Exploring the history of the Black Church in America, its African roots, its beliefs, practices, politics, and moral dilemmas, Episcopal priest Michael Battle gives readers a broad understanding of African-American Christian spirituality and a sense of its uniqueness in the wider world.

The author of The American Creed tells “the story of our nation’s historical encounters with God and culture” (Peter J. Gomes, New York Times bestselling author). Today’s dispute over the line between church and state (or the lack thereof) is neither the first nor the fiercest in our history. In a revelatory look at our nation’s birth, Forrest Church recreates our first great culture war—a tumultuous, nearly forgotten conflict that raged from George Washington’s presidency to James Monroe’s. Religion was the most divisive issue in the nation’s early presidential elections. Battles raged over numerous issues while the bible and the Declaration of Independence competed for American affections. The religious political wars reached a vicious peak during the War of 1812; the American victory drove New England’s Christian right to withdraw from electoral politics, thereby shaping our modern sense of church-state separation. No longer entangled, both church and state flourished. Forrest Church has written a rich, page-turning history, a new vision of our earliest presidents’ beliefs that stands as a reminder and a warning for America today. “An illuminating study of the great tangle of our time. If we look back to our early years, we may well find a way forward.” —Jon Meacham, #1 New York Times bestselling author of His Truth is Marching On “In this beautifully crafted and timely work, the aptly named Church takes us through the complex thoughts and actions of the nation’s founders in a way that will give pause to most readers . . . This is an important work that delights and informs.” —Publishers Weekly (starred review)

Fought on July 28, 1864, the Battle of Ezra Church was a dramatic engagement during the Civil War's Atlanta campaign. Confederate forces under John Bell Hood desperately fought to stop William T. Sherman's advancing armies as they tried to cut the last Confederate supply line into the city. Confederates under General Stephen D. Lee nearly overwhelmed the Union right flank, but Federals under General Oliver O. Howard decisively repelled every attack. After five hours of struggle, 5,000 Confederates lay dead and wounded, while only 632 Federals were lost. The result was another major step in Sherman's long effort to take Atlanta. Hess's compelling study is the first book-length account of the fighting at Ezra Church. Detailing Lee's tactical missteps and Howard's vigilant leadership, he challenges many common misconceptions about the battle. Richly narrated and drawn from an array of unpublished manuscripts and firsthand accounts, Hess's work sheds new light on the complexities and significance of this important engagement, both on and off the battlefield.

Steven K. Green, renowned for his scholarship on the separation of church and state, charts the career of the concept and helps us understand how it has fallen into disfavor with many Americans. In 1802, President Thomas Jefferson distilled a leading idea in the early American republic and wrote of a wall of separation between church and state. That metaphor has come down from Jefferson to twenty-first-century Americans through a long history of jurisprudence, political contestation, and cultural influence. This book traces the development of the concept of separation of church and state and the Supreme Court's application of it in the law. Green finds that conservative criticisms of a separation of church and state overlook the strong historical and jurisprudential pedigree of the idea. Yet, arguing with liberal advocates of the doctrine, he notes that the idea remains fundamentally vague and thus open to loose interpretation in the courts. As such, the history of a wall of separation is more a variable index of American attitudes toward the forces of religion and state. Indeed, Green argues that the Supreme Court's use of the wall metaphor has never been essential to its rulings. The contemporary battle over the idea of a wall of separation has thus been a distraction from the real jurisprudential issues animating the contemporary courts.

The centenary of America's declaration of war in 1917 is a fitting time to examine afresh the reaction of the American churches to the conflict. What was the impact of the war on the churches as well as the churches' hoped-for influence on the nation's war effort? Commenting on themes such as nationalism, nativism, nation-building, dissent, just war, and pacifism, this book provides a window into those perilous times from the viewpoint of Mainline and Evangelical Protestants, Roman Catholics, Lutherans, Pentecostals, Mennonites, Quakers, Mormons, and Jehovah's Witnesses. Also included are chapters on developments among American military chaplains in the First World War and the reaction of the American churches to the Armenian Genocide.