Under God: George Washington and the Question of Church and State

No American living in 1800 would have predicted that Thomas Jefferson’s idiosyncratic views on church and state would ever eclipse those of George Washington, let alone become constitutional dogma. Yet today’s Supreme Court guards no doctrine more fiercely than Jefferson’s antagonistic wall of separation between church and state. Washington’s sharply contrasting views, explored in this path-breaking book, suggest a more reasonable interpretation of the First Amendment, one that is consistent with religion’s importance to the enterprise of democracy.