more of from historians but so rarely get: accessible, well-written prose combined with scholarly discipline in the service of a contemporary issue badly in need of light rather than heat.

Eric Alterman

A fascinating look at atheism in America.

National Book Review

[An] alternative history of the country, focused on the nonbelievers.

New York Times Book Review

A thorough and useful history of the legal and political status of atheists in America.

Casey Cep - The New Yorker

R. Laurence Moore and Isaac Kramnick trace the often-shocking history of atheism in America. In a nation dedicated to the separation of church and state, we have seen furious battles over compulsory school prayer, discrimination against nonbelievers, and continuing efforts to declare this to be ‘a Christian nation.’ Moore and Kramnick bring to life a continuing struggle to make this nation what the Founders intended it to be.

Geoffrey R. Stone

This compact and thorough work is a perfect introduction to atheism in America.

Booklist

07/01/2018
Emeritus professors Kramnick and Moore (government, Cornell Univ.; The Godless Constitution) here shed light upon the growing tension between the increasing number of Americans with no religious affiliation (nearly 25 percent of adults, and an even greater percentage of millennials) and the historic stigmatization of nonbelievers as second-class citizens. The authors argue that previous reasons used for denouncing the irreligious simply do not make sense anymore and need to be challenged in the name of religious liberty. The first half of the book provides a historical overview of subjects such as the ostracism of Thomas Paine, the frequent omission of the irreligious background of Elizabeth Cady Stanton, and attempts to create a secular alternative to religion by Jane Addams and others. The second half focuses on 20th-century issues such as the Pledge of Allegiance, state constitutions, and key court cases. The work concludes with a look at the recent "Atheist Awakening" and the various political, legal, and promotional strategies that have been attempted. VERDICT This work provides important historical insights into a contentious contemporary issue. Highly recommended for readers interested in history, law, and political science, as well as those seeking positive approaches to expanding religious liberty.—Brian Sullivan, Alfred Univ. Lib., NY

Library Journal

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