Keeping the Faith

John E. Semonche is professor of history at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill. He is the author of Religion and Constitutional Government in the United States, Charting the Future: The Supreme Court Responds to a Changing Society, 1890-1920, and Ray Stannard Baker: A Quest for Democracy in Modern America, 1870-1918. He lives in Durham, North Carolina.

• Chapter 1 Introduction: The Ties That BindChapter 2 "In the Beginning Was the Word," 1620-1791Chapter 3 Establishing the Parameters of Priestly Duties, 1790-1821Chapter 4 Expounding the Holy Writ in Troubled Times, 1810-1860Chapter 5 Interpreting New and Old Holy Books: Part I: Beginning to Widen the Civil Religious Community, 1860-1917Chapter 6 Interpreting New and Old Holy Books: Part II: Protecting Property and Other Individual Rights in the Changing Economy, 1864-1917Chapter 7 Responding to New Crises and Exploring the Implications of the Civil Theology, 1917-1941Chapter 8 Searching for the Meaning of Loyalty within the American Civil Religion, 1940-1959Part 9 Struggling to Equalize Justice and Expand the Civil Theology's ReachChapter 10 Part I: The Matter of Race, 1954-1997Chapter 11 Part II: Other Matters Including Gender and Sectarian Religion: 1962-1997Chapter 12 Making the Scriptures on Individual Rights Nationally Operative, 1960-1997Chapter 13 The Blessings of LibertyChapter 14 NotesChapter 15 Justices of the Supreme CourtChapter 16 Case IndexChapter 17 Subject Index

In his illuminating study of the significance of the Supreme Court in American public culture, Professor Semonche contends that, from the very beginning, the Justices have played an unappreciated role in shaping American identity and binding us together as a nation. Readers will be fascinated by this challenge to the fashionable naysayers, for Semonche offers a much cheerier view of the performance of the high priests of our civil religion.