Church-State Constitutional Issues

Donald L. Drakeman is a lecturer in the Department of Politics at Princeton University, and president of a biotechnology company. He holds a PhD in American religious history from Princeton and a JD from Columbia Law School. He specializes in religion and government issues and American constitutional law. Mr. Drakeman co-edited Church and State in American History: The Burden of Religious Pluralism and has written articles for Rutgers Law Review, Cardozo Law Review, and The Christian Century.

• Preface The Supreme Court and the Establishment Clause The Quest for the Historical Establishment Clause Church and State under the Establishment Clause: The First One Hundred and Fifty Years Establishing a New Approach Bibliography Index

"Drakeman examines the history of the church and state issues in the US, explores the meaning of the establishment clause in the First Amendment, and proposes a new interpretive framework for preventing government from aiding any one religion or from discriminating against any particular religion. To arrive at his own interpretive framework, Drakeman reviews the context of the Supreme Court's interpretation of the establishment clause by chronicling the most significant constitutional cases from the 19th century until today. Reliance on the Founding Fathers' intent toward the establishment clause is considered flawed because the evidence of their intentions is too sparse, and no clear mandate of their feelings on the separation of church and state is evidenced in historical records. Thus, Drakeman rejects originalism and proposes the use of a religiously nonpreferential endorsement doctrine whereby religion is not given special treatment by the government, yet whereby a religious institution is not singled out as one type of charitable organization ineligible for available government benefits. Upper-division undergraduates and above." - Choice