Resources on Secular Government

CSG Resources

• Policy Paper: The 'Personhood' Movement Is Anti-Life: Why It Matters that Rights Begin at Birth, Not Conception by Ari Armstrong and Diana Hsieh: HTML or PDF (31 August 2009)

• Politics without God, CSG's blog, offers ongoing commentary on the meaning and importance of secular government.

US History

• US Constitution: The United States Constitution does not establish a Christian nation. The purpose of the government, as stated in the Preamble, is "to form a more perfect union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity." The First Amendment guarantees freedom of religion, stating that "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof..."

• Virginia Act for Establishing Religious Freedom by Thomas Jefferson.

• Memorial and Remonstrance against Religious Assessments, James Madison's denunciation of a proposal for state funding of Christian teachers as "a dangerous abuse of power."

• Letter to the Danbury Baptists, Thomas Jefferson's famous letter claiming that the First Amendment "build[s] a wall of separation between Church and State."

Individual Rights

• Ayn Rand was the 20th century's most intransigent and consistent defender of individual rights. For her discussions of the nature and basis of individual rights and proper government, read her essays Man's Rights, Collectivized Rights, and The Nature of Government.

Religion and Politics

• Religion Versus America, philosopher Leonard Peikoff's 1986 essay on the secular foundation of America -- and the Religious Right's attempt to destroy it.

• Religion vs. Free Speech, Craig Biddle's essay on the incompatibility of religious law and freedom of speech.

• The Tragedy of Theology: How Religion Caused and Extended the Dark Ages, Andrew Bernstein's critical review of Rodney Stark's The Victory of Reason.

• With God on Our Side: The Rise of the Religious Right in America, a painstaking yet riveting examination of the rise of the Religious Right by sociologist William Martin.