Speaking of Unitarians, the Unitarian minister Forrest Church has written a very good new book on how the religious politics of the first five U.S. presidents established the basic outlines of the separation of church and state: So Help Me God: The Founding Fathers and the First Great Battle Over Church and State. An excerpt appeared in UU World magazine: "America's Founding Faiths" (http://www.uuworld.org/ideas/articles/50591.shtml).

Church (the son of the late Sen. Frank Church, and the author of many books on religion and politics) gives a rich and nuanced portrait of Washington, Adams, Jefferson, Madison, and Monroe, and many other prominent religious and political figures from the first few decades. One irony of his book is that John Adams, the only Unitarian church member among the country's theologically liberal first five presidents, was the most pious of the bunch.

Posted at March 12, 2008 12:25 PM in response to Militant Unitarians