This Earthly Frame, David Sehat
This Earthly Frame, David Sehat
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This Earthly Frame
The Making of American Secularism

Author: David Sehat

Narrator: George Newbern

Unabridged: 10 hr 24 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Published: 02/22/2022

Synopsis

An award-winning scholar’s sweeping history of American secularism, from Jefferson to TrumpIn This Earthly Frame, David Sehat describes the making of American secularism through its most prominent proponents and most significant detractors. He shows how its foundations were laid in the US Constitution and how it fully emerged only in the twentieth century. Religious and nonreligious Jews, liberal Protestants, apocalyptic sects like the Jehovah’s Witnesses, and antireligious activists all used the courts and the constitutional language of the First Amendment to create the secular order. Then, over the past fifty years, many religious conservatives turned against that order, emphasizing their religious freedom.Avoiding both polemic and lament, Sehat offers a powerful reinterpretation of American secularism and a clear framework for understanding the religiously infused conflict of the present.

About David Sehat

David Sehat is a professor of history at Georgia State University. He is the author of The Jefferson Rule and The Myth of American Religious Freedom, which was awarded the 2012 Frederick Jackson Turner Award.

About George Newbern

George Newbern is an Earphones Award–winning narrator and a television and film actor best known for his roles as Brian MacKenzie in Father of the Bride and Father of the Bride Part II, as well as Danny in Friends. As a voice actor, he is notable for his role as Superman on the Cartoon Newtork series Static Shock, Justice League, and Justice League Unlimited. He has guest starred on many television series, including Scandal, The Mentalist, Private Practice, CSI: Miami, and Numb3rs. He holds a BA in theater arts from Northwestern University.

Reviews

Goodreads review by Jeff

Mostly Solid History Of Official Religious Life In The United States. Sehat manages to trace the history of official religious life in the US fairly well from its pre-Founding roots through its current fights over religious liberty. There are a couple of glaring weaknesses - the largest being his cl......more

Goodreads review by Laisrian

An intellectual history-cum-social history of ideas-cum-legal history on America's stumbling journey towards a (now embattled) secular, 'earthly frame'. If not exactly riveting, Sehat's book is a comprehensive and dynamic depiction of the intellectual, political, and social conflicts between a varie......more

Goodreads review by J

Listened on audiobook. So many dates and cases. This would be a better book to get in print, and I think would be better for those who are policy wonks. I got the gist of the secularization battle, and I feel that the book ends at a juncture in American history that is almost like a cliffhanger in a......more

Quotes

“An essential book for understanding today’s culture wars.” Molly Worthen, author of Apostles of Reason

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