Senior Staff Reading Group: The Bible and the American Founding

Many in the secular academy, mainstream media, and, increasingly, popular culture disregard acknowledgements of God, faith, and the Bible in American history. The founding is described as a strictly secular project informed by Enlightenment ideas and committed to a strict separation of religion from public life. More circumspect students of history know, to the contrary, that the story of the nation’s founding cannot be told accurately or adequately if we miss or dismiss the Bible’s contributions to the American experiment in republican self-government. The Bible was the most accessible and authoritative book in eighteenth-century America, and it shaped the founders’ political thought and projects. This presentation will reflect on the Bible’s influences on the political principles and constitutional designs of the American founding.

Daniel L. Dreisbach is a professor at American University in Washington, DC. He earned a Doctor of Philosophy degree from Oxford University, where he studied as a Rhodes Scholar, and a Juris Doctor degree from the University of Virginia. His research interests include the intersection of religion, politics, and law in the American founding era. He has authored or edited a dozen books, including Reading the Bible with the Founding Fathers (Oxford University Press, 2017),Thomas Jefferson and the Wall of Separation between Church and State (New York University Press, 2002), and Faith and the Founders of the American Republic(Oxford University Press, 2014)(co-ed). He has published numerous book chapters, reviews, and articles in scholarly journals, including American Journal of Legal History, Constitutional Commentary, Journal of Church and State, Politics and Religion, and William and Mary Quarterly. Professor Dreisbach is a past recipient of American University’s highest faculty award, “Scholar / Teacher of the Year.”