IN GOD WE TRUST

How the Supreme Court’s First Amendment Decisions Affect Organized Religion

by Kathryn Page Camp

FaithWalk Publishing, 2006

224 pages, $14.99

To order: (800) 335-7177 faithwalkpub.com

Amid today’s battles involving church-and-state issues, it is easy to view the U.S. struggle over the First Amendment as purely a modern problem. This thoughtful and balanced analysis of the laws and court decisions involving organized religion shows that discussion about the relationship between religion and government has been going on since the country’s founding, and is likely to continue.

Although Camp, a regulatory attorney and a Christian, simply reports facts, leaving the reader to draw his or her own conclusions, she offers a deeper look at history and the factors courts must consider in cases impacting people of faith. Camp acknowledges in the book’s introduction that she has her own opinions, but has chosen not to impose them on readers. She does include in the final chapter some “educated guesses” on what the high court would do with several hypothetical cases, although these are based strictly on analyses of previous decisions.

In God We Trust is by no means a comprehensive collection of cases pertinent to the discussion; however, Camp says she tried to choose the most relevant illustrations, regardless of the points of view they advance. Her publisher, an evangelical Protestant house, claims the book contains “the largest number of actual cases in one volume ever made available to the general public.”

Camp’s history of the First Amendment shows the language changes it went through before reaching its final form. She addresses as well the origins of the phrase “wall of separation between church and state,” which has been cited in various Supreme Court opinions. It was first mentioned, Camp writes, in President Thomas Jefferson’s response to the Danbury Baptist Association. The group had written to congratulate him on his election and seek his help in getting state governments to cease making laws about religion.

“Was Jefferson’s metaphor just a political phrase meant to appease his allies and answer his critics?” Camp asks, responding, as she does with many of the questions she poses, “Unfortunately, there is no way to know for sure.”

Camp’s examinations of actual cases comprise the bulk of the book and include those involving religious schools, public religious displays and religiously motivated conduct. Writing in simple language that is both instructive and easy to understand, Camp lays out her points clearly and in an organized fashion. At the end of each chapter, she provides several questions to which she says there are no right or wrong answers. These could easily be employed by those using the book in the classroom or as a home-schooling resource.

Readers looking for a manifesto against or in support of recent court decisions involving religion won’t find it here, but those seeking richer knowledge of the law and the way the courts have interpreted it will welcome this as an extremely helpful resource.

Judith Roberts writes from

Graytown, Ohio.