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The First Amendment’S Religion Clauses: The Calvinist Document That Interprets Them Both, Leah Farish Esq. Jul 2010

The First Amendment’S Religion Clauses: The Calvinist Document That Interprets Them Both, Leah Farish Esq.

College of Arts and Cultural Studies Faculty Research and Scholarship

This paper suggests that the Westminster Confession of Faith's provisions about church and state, revised in Philadelphia at the start of the Constitution's ratifying convention, furnished much of the syntax and vocabulary for the First Amendment's religion clauses. Recognizing the cultural links between the new American government and the Presbyterian Church, the author argues that it was natural for the founders to look to how the new Westminster Confession situated church and state. The author argues that Fisher Ames's proposed wording for the First Amendment won immediate adoption because it resonated with the Confession, standing as it did in that …


Christian Realism And Immigration Reform, Victor C. Romero Jan 2010

Christian Realism And Immigration Reform, Victor C. Romero

Journal Articles

Drawing upon President Barack Obama’s admiration of Reinhold Niebuhr’s work, this Essay outlines a Protestant, Christian realist approach toward immigration policy, with specific focus on the role of the executive in providing providential leadership. Embracing realism in its political, moral, and theological dimensions, Christian realism offers a pragmatic, yet optimistic, alternative to secular liberalism’s faith in reason by striving instead to adhere to God’s guidance on matters, taking into account the fundamentally flawed nature of man. The specific policy prescriptions described here mirror the twin virtues of Christian realism by promoting the hope in pursuit of the peaceable kingdom and …