In Faith and the Founders of the American Republic, Daniel Dreisbach, professor of justice, law and criminology, and co-editor Mark David Hall expound on the role of religion in the founding of America. Dreisbach contributes his own chapter, “The Bible and the Political Culture of the American Founding.” Some historians have regarded the views of Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, James Madison and Thomas Paine as evidence that the founders were deists who advocated the strict separation of church and state. Popular Christian polemicists, on the other hand, have attempted to show that virtually all of the founders were pious Christians in favor of public support for religion. The essays in this book, which was published by Oxford Press, demonstrate how a diverse array of religious traditions informed the political culture of the American founding.
In the book, Curriculum and the Culture Wars: Debating the Bible’s Place in Public Schools, Dreisbach contributes the chapter, “A Handbook for Republican Citizenship?: The American Founders Debate the Bible’s Use in Schools.” This edited volume investigates the role of religion in public schools, focusing on the intersection of religion and curriculum. It presents new scholarship on the use of the Bible in schools, including a historical analysis of what the founders had to say about the use of the Bible in public education, a current assessment of the politics behind the elective Bible-class movement in the early 21st century, and a critique of such educational programs from constitutional and pedagogical perspectives.