Analysis Of Divided By God

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The place of religion in public and political life is a massive controversy within the United States. In Divided By God, Feldman attempts to articulate a solution that would promote balance between the values evangelicals and legal secularists. Feldman encouraged a ‘no coercion an no money’ approach to religion in the Untied States. After reviewing additional literature and opinions, Feldman’s solutions seem to oversimplify the issue of religious freedom in the United States, lacking a comprehensive resolution to the complicated issue. The solution Feldman proposed was an attempt to mitigate the disagreement between the values evangelicals and the legal secularists. Legal secularists believed that neither organized religion nor religious belief had place within politics or government. This was drastically different than the values evangelicals who believed that a common set of values and …show more content…

In this text they offer an outlook termed no hindrance and no aid. Feldman’s idea would place a significant hindrance on religiously affiliated institutions putting undue strain on their financial resources, while still supporting similar secular institutions. Feldman’s view of ‘no money’ does not adequately answer the intricate questions that the establishment clause proposes, as it doesn’t parse out the individual difficulties of deciding what is aiding religion or simply treating religion and secularism equally. Overall, Feldman’s book Divided By God does a fantastic job outlining the history surrounding freedom of religion in the united states, specifically the different ideologies of legal secularism and values evangelicals. However, he seems to oversimplify the complications associated religious freedom with drafting his solution, through underestimating possible consequences of ‘no coercion’ and missing key obstacles regarding implementation of ‘no

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