Truth and Freedom - 12/30/11

“Separation of Church and State: Understanding this foundational freedom in the current context” with Prof. Derek H. Davis, JD, PhD

We discuss the constitutional foundations of our first amendment freedom of religion, including various views of the founding fathers at the founding of the republic. Derek Davis, an authority in the area of religious freedom helps to illuminate the extraordinary complexities of the issue along with current threats to this freedom in America and the world.

Derek H. Davis (B.A., M.A., J.D., Baylor University; Ph.D., University of Texas at Dallas) is a retired Dean of the College of Humanities and Dean of the Graduate School at University of Mary Hardin-Baylor, Belton, Texas.  He was formerly Director of the J.M. Dawson Institute of Church-State Studies and Professor of Political Science, Baylor University, and Editor of the internationally acclaimedJournal of Church and State. Derek is the author or editor of eighteen books, including Original Intent: Chief Justice Rehnquist & the Course of American Church-State Relations (Prometheus, 1991), Religion and the Continental Congress, 1774-1789: Contributions to Original Intent (Oxford, 2000), and The Oxford Handbook of Church and State in the United States (Oxford, 2010).  He has also published more than 160 articles in various journals and periodicals, and now serves numerous organizations given to the protection of religious freedom in American and international contexts.

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