Tournament of Shadows: the Great Game and the Race for Empire in Central Asia

Meyer, Karl E. and Brysac, Shareen Blair. Tournament of Shadows: the Great Game and the Race for Empire in Central Asia.

Meyer and Brysac set out to portray the entirety of what they and others have alternately called the “Tournament of Shadows” or “The Great Game” in its entirety, from the consolidation of the British East India Company’s power in the former Mughal domains through the final defeat of the Soviet Union’s Afghani puppet government by the mujaheddin in 1997.  They generally accomplish this grand goal in a sprawling six hundred-page tome that varies in tone from that of a novel like Michael Shaara’s The Killer Angels to a peer-reviewed journal article.  Considering that parts of the text have previously appeared in The Quarterly Journal of Military History and other forums this is hardly surprising.

The overarching premise of Tournament of Shadows is that the regional competition between Great Britain and Russia for domination of Central Asia was pivotal to world events in other arenas.  However, while interesting, the data presented by Meyer and Brysac do not make a compelling case for this argument.  Even the emergence of Middle Eastern oil wealth does not necessarily support the claim that “Who rules the Heartland ... commands the World,” particularly given the increasing ability to replace petroleum products with renewable sources of fuel such as vegetable oil, bio-diesel, and ethanol to fuel vehicles around the world, much less the development of practical hybrid and electric vehicles  Still, Meyer and Brysac weave an interesting tapestry of characters and places that draw the reader into the Indian sub-continent and its intrigues.

While other authors give reasons of economics, trade, and security (for the Russians) as the primary motivators for British and Russian expansionism in Central Asia, Meyer and Brysac focus on British paranoia regarding security for India and national pride, with trade as a lesser issue.  The first of their enlightened Russophobes must be the renowned Sir John Macnaghten, the Secretary of the Political and Secret Department, who believed that the best response to suspected overtures toward Afghanistan’s ruler Dost Muhammed by Russian agents was a quick and dirty overthrow of his popular reign.  Although primarily directed at Russian influence, the true purpose was shrouded in accusations that Dost was conniving with Persia against the Sikhs in his former possessions in Peshawar.

Although Meyer and Brysac appear to have the greatest sympathy toward their British protagonists, they do not fall into the trap of excusing all of their actions and decisions.  Before even discussing the disastrous British adventure later called the First Afghan War, they illustrate the inherent flaws in the campaign, writing, “Only a willing suspension of disbelief can explain what came to be called the First Afghan War.” A critique of the four assumptions that Meyer and Brysac believe that the British leadership held follows, with a further assertion that the campaign was undertaken despite the fact that the fatal flaws of the endeavor were already evident.

The assumptions that the British made regarding the First Afghan War: that the Sikhs under Ranjit Singh would bear the brunt of the fighting, that the fall of Herat to Persia was imminent, that Dost Mohammed was a Russian pawn, and that the Afghans would welcome and support a British selected and led government, are obviously the type of fantasy held by those who believe that they can make reality conform to their desires or those who are not given proper advice and full information by their subordinates.  It is clear that many members of the government in British India pushed for war for their own reasons, but the situation with Ranjit Singh must have been obvious to even the most obtuse political leader.  An astute political leader himself, he maneuvered the British into providing forces to accompany his and to impose unpalatable economic and political terms in the form of tribute on the Afghan King to be set on the throne.

Meyer and Brysac dutifully detail the catastrophe about to befall the British in exquisite detail, including the poor sighting of the British garrison on flat ground dominated by hills on all sides when there was a stout, almost forbidding, fortress nearby, the inadequacy of British weapons (the venerable Brown Bess musket of American Revolution fame, and the duplicity of their Afghan tormentors who broke covenants and truce agreements at every turn.  The end results being that the British perished almost to a man, many with their families.  However, the authors do not take the strictly dispassionate tone found in much modern historical writing.  Throughout, the episode bears the air of a great tragedy, as if a trusted comrade betrayed the hero of a Greek play.  In this, they hark back to an earlier era of writing when respected scholars such as C.W.C. Oman heaped scorn or praise upon the shoulders of those they wrote about.  The idea behind this style of writing is obvious: a likeable protagonist makes for an easier and more interesting story.  This tendency in Tournament of Shadows makes for a more enjoyable read, but it also makes it more difficult to pull information from the text.

Meyer and Brysac continue in a similar vein through the course of the British occupation of India.  Their emphasis throughout is the ongoing conflict between Great Britain and Russia in Central Asia, and they examine the source of this conflict after beginning their narrative of events from the British perspective.  Like most other western scholars, past and present, Meyer and Brysac see the most imperative Russian goal as security for the Russian heartland.  Like their predecessors, they lay the almost paranoid security consciousness on two main factors: the long domination of Russia by Central Asian steppe tribes and the lack of any significant natural border to Russia’s east short of the Pacific Ocean or the Himalayas to the southeast.  Meyer and Brysac contend that the only method open to Russia for ensuring security was for it to conquer all of the territories from which it was vulnerable to attack, and then to rule them with a totalitarian fist. This particularly Russian preoccupation and tendency toward autocracy continue to serve as the main explanatory factors in Western attempts to explain the excesses of Soviet Communism, particularly under Stalin.

Again, Meyer and Brysac step outside the obvious thinking regarding Russian expansion toward the east and southeast, and demonstrate that Russian expansionism was simultaneously affected by two dissimilar groups: the Stroganovs were the Russian version of Britain’s gentleman-adventurer combined with a merchant-trader that appear to be a land-based version of Western Europe’s British and Dutch East India Companies.  Like the East India Companies, the Stroganovs sought fortune and glory for their monarch.  The other group led the advance eastward in the pay of the Stroganovs in the name of the Tsar.  These were the famous Cossacks, who conquered Siberia in the same manner as Cortez in America: using guns, germs, and steel.  The Cossacks used musket and pike against indigenous peoples who also had no natural defense against smallpox, which the Cossacks brought with them.  Meyer and Brysac equate the result with Cortez’ victory over the Aztecs.

Russian expansion toward the southeast is the ultimate cause of its pre-World War I, as it caused British paranoia about the loss of their possessions in British India.  This fear was almost entirely economic in nature, as the physical security of the British Isles was not threatened by the Russian expansion into Asia unless it is taken that trade with India was the main source of British economic power in the 19^th century.  In many respects this competition seems almost irrational on the part of British peers searching for a manly sport to engage themselves in and thereby gain prestige.

In the second section of Tournament of Shadows, Meyer and Brysac take a strange side turn into the British and Russian obsession with opening non-threatening Tibet to foreign trade and exploration, with the British even fighting a limited war using Maxim machine guns and modern artillery against the matchlock wielding Tibetans on the pretext of opening trade negotiations.  The result for the Tibetan forces was predictable.  What the British did not expect was public outcry against the war at home and abroad.

Here Meyer and Brysac take another odd detour, this time into the world of “competitive” geography.  Geography and exploration it seems were the arenas that produced the superstar media personalities of the 19^th and early 20^th centuries.  Central Asia presented an inordinate amount of blank, white spots on world maps, and so became a key hot spot for exploration.  The primary competition in Central Asia was between British and Russian explorers with one key exception: Sven Hedin.  The story of Hedin, like much of the rest of Meyer and Brysac’s treatment of Tibet and geography is an interesting aside that seems to add little to the advancement of their discussion of Empire creation in Central Asia.

Hedin was, in their words, “the lone Swede to take part in the imperial drama.’ The depiction of Hedin is of a man singularly focused on the fame that followed exploring untouched (by Europeans) places and mapping them out.  He did this with a religious zeal that earned him a reputation for utter ruthlessness, founded in part on his crossing the Taklamakan Desert at the cost of four men, seven camels, and two dogs.  His return trips to the desert found archaeological ruins and produced detailed maps. His feats of exploration won him degrees from Oxford and Cambridge, an honorary knighthood, and the Founder’s and Victoria Medals of the British Royal Geographical society.  All of this came to naught when members of the RGS for not being scientific enough and his subsequent adoption of Hitler and Nazi Germany criticized his methods of cartography and surveying as his preferred partners.  Meyer and Brysac assert that Hedin’s “conversion” to Nazism was not that of the political convert, but of the opportunist who seeks out the greatest available power, and in order to tweak the noses of the British who had spurned him.

The problem with this passage, and the subsequent passage dealing with 19^th century archaeology, is that it does little to advance the discussion of imperial conquest and competition among the British and Russian Empires, except in the matters of international prestige.  Meyer and Brysac attempt to connect archaeology to imperial regimes by harking back to Napoleon’s invasion of Egypt in 1798, writing “archaeology has been entwined with Europe’s imperial enterprise from the time Napoleon put to sea for Egypt in 1798 with 38,000 troops and a Commission of Arts...” (pg. 375) However, in focusing on the removal of artifacts and papyri immediately after discussion Sir Aurel Stein’s looting of Chinese relics and papers during his expeditions at Dunhuang, all Meyer and Brysac accomplish is to irrevocably tie imperial archaeology with grave robbery.

The final section of Tournament of Shadows is devoted to two topics: the American entry in Central Asian affairs and developments in Central Asia during the 20^th century particularly after World War II, with a focus on tensions between India and the People’s Republic of China.  It is particularly interesting to note that Indian leader Jawaharlal Nehru followed the British pattern of “forward policy” in claiming disputed lands between Tibet, China, and India and placing checkpoints run by his intelligence services to control India’s northern borders.  Meyer and Brysac believe that Nehru’s insistence on this policy was in order to provide strategic depth to allow for defense in case of conflict with China.  Unfortunately for Nehru and India, the result was a humiliating war with China that India’s smaller army had no chance of winning.

Meyer and Brysac conclude Tournament of Shadows by questioning whether the benefits of increased trade following imperial acquisitions truly stand up to objective cost-benefit analysis.  Meyer and Brysac fall on the negative side of this argument by presenting the case of the British possession Corfu, which had no strategic value and that no right-minded person would sacrifice anything to maintain.

Tournament of Shadows is a compelling read, primarily due to the engaging writing style employed.  The narrative imparts the feel of an adventure story, which makes the text accessible to a larger audience than the strictly academic historiography many volumes adhere to.  However, the focus of the work seems to wander from the strict discussion of Empire in Central Asia, unless the areas of geographical exploration and archaeological expeditions are taken to be promoting the ends of Empire in some manner.  The narrative style can also make it difficult for serious scholars to pull desired information from the pages, although it certainly provides a more emotional “feel”, or context, for the events described.  That said, Meyer and Brysac admirably fulfill their goal of assessing the age-old competition between Russia and Western Europe for the resources of Central Asia.

Empire: The Russian Empire and Its Rivals

Lieven, Dominic. Empire: The Russian Empire and Its Rivals.

In Empire: The Russian Empire and Its Rivals, Dominic Lieven sets out to examine both the impetus toward the formation of empire as a methodology of governing territory, factors that all empires hold in common, and the elements leading to the demise of various modern European and near Asian empires.  His method is primarily to compare and contrast empires through the ages, and then to relate them to the development and experiences of the Russian and Soviet Empires that spanned Eurasia.  Although he admits that his methods and goals may be viewed as politically incorrect or not academically rigorous when examined according to the biases of current political science and economics thought, the depth of his comparative analysis and the force of logic behind his arguments is more than adequate to stand against criticism.

Lieven organizes his work according to topic rather than chronology, which greatly enhances its readability.  He devotes Part One to defining “Empire” as a political concept and the place of empire in global politics.  Part Two examines the British, Ottoman, and Habsburg empires, particularly contrasting them in terms of style of empire and the nature of their collective collapse.  Part Three is primarily concerned with the Russian Empire, its fall, and the evolution of the Soviet Union.  Finally, in Part Four, Lieven examines the aftermath of the empires discussed, especially relating the aftermath to the underlying issues related to the fall of those empires.

Understanding that a mutually understood definition of what “empire” means is a pre-requisite to any useful discussion of the role of empires in the world, Lieven begins there.  Lieven uses a multi-part definition of empire that may not be immediately intuitive to readers.  His primary definition of an empire is “a very great power that has left its mark on the international relations of an era” and that it further represents a “polity that rules over wide territories and many peoples.” He also defines “empire” as a form of government that is inherently not a democracy, or in his words “not a polity ruled with the explicit consent of the governed.” (pg. xi) Lieven believes that this represents a simple and unsophisticated definition of empire, and it may be if taken at face value.  However, it is clear that Lieven does no such thing.  Both in his Preface and in the later discussion of the dilemmas and nature of empire, he notes that not all empires are repressive, unpopular, or illegitimate in their governance.  Indeed, Lieven repeatedly links the continued success and existence of different empires to the existence of some high imperial culture that subject peoples can admire as being more advanced than their own.

Before launching into his exposition on the dilemmas facing ancient and modern empires, Lieven indulges in the almost requisite tracing of the word “empire” from its historical roots in the Roman concept of “imperium”.  He correctly links the words imperium and imperator with successful generalship.  Lieven believes that the traditional Roman view of the Emperor as a military figure survived into the modern era where the 20^th century emperors of Japan, Germany, and Russia rarely appeared in public in anything but a richly decorated uniform.  In the Roman context, Lieven shows the gradual drift from the authority of a Roman magistrate or general to that of monarch.  He also is careful to describe the Roman conception of Empire as a carefully defined legal and political system that was viewed as a universal monarchy for the “civilized” world.  One of the distinctions of the Roman imperial system is that many of the later emperors were neither Roman nor Italian in origin.  In the Roman Empire all of the subject peoples could aspire to the status of citizenship and membership in the senatorial class, which greatly distinguishes it from both the empires that preceded and followed it.

Lieven concludes his discussion of the Roman Empire by briefly identifying and describing the “heirs” to the Roman Empire, which he identifies as Western Christendom, Islam, and Byzantium.  He almost immediately launches into a discussion of the early European conception of empire followed by a discussion of the modern debate on the nature of empire and the ideological basis for the seemingly innate distaste for “empire” in modern liberal democracies.  Although the heirs to Rome are discussed more fully later in his work, Lieven doesn’t really provide enough background for his designation for the three groups as Rome’s heirs, particularly in the case of Islam, which can scarcely have been considered a unified empire at the time of the fall of the Western portion of the Roman Empire.  In fact, it appears that Lieven basis his entire inclusion of Islam as an heir to the Roman Empire almost solely based on the spread of Islam and the resulting linguistic, governmental, and ethnic similarities that spread with it.  However, it is difficult to accept his claim that the Abbasid and Umayyad caliphates were the heirs based on their geographical location and monotheistic religion.  The caliphates were certainly not Greco-Roman in character or philosophy.

Lieven presents the modern debate regarding empire as being divided into two camps.  The first camp sees empire in terms of the maritime colonial empire that Americans are familiar with, the thirteen colonies being the first to wage a successful war of independence against a remote imperial government.  The second camp sees empire as the extended territorial domains of a absolutist monarch, sometimes intertwined with a “universalist” religion such as Christianity of Islam, and operating on either the Roman model of devolved local control or the Han Chinese model of direct control by a rigid bureaucracy.  In either case, the camps agree with the modern liberal conception of empire as a totally negative, repressive, anti-democratic, and illegitimate regime.  Part of Lieven’s goal is to show that this is not necessarily the case.

He begins this task by comparing the Chinese Han and Roman Empires in existence at the beginning of the 1^st century AD.  Starting from the premise that despite their assimilationist nature, multi-ethnicity, and scope, the Han and Roman Empires were fundamentally different.  Where the Roman Empire utilized a small, almost informal bureaucracy, the Han used a vast rigid omnipresent bureaucracy to control their vast holdings.  While immediately noting that generalizations can be dangerous, Lieven draws the obvious conclusion that the different models are primarily the result of the differing philosophies governing the widely separated realms.  Where the Romans followed the well-known model of the rule of law and self-governance based on Greek philosophy, Roman law, and the primacy of the self, the Han Chinese followed the more communitarian model embodied in Confucianism and the Mandarin system, where the benefit of the greater community was prized and the individual was subjugated.  Predictably the two widely different philosophies resulted in incredibly different methods for the maintenance of Empire.

After examining the growth of the modern European state, Lieven finally launches into the meat of his discussion: the dilemmas facing modern empires.  Lieven believes that the modern European empire was born out of the need for Continental powers to acquire the resources to compete with the perceived threat of American and Russian economic growth.  To combat the potential of these two proto-powers, France, England, Germany, and Belgium set out to divide the “lesser” areas of the world amongst themselves.  While they were largely successful, Lieven argues that the patriotic nationalism necessary to create the mass conscript armies of the 19^th century for conflicts in Europe proper, combined with the increasingly democratic nature worked to ensure that European Empires could not last.  This is first evidenced in Europe proper as the Habsburg Empire felt the strain of ethnic nationalism within its borders, which were restricted to continental Europe.  Ultimately, ethnic nationalism in the Third World would overcome the weakened colonial powers after two World Wars.

            Most of Lieven’s text is reserved for his comparisons of the British, Ottoman, Habsburg and Russian Empires.  Each empire is placed in historical perspective including the defining elements involved in its rise and eventual fall.  Lieven further complements his analysis by contrasting the weaknesses of each empire with similar issues faced by the others.

The British Empire stands out from the others discussed as rivals to the Russian Empire as being in some way fundamentally different.  This is demonstrably true on multiple levels.  Of the Empires Lieven discusses, the British is the only one that can truly be considered a “maritime” empire with colonies primarily scattered around the globe.  The reason for this should be immediately obvious given Great Britain’s geographical location on a relatively isolated island.  While this difference greatly differentiates the British Empire from the other three empires that are the focus of Lieven’s work, the manner in which England governed its empire is a greater source of difference.  Although it had increasingly liberal and democratic traditions in its home islands (with the exception of Ireland) and allowed its “White” colonies primarily comprised of English, Scots, and Irish colonists great leeway in matters of local governance.  The “Non-White” colonies like India that primarily consisted of indigenous peoples had a variety of local governments.  In India’s case the colonial government was autocratic in nature.  Although he does not make a direct correlation with the Roman system, Lieven describes the nature of British imperial government as distributed and indirect in nature similar to that utilized by the Romans and relying in part on the cooperation of local elites.  To Lieven, the British Empire was a source of pride and loyalty to the majority of its subjects, a situation he finds to be the case in the majority of the Empires he studies.

Another contrast Lieven finds between the British and other Empires is in the nature of their formation.  While he believes that there is an economic aspect to the creation of almost all empires, Lieven shows that with the exception of the territories encompassed in the United Kingdom, Great Britain’s Empire was acquired for primarily economic means as a source of power and wealth for the financiers of London.  The various colonies also provided a much-needed place for the British to dump excess under-employed or dissatisfied elements of society, which maintained a certain degree of stability at home.

]In contrast, the Habsburg and Russian Empires were landlocked multi-ethnic empires created out of both economic and military concerns for the states that controlled them.  The Habsburgs had no extra-European possessions, which created an internal need for a dynamic economy and stable political situation.  Given its early location across the trade routes through the Ottoman Empire into Europe proper and an industrious populace this was possible until the rising pressures of ethnic nationalism began to cause political rifts in the Habsburg Empire during the 19^th century.  The aristocratically oriented, anti-democratic nature of the Habsburg Empire had no release for the rise in ethnic radicals during the 19^th and early 20^th centuries and growing economic and military weaknesses in the 18^th and 19^th centuries made the Habsburgs vulnerable to both Eastern and Western neighbors.  The relative weakness of the Ottomans and Russians reduced the real threat from the East, but Prussia and France were constant threats.  To provide themselves with an adequate defense, the Habsburg monarchs were forced into a series of alliances with greater powers to protect themselves even from the likes of Russia.

According to Lieven, the main contributor to the fall of the Habsburgs was ethnic conflict among the Slavic and Germanic populations, each of which were naturally drawn to other states.  This issue was exacerbated by the partition of the Empire into Austrian and Hungarian dominated sections, with each catering to its own populations and traditions to the detriment of their respective minority groups.  This eliminated Habsburg imperial cohesion and greatly contributed to the Empire’s military weakness.  Ultimately, lack of a true imperial identity and the profusion of ethnic groups caused the Habsburgs to become weakened and vulnerable.  Arrogant pride caused them to launch the First World War.

The Russian Empire is yet again different from the others discussed.  Like the Habsburg Empire, aristocrats, especially the Romanov dynasty, dominated the Russian Empire.  The Russian Empire’s location on Europe’s periphery gave it access to different markets and resources, particularly in the mountain regions of the Caucasus Mountains and in Siberia.  However, Russia suffered from many of the weaknesses of its location on the edge of European civilization.  Russian economic and military development were initially slow, gained dominance, and waned again.  According to Lieven, Russian expansion was both military and economic in nature, with economic expansion toward the South and East and military expansion toward the West and Northwest.  The Western expansion into places like the Baltics and Poland was undertaken in the name of greater security for the Motherland.  Like other multi-ethnic empires, Russia was beset with ethnic conflicts and regularly had problems.  In the Caucasus region, with its tradition of ethnic cleansing, even the Russians undertook mass deportation of subject peoples in order to reduce tensions.  Poland, however, presented a different set of problems.  Where the Roman, British, and other empires gained acceptance in part due to perceived economic and cultural supremacy over their subjects, the Poles had recent experience with their own nation state, traditions, language, and literature.  Poles felt that their native culture was more developed and advanced than that of the behemoth to their east, which provided a patriotic center for their resistance to Russian imperialism.

The weaknesses of the Russian Empire were many, and Lieven examines them all.  Briefly put, the political and economic situation brought on by World War I allowed the Bolshevik revolution to progress, changing the nature, but not the fact of the Russian Empire.  Lieven seems confused about whether he wishes to present the two political organizations as separate imperial entities.  The Soviet Union is provided its own subsection in the large discussion of the Russian Empire, denoting its status as different from the Romanov dynasty.  It is understandable to group the two units together, if only to point out the differences between them and to illustrate their common roots.

Lieven finds the problems facing the Soviets to be in some ways an extension of those facing the Romanovs.  Both imperial states faced wealthier foreign rivals.  For the Romanovs, the Rivals were Prussia, France, and England.  For the Soviets, the rivalry was primarily with the United States, but also with England and other Western states.  Both imperial states faced problems with ethnic tensions, although for the Soviets the severity of these was not obvious until the fall of Communism as an ideology.  Both imperial states faced issues of economic weakness and an obsession with security arrangements on their Western frontiers.  However, the causes of the fall of the two imperial states were radically different.  For the Romanovs the fall was caused by economic strains induced by the protracted war against the Central Powers in World War I, which led to the Bolshevik revolution.  For the Soviets the collapse of their Marxist ideology brought the ethnic tensions under the surface of their vast empire to forefront and the federal republics that formed the Union began to break away.  The similarities and differences between the two empires, combined with their historical connections, make it difficult to separate them completely.

Lieven wraps up with a separate discussion of Empire’s aftermath in each of his four objects of discussion.  This approach is valuable, particularly when wrestling with the moral and ethical implications of Empire.  With the exception of England’s “White” colonies and the majority of the former Soviet Republics, the fall of Empire is almost always accompanied by ethnic violence, political turmoil, and economic desolation, at least for a time.  An objective look at an empire’s fall should serve to quell the instinctive modern disdain for imperial systems, which is one of Lieven’s goals.

Lieven’s treatment of the causes of empire formation and the effects of imperial states is by no means exhaustive, and it is certainly not meant to be.  His goal appears to be to rehabilitate the conception of “empire” as a legitimate form of governance by showing that not all of the effects are negative.  Certainly, under the Habsburg, Ottoman, and Russian/Soviet Empires most of the ethnic bloodshed in Europe during the 1990s would not have occurred, whether through strict controls on weapons and movement, or through shrewd political maneuvers and the economic advantages of the imperial systems.  Given the current claims that the United States is embarked on a path toward “empire” this discussion of the possibilities and consequences of imperialism may be particularly apt.       

Religious Liberty in the United States: From the First Amendment to "Alternative" Religions

Gaustad, Edwin S. Proclaim Liberty Throughout All The Land: A History of Church and State in America.

Stein, Stephen J. Communities of Dissent: A History of Alternative Religions in America.

Edwin S. Gaustad and Stephen S. Stein both address the American ideal of free religious expression, although they approach the issue from radically different directions.  While Gaustad examines the origins of the 1^st Amendment to the U.S. Constitution and the separation of Church and State across the breadth of American history, Stein adopts the narrower focus of religious dissent, its role in American society, and how religious dissenters are treated.  This allows students of American religious history to use these two volumes in combination to achieve a greater understanding of religious freedom in the United States, the role of religion in American society, and the struggle of the American people to practice universalist religions while accepting the rights of others to worship in different ways.

Proclaim Liberty Throughout All the Land provides Gaustad a medium to explore the parameters of religious freedom in the United States, which he does with the hope that “the foundations of religious liberty can be strengthened and made even more secure,” than they are today (Gaustad, xi).  Maintaining the strength and security of religious freedom is important to Gaustad as it was to the Founding Fathers, who believed that religious liberty was the cornerstone of democracy and the most significant American contribution to the world (Gaustad, x).  Because of the importance many American colonists placed on religious liberty, two separate types of protection are enshrined in the First Amendment to the United States Constitution: a clause preventing the Federal Government from establishing as official any specific religion, and a clause preventing the Federal Government from interfering in the practice of any religion.  For Gaustad and the Founders, this leaves the delicate question of how to draw the line between these two ideals (Gaustad, xi).

Unfortunately religious intolerance of both official and unofficial nature was an important part of American History, both in the Colonial era and more modern times.  Before 1791, Gaustad argues that legal persecution of religious dissenters was common in North American and Europe.  He provides the 17^th century examples of Jews forced to leave New York by its Dutch Governor, and of four Quakers executed for preaching heresy in Boston.  The 18^th century was no better for Americans with alternate religious views: in 1707 a Presbyterian minister was jailed for preaching in New York, and in 1774 several traveling preachers were imprisoned for their beliefs (Gaustad, xiii).

After the adoption of the Bill of Rights in 1791, religious persecution assumed a less official nature, but existed nonetheless.  Through the 19^th and first half of the 20^th century, anti-Catholic bias appeared in magazines dedicated to defeating “Romish corruptions”, the burning of a Massachusetts convent, and the 1850s Know-Nothing Party campaigns against foreigners, Jews, and Catholics (Gaustad, xiv).  In the 20^th century, anti-Catholicism reared its head in attacks on Alfred E. Smith’s Presidential campaign.

However, Gaustad writes that the later part of the 18^th century saw great strides in the extension of American religious freedom, particularly in reaction to the colonist’s perceptions of British abuses.  Great Britain made a habit of imposing political and religious orthodoxy over all conquered territory, including Scotland, Ireland, and the American colonies (Gaustad, 16).  Memories the secular power of Anglican Bishops in England, which many colonists migrated to escape, led some of them to claim that resisting political and religious tyranny were twin causes – political victory without “Liberty of Conscience” was incomplete because the King of England would still have the power to govern their minds (Gaustad, 17).  Opposition to the Church of England caused many colonists to refuse to accept English Bishops despite the fact that only bishops could ordain ministers or confirm young people in the faith.  For some this issue was related to the taxes imposed to support the opulent lifestyles of many Bishops in England, but John Adams took it farther, tying efforts to resist taxation by Parliament to religious freedom, writing that if “Parliament could tax us, they could establish the Church of England with all its creeds, articles, tests, ceremonies, and tithes,” (Gaustad, 19).

Although some states moved to disestablish the Church of England in 1776, Thomas Jefferson and James Madison began pushing for official religious freedom in Virginia in 1777, based on the belief that established churches forced a type of mental servitude on citizens (Gaustad, 22).  Their opponents attempted to take the middle road of providing State support for all Christian churches, but Madison and Jefferson rejected this as requiring the State to determine which churches were Christian, and which were not (Gaustad, 23).

At the Federal level, religious freedom was protected in two places.  The first was the Constitutional dictum in Article 6 that religious tests were not allowed for exclusion of candidates for office.  Despite some opposition, this measure was accepted because some delegates remembered how religious tests were used in England to exclude Catholics and Protestant dissenters alike, and because European Catholic countries also used religious tests to persecute Protestants (Gaustad, 27).  Some of the delegates refused to sign the Constitution without a guarantee that as the first order of Congressional business, a Bill of Rights including protection for religious freedom would be adopted (Gaustad, 29).

The 19^th century saw relatively little action at the Federal level regarding issues of religious freedom, particularly at the Supreme Court.  This is not to imply that religion did not play a role in American politics, just that there was little action by the Supreme Court in enforcing religious freedoms.  Religion was fairly important in political campaigns, as when Thomas Jefferson was falsely accused of being and atheist and anti-Christian in the 1800 election (Gaustad, 35).  Despite this, Jefferson was elected and introduced the concept of a wall separating Church and State; a concept that he believed prevented him from calling for national days of prayer.

However, the Supreme Court did hear a few important cases in the 19^th century.  The first of these was over the glebe lands held by the Anglican Church, which some Americans wanted seized.  The Court sided with the Church, saying that the Revolution did not overturn the Church’s corporate rights, and that the lands belonged either to the Church or its prior owners (Gaustad, 37).   A second case heard by the Court involved colleges founded by religious denominations.  When the states wanted to seize the colleges, the churches sued to keep them.  Again, the Court sided with the churches on the grounds of prior ownership.  Clearly, the justices were acting on behalf of free expression of religion (Gaustad, 39).  However, in what Gaustad calls the biggest case regarding religious freedom in the 19^th century, the Court sided with the Federal government.  In this case, Mormons sued to overturn Federal anti-bigamy laws on religious grounds. The Court ruled that churches were required to obey Congressional Acts that were meant to maintain social order, not limited to acting on matters of religious opinion.  In this case, the court believed that laws governing plural marriage were solely intended for the maintenance of social order (Gaustad, 46).

The 20^th century was much busier in terms of religious freedom cases before the Supreme Court.  Part of this was simply due to the Court’s adoption of the 14^th Amendment as a tool to apply the 1^st Amendment to the actions of the states (Gaustad, 50).  The 20^th century also witnessed an increase in cases as religious plurality led groups to sue over public religious displays, which required that some traditional practices be defended on Constitutional grounds (Gaustad, 51).  Gaustad also believes that the increase was due in part to the increased intrusion of the government in American’s daily lives, with issues of access to birth control, abortion, and sexual practices.

The use of the 14^th Amendment in cases of religious freedom opened new doors for interpretation of the establishment and free expression clauses of the 1^st Amendment.  It allowed the Supreme Court to hear cases where states were using religious tests for officeholders (Gaustad, 53).  It also allowed the Court to address state restrictions of access to contraception and abortion on religious grounds.  In the case of birth control, the court found that Connecticut’s ban on distribution of information related to birth control was not legal, and that states could not limit access to abortions because it effected poor women more than rich women, who could easily travel to areas with legal abortion if necessary (Gaustad, 58).  The Court also relied on the 9^th Amendment, which allows the Supreme Court to identify new rights that represent core interests to society.  In these cases, the Court identified the right to privacy as necessary to the health of American women.

The court also addressed the issues of nativity scenes sponsored by local governments, the use of Congressional and Military Chaplains, and church exemption from taxes.  In the case of nativity scenes, the Court ruled against them on the ground that they implicitly endorsed a specific religious practice, but it also found that Military Chaplains were acceptable because they were necessary to ensure the free expression of religious belief by military personnel and their families.  Clearly, the Supreme Court treads a complicated and difficult path in balancing the demands of the 1^st Amendment.

The issue of the role of religion in public and private schools also appeared before the Supreme Court in the 20^th century, regarding both the establishment clause and the free exercise clause.  Arguments regarding the role of religion in public schools are almost built in given Horace Mann’s influence in developing the American system of public education.  Mann set the standard by insisting that public schools not teach religious dogma, but could teach Protestant Christian values and use non-dogmatic texts and hymns for teaching (Gaustad, 74).  This combined with the early American use of religious primers for instruction to ensure that religion played a high profile role in public schools.  The Supreme Court ruled Mann’s approach illegal in 1869, but issues persisted into the 20^th century.

Gaustad identifies several key issues the Supreme Court addressed regarding religion and public schools: teaching religion in school, practicing religion in schools, and teaching subjects deemed religious in schools.  In these areas, the Court ruled to clearly define what activities violated the establishment clause.  The Court ruled that city schools could not have religious leaders come into the building to teach, but that they could release students early to attend religious instruction (Gaustad, 77).  The rationale was that by having instructors come to the schools, the government was in effect endorsing those religions.  Similarly, the Court ruled that schools could not require prayer at the beginning of the school day (Gaustad, 78), and could only teach portions of the Bible as part of a greater curriculum of study (Gaustad, 82), because both acts are designed to promote worship.  The Court’s ruling regarding teaching portions of the Bible directly relates to the debate over teaching evolution and creationism.  The Court ruled in 1968 that Arkansas could not prohibit science teachers from addressing evolution because the objection was entirely religious in nature.  In 1987, the Court extended this argument to say that the Biblical account of creation was not allowed in the classroom outside the context of examining different religions because it was designed to promote a single religious view (Gaustad, 88).

Gaustad wraps up by addressing the Free Exercise clause of the 1^st Amendment in the 20^th century, an area where the Court sometimes seems schizophrenic due to its frequently changing stances on similar cases.  The right of religious groups to distribute materials is a prime example of the frequent changes of opinion the Court experiences.  In 1942, the Court ruled that states could not require Jehovah’s Witnesses to get permits to distribute religious tracts or asking for donations, but in 1942, the Court reversed itself in a 5-4 decision.  In 2002, the Court reversed itself on this issue again, with Justice Sandra Day O’Connor opining that the idea that citizens need governmental permission to speak with their neighbors is offensive in a free society (Gaustad, 115).

Jehovah’s Witnesses provide the Court with another opportunity to repeatedly change its mind.  In 1940, the Court ruled that religious dissenters could be forced to salute the flag in school in order to promote national unity (Gaustad, 117).  However, just three years later, the Court reversed itself, deciding that compulsory loyalty oaths are counter to democratic ideals.  Justice Jackson wrote that no government official could determine religious or political correctness for other groups that are not are clear threat.

Stephen Stein’s entire work is about the issue of freedom of religious expression, and how it combines with the establishment clause of the 1^st Amendment.  In this way, it serves as a perfect complement to Gaustad’s Proclaim Liberty Throughout All the Land.  Where Gaustad examines the on-going development of religious freedom in the United States, Stein aims at the American History of religious dissent, and how religious dissenters are treated in American society.  The role of the 1^st Amendment is key in preserving the rights of religious dissenters, although it is sometimes amazing that a nation founded by dissenters needs such a formalized arrangement.  Stein’s argument is that while the 1^st Amendment does offer protection from official sanction of religious dissenters, they are frequently the targets of both official and non-official harassment.  This represents an interesting dichotomy when compared with American’s traditional celebration of political dissent (Stein, ix).  Stein’s main question is why religious dissenters evoke such strong negative reactions among Americans (Stein, x).  However, it is possible that Stein falls prey to the idealized notion that political dissent is a valued American trait.  This the conservative attacks on the New York City anti-draft riots during the Civil War, complaints levied at Vietnam War protesters, and the current conservative charge that any question of the war in Iraq or of the War on Terror is treason.

Before launching into the history of religious dissenters, Stein provides a foundation of academic language for discussing dissenting groups, which he believes is necessary to counteract the misuse of some terms in the American media.  Two terms he singles out for special consideration are cult and sect.  These two terms in particular have become increasingly pejorative epithets for certain small religious movements.  Stein directs readers to the original and more useful definitions of these words: cult is defined as the structured worship of, or tending, a deity while a sect is defined as a community that follows a particular leader or ideology (Stein, 5).  To avoid the modern built-in bias, Stein uses the terms alternative religions, outsider religious groups, marginal religious communities, and new religious movements to describe communities of religious dissenters.  The use of neutral language to discuss these groups helps develop an unbiased attitude toward his topic.

The question of religious dissent bedeviled Americans almost from the very beginning.  This is obvious from the nature of the most famous early colonists, the Puritans, who migrated to the New World in order to seek their own religious freedom after persecution by the Church of England.  Of course, the Massachusetts Bay Puritans then turned around to use governmental authority to quash religious dissent when it banished Roger Williams in 1635, followed shortly thereafter by Anne Hutchinson (Stein, 17).  Both Williams and Hutchinson directly challenged the religious doctrine of the Puritan congregations in Massachusetts, with Williams asserting that civil magistrates had no right to enforce religious rules (Stein, 15).  The Colonial and English experience with official religious persecution directly led the to the adoption of the 1^st Amendment to the Constitution.

Following Gaustad’s approach in Proclaim Liberty Throughout All the Land, Stein documents the history of major alternate religious groups in the United States, identifying their origins, beliefs, and the hurdles they faced from the larger American society.  This allows him to illustrate the gap between the ideal of religious freedom and the actuality of religious freedom.  What is interesting is that opposition to religious dissenters migrates from the threat of force in the early 19^th century to legal action during the 20^th century.  In June 1825, two large mobs forcibly returned a teenaged Shaker convert to her family, despite her protests that she did not want to leave the Shaker community (Stein, 50).  The Shakers were a pacifist religious community that moved from England to the Colonies to escape religious persecution, who believed that self-sacrifice was the key to righteousness.  Their refusal to bear arms during the Revolution led many to distrust them, and they suffered physical attacks, as well as charges of heresy (Stein, 52).

The key to some of the persecution dissenting groups faced was frequently their non-traditional social arrangements.  The leader of the Oneida community, John Humphrey Noyes, faced charges of adultery as a result of the group’s free love doctrine that espoused a complex marriage arrangement between the members of the group.  Noyes believed that sex should be part of the greater concept of Christian love, and believed that the complex marriage arrangement would solve problems introduced by the selfishness implicit in traditional marriage arrangements (Stein, 63).

Other alternate religious communities, like the Millerites, Seventh Day Adventists, and Jehovah’s Witnesses, focused on the Second Coming of Christ, which led opponents to ridicule them, or charge them with fraud when they raised funds for projects.  They were also frequently attacked in the mainstream press.  Although the free expression rights of these groups were sometimes restricted by government policies that forced them to obtain permits to distribute literature or raise money, they seem not to raise the ire that groups suggesting alternative social arrangements did.

One exception to this was the Federal Government’s suppression of David Koresh’s Branch Davidian group near Waco, Texas.  When ATF agents attempted to arrest Koresh on firearms charges in 1993, shots were exchanged, and an enduring standoff occurred between Federal law enforcement agencies and the Branch Davidians.  This ultimately ended in an accidental fire and the death of many of the Davidians, including women and children.  Stein portrays this event as an example of Federal persecution of alternate religious communities.  However, he does leave out some important information: in addition to the weapons charges the Davidians faced, Koresh was also accused of having sex with under-aged girls at the compound, which he made his “wives.”  There were also allegations of incest, as some of the girls may have been his daughters with other members of the group.  This does not absolve the Federal authorities of their role in the tragedy at the compound near Waco, but it certainly makes the issues involved less clear.  Stein also does not clearly make the case that the main issue was the religious dissent of the group.

Taken together, Communities of Dissent and Proclaim Liberty Throughout All the Land provide a significant examination of the historical basis for the 1^st Amendment, and how the Supreme Court interprets it.  The also provide a look at how Supreme Court decisions change over time due to changing attitudes, new arguments, and the composition of the Court.  Both texts also clearly show how the 1^st Amendment contributes to the growth of new religious movements, the issues those groups face in American society, and how the Supreme Court’s interpretation of the 1^st Amendment directly affects those groups.

American Originals vs. The Uneasy Center: Religion in American Life

Although he takes a different tack with each work, Paul Conkin addresses similar broad issues in American Originals: Homemade Varieties of Christianity and The Uneasy Center: Reformed Christianity in Antebellum America.  Both texts examine the role of religion in the development of American society.  Where they differ is in focus: The Uneasy Center focuses on the dominant role of what Conkin calls “Reformed Christianity” in creating American cultural and political institutions, while American Originals focuses on what Conkin considers uniquely American religions and their impact.

Neither text claims to analyze the full spectrum of religious belief in America, but limits itself to a relatively narrow focus.  In the case of The Uneasy Center, Conkin defines “Reformed Christianity” as the religious denominations that traced their origins to the reforms of “Ulrich Zwingli, John Calvin, Martin Bucer, John Knox, Thomas Cranmer, and dozens of other architects of national churches on the European continent and in Britain.”  This definition opens Conkin up to criticism for using a definition so broad that Howard Miller complains that it is unusable for precise analysis, and John Mulder wonders at the inclusion of Anglicans and Methodists as part of “Reformed Christianity.”  In contrast, American Originals draws criticism from R. Lawrence Moore for being too restrictive because it does not accept American Methodism or African-American denominations as uniquely American, and rejects variations based on race or ethnicity as theologically significant.

In many ways, The Uneasy Center provides the necessary historical and theological base for American Originals, although there is no indication that the two volumes are intended to be used together.  The Uneasy Center begins with a brief analysis of the growth of Christianity beyond its ancient roots as an offshoot of Judaism through the beginning of the Protestant Reformation, and then turns to reform efforts in England and the North American Colonies.  Because Conkin focuses on Protestant sects that generally developed from Calvinism, not the teachings of Martin Luther, this first section is critical to understanding the development of Conkin’s “Reformed Christianity”.  Reform in the Church of England flowed on Calvinist lines based officially on the Westminster confession, although in the long run only Presbyterian and a conservative minority in the Church of England used the Westminster documents to resolve questions of doctrine.  The Church of England itself would ultimately turn to the Arminian doctrine espoused by most of the American sects that fall under the heading of his “Reformed Christianity”.

After examining the reform movement in England, Conkin briefly discusses the dominant sects in Colonial America.  From Conkin’s perspective the most important items to understand are that the Anglican Church was unable to prosper primarily due to a lack of a Bishop to perform some important sacraments, lack of effective ministers and church leadership, the Anglican inability to provide a “warm” evangelical religion for worshippers, and a church doctrine that was excessively inclusive; that New England Congregationalists maintained a strict and exclusive Calvinist theology in which God’s sovereignty over creation was absolute and irresistible, that over time Puritans moved from a hot, evangelical-style religion to a cold, legalistic religion, that some liberal Puritan ministers began a slow move toward Arminianism, and that in New England there was a strict separation of the ministry from civil functions like marriage; and that Presbyterian ministers were largely responsible for the revival culture of the Great Awakening, that the move toward an evangelical style and emphasis of moral discipline over doctrinal discipline caused a schism in American Presbyterianism.

The Uneasy Center places a large emphasis on Methodism because it provides a clear and early example of evangelical thought during the 18^th century and beyond.  Conkin identifies four key components that contribute to the meaning of the word “evangelical”: emphasis on the conversion experience, the effort to continue a “Spirit-filled devotional life”, responsibility to gain converts, and a strict personal moral standard.  Methodism’s founder, John Wesley, also held strong Arminian beliefs that influenced the development of both Methodism and other American sects.

Although Conkin also provides discussion of worship in Reformed congregations, and of sects outside his Reformed Christian mainstream, the real meat of The Uneasy Center is his analysis of “evangelical hegemony” and Reform theology.  Conkin argues that by the 1820s the four Reformed Christian denominations held so much power that they were able to set standards of belief and behavior for most of society, even to the point that some states had strict laws favoring theistic belief, protecting the Sabbath, and condemning blasphemy.  The large number of prominent, successful and politically involved evangelical Christians were able to control legislators so that their agendas became law, and were able to sway non-evangelical family members and associates to support them.  That evangelicals could generally win public battles when they agreed on policies does not mean that they were able to completely dominate society, as the issue of slavery illustrates.  Because they were also technically a minority, evangelicals sometimes faced stiff opposition when they proposed controversial measures such as prohibition on alcohol.  Evangelicals also never formed their own political party, which Conkin attributes to non-religious issues that were important to the varying levels of society that made up the evangelical denominations.

Two uniquely 19^th century occurrences assisted in the development of evangelical hegemony: the revivalism of the Second Great Awakening, and the dislocations caused by the Civil War.  Not only did revivals witness the emergence of the professional evangelist, but they also served to swell the ranks of various denominations and to familiarize those who did not join with their beliefs.  This increased the cultural influence of evangelicals in 19^th century America.  The Second Great awakening was not the only time revivals swept the nation, as Methodists and Presbyterians maintained a revival culture, but the cycle of revival among denominations never coincided again.  Revivals also continued to emphasize the ecstatic conversion experience, and to move such conversions from private events to public ones. The Civil War spread evangelical beliefs even further, particularly among soldiers who witnessed the death and destruction of the war and experienced revivals in POW camps.

When turning toward uniquely American religions in American Originals, Conkin automatically rejects all of the non-Christian options because they did not gain sufficiently large followings to be of interest.  He also does not address the smaller Christian sects that developed in the new world, preferring to concentrate on the six largest categories of uniquely American religions: Restoration Christianity, Humanistic Christianity, Apocalyptic Christianity, Mormon Christianity, Spiritual Christianity, and Ecstatic Christianity.  Conkin chose the denominations included because they were fundamentally different in terms of doctrine from mainstream Christian denominations, and therefore more important to an increased understanding of both religion and America than the small sects that splintered off from large denominations.

Restoration Christianity, comprised mostly of the Christians and Disciples of Christ, is the earliest major sub-group of American originals Conkin deals with.  These groups had the goal of restoring the early Christian churches based on a reading of the New Testament.  What makes the Restoration movement different from earlier church reformers like Martin Luther and John Calvin, is that Restoration Christians rejected the doctrines of the first four centuries of Christian history.  Conkin notes that there are problems even with the Restorationists desire to use the New Testament as a guide for proper worship because Jesus left no guidelines for establishing churches.  This meant that early Christians had no guides but Paul and the author of the Gospel of Luke and the Acts of the Apostles.  Because neither Paul nor the unknown author of Luke and Acts personally knew Jesus, ardent Restorationists could reject the authority of these documents as an appropriate base for worship. Conkin does not seem to follow this line of reasoning through to its logical conclusion:  because the New Testament canon was not fully written or accepted for at least two hundred years after Christ’s death, it is impossible to know which of the books have not been corrupted through the course of time.

Conkin identifies the general doctrines of early Christian congregations: Arminianism and the doctrine of annihilationism.  However, it is important to understand that this movement did not espouse specific creeds, and the Christians would accept others with a wide variety of beliefs.  The Christians were also the first sect other than the Shakers to accept women as ministers, which was a source of friction between them and Orthodox Christians.

The second section of American Originals addresses what Conkin calls “Humanistic Christianity”, which encompasses the Unitarian and Universalist movements, which reject the divinity of Jesus and the concept of universal salvation.  Conkin’s inclusion of Unitarians and Universalists might raise eyebrows for some due to their European origins, despite his claim that they were “largely indigenous, rooted originally in New England Puritanism and shaped doctrinally and institutionally by American religious innovators.  However, the problem with this claim is that although Conkin provides a lengthy discussion of European and American origins, he does not provide citations for his claim.  This issue extends throughout the entire text.  What Conkin provides instead are recommended reading lists at the end of each chapter in the manner of an encyclopedia article.  The determination of whether this is sufficient documentation is left to the reader.

The base doctrine of Unitarianism is that God is a single and unified divine entity, and that Jesus was a fully human messiah.  This belief was probably also that of early Judaic Christians who adopted only the Gospel of Matthew.  Faustus Socinus expanded this core by expanding it to include the idea that only a human Jesus could serve as a moderator between God and man, and that only a human could die and rise from the grave to provide salvation for humanity.  These philosophies spread to England and then America, where a variety of groups of rational Christians moved toward Unitarianism and even endorsed Arian views.  Conkin writes that eventually “liberal” Puritans became the first Unitarian congregations in North America.

After discussing the Humanist Christianity embodied by Unitarians, Conkin turns to the apocalyptic vision of Adventists and Jehovah’s witnesses, but again he fails to show Apocalyptic Christianity in North America originated on these shores.  Not only does Conkin identify early Christians as Adventists due to their belief in everlasting life in the Kingdom of God after the return of Jesus, but he traces Adventist thought in North America to Edward Irving’s Adventist movement in England, which even anticipated American Adventist’s date of Christ’s return in 1843.  The Irvinites also provided Americans with tested church institutions to ground their faith in.  Conkin does succeed in providing a coherent and interesting account of Biblical apocalyptic writing, and links the Book of Daniel on the Old Testament with the Book of Revelations in the New Testament.

With Mormonism, Conkin finally addresses a denomination that truly began in the United States.  The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints grew from an obscure sect to what is now the sixth largest denomination in the United States.  If it were not for Mormonism’s newer revelation detailing ancient events in the New World at the time of, the doctrines it shares with apocalyptic sects would group it with them.  In addition to the revelations professed by Joseph Smith, Mormons believe in “an early advent, corporealism, Jewish continuities, and a sense of apostasy of orthodox churches.”  Conkin notes in passing that some religious scholars classify Mormonism as its own separate religion, not a denomination of Christianity, but Conkin does not specify why he disagrees with this assessment.  It is obvious that he does, because he states in the preface that he excluded non-Christian sects as not having enough adherents to make them worthy of inclusion.  Inferring that because Mormons believe in Jesus and the resurrection is not enough, if only because Conkin went to the trouble to report that not all analysis classifies them as Christians.

Conkin continues through the remainder of the text discussing Christian Science and Pentacostalism, providing descriptions of their base theology and its development, followed by their practices of worship.  All of this is rendered in highly readable prose, but it continues to suffer from the absence of any documentation whatsoever.  Not only does Conkin not provide textual citations or footnotes, he does not provide a bibliography of any sort.  The only documentation he provides is the previously mentioned options for additional reading.  Because these items do not refer directly to the assertions Conklin makes in the text, they cannot be counted as an adequate source of documentation.

Religion, Press Freedom, and Equal Protection on Campus

Establishment of Religion

Viewpoint neutrality extends beyond political speech on campus, and into what may be an even more contentious area – religious freedom. The courts have ruled that colleges cannot treat individuals or groups espousing a religious belief in away that is less favorable than other religious or secular groups on campus. The courts have struck down rules that prohibited religious groups from using campus facilities or being awarded funding. If secular groups receive access to funding or facilities at a public institution of higher learning, then religious groups must also receive funding and access to facilities under the same criteria as secular groups seeking services from the school.

At the same time, in order to remain viewpoint neutral in the eyes of the courts may not take actions that establish a specific religious tradition or practice at a public institution. Because this is a contentious issue, the Supreme Court has developed a three-pronged approach known as the Lemon test to assess the policies colleges set. Essentially, programs must have a secular purpose, must not hinder or promote religion, and does create government entanglement. One effect of the Lemon test is to make fora on campus that secular groups can access also open to religious groups. The most obvious result on some campuses is that student affairs administrators end being required to allow members of religions to preach in public for a on campus unless they cause a significant disturbance to the educational mission. When I was a student at the University of Alabama, this meant that students, especially female students, found themselves the targets of the harangues of an individual calling himself “Brother Micah” as they went to the student center on campus.

Freedom of the Press

Student organizations have levels of press freedom at colleges and universities far beyond that found in the K-12 setting as a result of the 1973 Papish ruling by the Supreme Court, which affirmed that student organizations in higher education have the same press freedoms as regular media. Both content censorship and prior restrain of student media are generally held to be unconstitutional. This means that campus newspapers are subject to the same standards as other publications in regard to defamation and copyright. Electronic student media have the same levels of protections, although, student affairs administrators can still impose limits on Internet access  or other limited public for a or nonfora – analysis of appropriate time, place, and manner still apply to campus media organizations. In an area that is potentially less obvious, the courts have ruled that media generated as part of a class assignment for grades or other evaluation, may be more closely regulated in regards to academic standards. In the teaching role, colleges can use grades to assert that articles do not meet academic standards for quality. In another caveat for administrators and faculty, though, even when a campus newspaper is produced in class, the college still cannot exercise censorship over the content.

Right to Privacy

The issue of student rights to privacy seems one of the more challenging of the civil rights that student affairs administrators must navigate. In some regards a right to privacy is implied in the First Amendment to the Constitution in the rights to free speech or association, as students cannot be forced to speak or join organizations outside the context of the classroom. In addition, although campus administrators are not law enforcement, the Fourth Amendment’s protections against illegal search and seizure apply at public colleges. In practice, it seems that student affairs administrators need to be more aware of the restraints and requirements of Federal and state privacy laws on student privacy. FERPA, for example allows students access to their records, and allows employees of an institution of higher education to discuss a student if there is a legitimate educational reason to do so, but it also prevents them from releasing information about a student’s grades or class performance without written permission unless health and safety are at stake. As in other parts of life, individual privacy rights tend to be less if safety is an issue, so student affairs administrators are advised to err on the side of caution when privacy is an issue – if there is a legitimate reason to know that students are a danger to themselves or others, it is best to contact appropriate authorities and face potential privacy litigation than to risk that people be harmed by their inaction.

Equal Protection

Federal law and Supreme Court rulings have established that institutions of higher education may not discriminate based on race or gender. The Court’s ruling in Brown v the Board of Education in 1954 and Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 ban discrimination based on race, while Title IX bars discrimination based on gender. There are some important exceptions for Greek organizations, religious schools, and military academies, but in general, at public institutions of higher education, may not discriminate based on either of these categories. In addition, the Rehabilitation Act and Americans with Disabilities Acts prohibit discrimination based on disability.

When it comes to race-based discrimination, the issue that seems the largest challenge for student affairs administrators in the 21st century is the issue of Affirmative Action in admissions or access to limited programs. The courts have ruled that quotas and systems that treat students as groups based on race or ethnicity are not acceptable ways to promote diversity. Student affairs administrators are encouraged to evaluate each student as an individual, and can use race only as a bonus on a student’s side when considering them for admission if it can be shown that doing so to enhance diversity is a benefit to the educational mission.

Disability seems another area in which student affairs administrators face a very difficult task in acting appropriately, serving student needs, and following legislation. Part of the problem is that because higher education is not legally defined as a right, when students leave the K-12 environment for college, they face a radically different methodology when it comes to accommodation. In colleges, students needing accommodation must self-identify in order to receive evaluation and accommodation. Student affairs administrators also face the challenge of not having established competencies to guide admissions to disciplines, which makes it more difficult to determine whether a student with a disability could succeed regardless of their disability. Once again, treating students as individuals, and evaluating each case on its own is really the watchword for student affairs administrators. Disability law is so highly specialized that administrators to seek help from specialists when dealing with this area of responsibility.


References

Lake, Peter F, Foundations of higher education law & policy: Basic legal rules, concepts, and principles for student affairs. Washington, DC: NASPA.

Freedom of Speech on Campus

In light of recent controversies over free speech on college campuses, I thought I would share some insights from my Higher Education Law class, which is a requirement for the Graduate Certificate in Title IX that I've been working on recently. All stages of this have been an eye-opener, but the ideas here seem relevant. I'm focusing entirely on the legal aspects of speech on campus because the question of whether students should protest speakers invited to campus is not a legal issue, but a cultural, political, and social one. The idea that colleges, or states, should prevent protests or punish students for law-abiding protests is ludicrous for the reasons below. Violence and destruction of property are different issues entirely.

Freedom of speech

Students in the educational context do not give up their First Amendment rights, including those of free speech. The Supreme Court has recognized that protected forms of expression are not limited to speaking, but also include symbols. Whiles there are limits to free speech - it doesn't cover obscenity or threats, or speech that is disruptive to the educational missions of colleges. Despite that, protected speech includes many things that students and faculty might find distasteful. That means that colleges cannot punish hate speech, and can only adopt viewpoint neutral regulations that restrict conduct if they can legitimately foresee that the conduct, including speech, might disrupt education on campus. Student affairs administrators don't have to wait until a riot erupts to disperse a protest or other gathering on campus.

However, at the same time, student affairs administrators cannot ban speech or other activities simply because they fear that there might be a disruption. The Supreme Court holds that colleges and universities must tolerate a modicum of incivility and disruption as part of campus life as long as it does not rise to the level of "material and substantial" disruption of educational activities. In order to take proactive measures to restrict speech, student affairs administrators must have a reasonable basis for doing so - mere concern of what might happen is not sufficient. There must be legitimate cause to foresee a significant disturbance of campus activities (Lake, 2011, p. 198-204).

Time, place, and manner

Because the Supreme Court has also held that organizations and institutions also have free speech rights, and that it has recognized the rights of colleges to restrict speech that interferes with their educational mission, they can insist that speech be limited to reasonable times, places, and manners. In recent years, the Court has been interpreting these restrictions in ways that tend to favor government institutions, which may give student affairs administrators a bit of leeway in implementing these restrictions on campus, especially when narrowly tailored to promote a significant interest that would not be achieved if there were no limits. However, student affairs administrators must also be aware that any restrictions must be reasonable, and selecting an option to restrict speech that essentially closes it off, does not meet the standard of being reasonable. Restrictions of time, place, and manner of speech must also be viewpoint neutral.

Free speech zones, which are becoming increasingly popular, fit into the category of time and place restrictions, and they pose some special challenges for student affairs administrators. They must ensure that they are not using free speech zones to close of speech in areas of the campus that are traditionally open public fora. In addition, administrators must takes steps to ensure that they are restricting certain types of speech based on the potential to disrupt education, rather than on the content of the speech. Student affairs administrators must also ensure that while restricting speech to free speech zones, they are not preventing "ample" opportunities for communication - free speech zones that no one goes near do not really provide a chance to communicate ideas (Lake, 2011, p. 204-205).

Chill, overbreadth, and vagueness

First Amendment rights extend beyond direct restrictions, but are also concerned with the issue of "chilling" of expression. If students worry that their speech may result in some kind of punishment due to campus rules. They do not have to actually be punished for campus limits to violate the First Amendment, but merely the threat rules pose might be enough. One of the ways in which this can happen is if rules are so vague or broad that they can be made to cover just about anything. Broadly written rules intended to restrict speech that would not normally be protected may end up restricting protected speech unintentionally. What this means for student affairs administrators is that they should try to be specific when creating rules and regulations related to speech. Assertions that rules are overly broad, or are too vague often appear in litigation on First Amendment matters, so administrators need to be aware of these potential problems (Lake, 2011, p. 206).

Public fora

Colleges have multiple types of spaces, and each type of space allows varying levels of free speech, including (among others) a traditional public forum and a limited public forum. Although institutions have a bit of control over which places on campus are designated as what type of fora, student affairs administrators are unable to simply dictate which spaces will develop into which type of forum. As is common in public places in American society, the use of various fora on campus evolves over time. Colleges and universities cannot simply attempt to claim that there are no fora on campus, and while they can create preferred locations for speech, they cannot wipe out all nonconforming speech on campus.

Traditional public fora are generally seen as neutral public spaces in which no perspective is privileged above others. Spaces normally open to the public fall into this category - parks are one example. Other spaces that were not originally intended to be public fora may also develop into them over time. What is important for student affairs administrators to understand is that in traditional public fora they generally may only apply restrictions on the time and manner of speech. Content may only be regulated in traditional public fora if it serves “a compelling” interest of the state, which means that speech the administrators do not like often cannot be regulated.

Limited public fora present different challenges for student affairs administrators. These are areas that the university has created as different from other fora, and they may have features that allow administrators to limit speech in these locations because they are created for certain purposes. Student newspapers and student organizations, areas for signs and notices, and some types of Internet use fall into the category of limited public fora, as these areas are created specifically to further the educational mission of the institution. Student affairs administrators have more latitude in regulated limited public fora, but they still must obey the rules that their own institutions have created. However, they still cannot regulate points of view expressed(Lake, 2011, p. 207-217).

Nonfora

Some places that are generally not open to the public are not fora at all. In these places the college’s First Amendment rights of freedom of association or speech are likely at stake. Board meetings or administrative meetings fall into this category, as the administrators must have the ability to determine time, place, and content of the meeting in order to conduct the university’s business. Student advising appointments might also fall into this category.

In addition, although it may seem that private institutions of higher learning should have greater leeway in determining what type of speech occurs on campus, some parts of even private schools are so similar to traditional public fora that legislation and judicial rulings often treat fora at private colleges in ways similar to those at public institutions of higher education. As a result, student affairs administrators at private colleges should consult with legal experts in their jurisdiction to determine how local laws treat regulation of speech on their campuses (Lake, 2011, p. 218).

References

Lake, Peter F, Foundations of higher education law & policy: Basic legal rules, concepts, and principles for student affairs. Washington, DC: NASPA.

Contrasting Approaches to Faith: Roger Williams and John Winthop

Gaustad, Edwin S. Liberty of Conscience: Roger Williams in America.

Morgan, Edmund S. The Puritan Dilemma: The Story of John Winthrop.

Understanding the comparative roles of Church and State in the development of England’s American colonies is crucial to understanding the modern United States and the cultural and political setting of the 21st century.  Religious differences and the proper role of religion in government create fissures in modern American society, just as those issues caused divisions in England and the Massachusetts Bay Colony.  In their biographies of Roger Williams and John Winthrop, Edwin Gaustad and Edmund Morgan take up the difficult task of navigating the mists of time to not only discuss two key figures instrumental in Early America, but to examine the larger issue of the proper place of religion in society.

Although both Roger Williams and John Winthrop were Puritans, it would be difficult to find two men whose views on religion and government were more disparate.  On the one hand, Roger Williams held the view that civil governments should have no role in enforcing “the rules of the first table”, or the first four of the Ten Commandments, which relate to worshiping only the God of Moses, not creating images of the deity, and keeping the Sabbath holy (Gaustad, 81).  On the other, John Winthrop and the majority of Puritans believed that it was the responsibility of rational governments to absolutely enforce the requirements of the first table Morgan, 125).  The protagonists chosen by Gaustad and Morgan also held very different views on whether individuals and congregations should be allowed to hold divergent religious beliefs within the same society.  Williams believed that people should be allowed to worship according to his own conscience, whether they were Anglicans, Protestants, Catholics, Muslims, or chose to believe in no deity at all (Gaustad, 89).  In contrast, Winthrop held that to avoid internal strife, societies must agree to homogenous religious beliefs (Morgan, 132)

Both texts cover much of the same material, albeit from radically different perspectives.  Using biography as the vehicle for this discussion has some unique pitfalls: judging the subject by the ethical standards of the modern era, identifying with the subject to the extent that the narrative is no longer objective, selecting anecdotes merely for shock value, or expanding available facts to fill in the gaps.  Unfortunately, it seems that both Gaustad and Winthrop fall into at least some of these traps.  However, by choosing biography as the medium for approaching this important stage of American development, Gaustad and Morgan are able to lend an air of immediacy to their subjects, which is frequently not the case is traditional histories.  The reason for this is simple: by choosing a protagonist for the story, they allow readers to become absorbed into the material.

It is easier to find areas for criticism in Morgan’s The Puritan Dilemma than in Gaustad’s Liberty of Conscience, if only because John Winthrop’s views on the proper relation between Church and State offend modern American sensibilities.  Winthrop’s early life reads like every Americans expectation of Puritan migrants to the New World, and in this respect he is a likable figure.  Focusing on the Puritanism’s difficult path, which dictated that the adherent “devote his life to seeking salvation but told him that he was helpless to do anything but evil,” (Morgan, 7), Morgan shows how the young Winthrop struggled with the requirements of his new faith.  In addition to the quest for salvation, which was a predetermined fate, Puritanism required that Winthrop live in the world, but not be part of it.  This meant that he could not withdraw to a strictly religious life focused on God, but had to live to the best of his ability as part of his devotions.  This meant walking the fine line between enjoying the pleasures God provided and not becoming so absorbed in them that he lost sight of God (Morgan, 8).  Attaining this balance was as difficult for John Winthrop as it would be for modern Americans and Britons, and Morgan’s depiction of him staggering between the pleasures of the good life and complete abstinence from fine living paints a picture of a real man that counters the modern caricature of Puritans as strict, unbending, humorless folk (Morgan, 10).  This picture of Puritan humanity allows Morgan to create sympathy for Winthrop as he leaves for New England.

The Puritan Dilemma shines when it shows the depth and sources of Puritan belief, as well as their connection to how Puritans conducted their affairs.  This is particularly true when it comes to Puritan flight from England to America in the 1620s.  Rather than simply reiterating the tired textbook answer that “religious persecution” cause Puritan migration to the New World, Morgan casts it as an attempt to save England from the punitive hand of God.  Winthrop and his associates believed that “every nation or people…existed by virtue of a covenant with God, and agreement whereby they promised to abide by His laws, and He in turn agreed to treat them well,” (Morgan, 19).  This led them to the conclusion that governments were instituted to enforce God’s laws in order to hold His wrath at bay, and that as long as the government fulfilled this task it was the responsibility of the people to assist it.  However, when a government failed to enforce God’s law, they believed it was the duty of the people to replace the corrupt government with one that was up to the task of leading the nation away from sin (Morgan, 19).  Late 16th and early 17th century England presented the Puritans with a government that frequently seemed to lead the nation to damnation on Earth.

The oscillations of England’s rulers between Catholicism and Protestantism under Mary Tudor, Elizabeth I, James I, and Charles I presented Winthrop with a dilemma: when was a government corrupt enough to warrant its overthrow?  Simply fleeing the scene to more agreeable shores seemed to fly in the face of his belief that God required him to live in the world while doing His work.  During the reigns of Elizabeth and James, Parliament and Puritans had some measure of influence to move England toward their vision of a righteous society, but when Charles I ascended the throne everything changed (Morgan, 27).  Charles dissolved Parliament and moved the Anglican Church in a theological direction that Winthrop considered heresy.  Charles and his followers advocated the belief that people could achieve faith and salvation on their own, without the predestination which Puritans believed in.  When they tried to fight this doctrine in Parliament, he dissolved it (Morgan, 27).

In this setting, along with Catholic victories in France and Central Europe, Winthrop faced a decision: accept Charles’s Arminianism, withdraw from the Church of England to become a separatist, or flee England.  Because becoming a separatist would mean turning his back on England and the Church, which he believed could be saved, he chose to migrate to New England with the King’s approval (Morgan, 31).  This would allow him to create the Kingdom of God on Earth, and hopefully save England from God’s wrath.

Winthrop’s life in New England is both what most concerns American audiences and the area in which Morgan seems to become too close to his subject.  A first example of this comes in his discussion of Winthrop’s acts as Governor of the Massachusetts Bay Colony in establishing a government for the colony.  Acknowledging that Winthrop and the other members of the Massachusetts Bay Company were not required to extend participation in governing the colony (Morgan, 93), Morgan seems to praise Winthrop for not keeping an oligarchic control, along with his deputy and seven assistants over all aspects of life (Morgan, 89).  Winthrop decided to extend the franchise to all of the “freemen” in the colony, which would allow them to vote in annual elections for the Governor and assistants.  The problem was that Winthrop restricted membership in this group to male members of the colony’s churches, which only admitted those people that they deemed were “saved” (Morgan, 95).  Morgan writes that this extended opportunities to participate in government to more people than in England, as way of justification, but the fact of the matter is that Winthrop believed that democracy was dangerous and biblically unwarranted (Morgan, 94).  He did this to protect the colony’s “special commission” from God, which he saw as creating a righteous society.

Morgan seems to want to justify the autocratic nature of both religious and civil rule under Winthrop and other early colonial governors.  In addition to their role in combating heresy within Massachusetts churches, which was used against separatists and those deemed merely in error, (Morgan 100) the General Court levied taxes for public works and otherwise performed the functions of civil government.  When some colonists protested against taxation on the basis that they had no representation, Winthrop replied that because they could elect new autocrats every year, they were indeed represented (Morgan, 109).  This is used as a sop by Winthrop (to the colonists) and Morgan (to the readers) to justify the efficiency of the despotism created in Massachusetts Bay, which Morgan writes was due to the simplicity and lack of pre-existing rules in the structure (Morgan, 101). He does admit that the kind of despotism found in Massachusetts was incredibly susceptible to the whims and abilities of the Governor.

The largest issue with The Puritan Dilemma is the way it deals with the issue of religious separatism.  While it is possible that he is simply attempting to make the issue more immediate for the reader, Morgan appears to side with Winthrop in his attempts to suppress dissension or drive it out.  The one exception being the case of Anne Hutchinson, which Morgan calls “an unsavory triumph of arbitrary power,” (Morgan 153) which he excuses by saying that “it represented more than the mere crushing of a helpless woman,” (Morgan, 153).  Both Morgan and Winthrop seem to feel that the abuse of power was justified because it restored the unity of the Boston church (Morgan, 153)

A key case Morgan uses to illustrate is that of Roger Williams, the subject of Gaustad’s work.  Morgan portrays Williams just as Winthrop did, with no clear separation between his opinion and Winthrop’s, writing that not only was he an avowed separatist, but that he “expressed the dangerous opinion that civil magistrates had no authority in any religious matter, that they could not even require people to keep the Sabbath,” (Morgan, 118).  Morgan makes absolutely no mention that this doctrine would eventually rule England, but the United States as well, instead he continues to show Williams and his beliefs (which were admittedly peculiar for the time) as so strange as to be beyond the pale, including “that a regenerate man ought not to pray in company with an unregenerate one, not even with his wife and children, and that he ought not give thanks after the sacrament or after meals,” (Morgan, 125).  Williams also proclaimed that the practicing of forcing witnesses to swear oaths to God could put a regenerate magistrate in communion with an unregenerate person, thus corrupting them.  Morgan portrays these beliefs as not only abominable to Winthrop, but possibly to himself (Morgan, 124).

Gaustad’s treatment of Roger Williams seems more balanced, although it seems to include a fair tinge a hero worship.  The first two paragraphs of Liberty of Conscience tell us why Gaustad believes Roger Williams is worthy of study: he was the founder of Rhode Island, and he was the originator of the modern ideal of religious freedom one hundred fifty years before Jefferson (Gaustad, ix).  Because little information regarding Roger Williams’s early life exists, Gaustad supplements it with an overview of the development of the Anglican Church, the reign’s of Elizabeth I, James I, and Charles I, and the development of the Puritan and Baptist movements in England and Holland.  Although he generally is able to successfully maintain his distance from the object of his biography he does make at least one stretch for which he provides no evidence when he writes that “Certainly by the time he was in college, if not well before, Williams came to see Christianity as more than a commitment of faith, though it had to be that above all else.  It was also, however, a religion of wondrous complexity and some contradiction,” (Gaustad, 8).  This train of thought appears to be based on Williams’s 1673 comments that he became religious at an early age (Morgan, 6)

Gaustad’s stylistic differences from Morgan are clear almost immediately.  Where Morgan wrote in a fashion that makes it appear that he agrees with the assertions of John Winthrop, Gaustad endeavors to make it crystal that Roger Williams’s opinions belong to Williams.  A single sentence is evidence enough: “Their idealism was high, their motivation clear, their method – for Williams – suspect,” (Gaustad, 25).  In this it seems that Gaustad avoids overly identifying with his subject.

Gaustad also treats Williams’s charge that the patent of the King of England was not enough justification for the colonists to seize land in New England.  Williams based his argument regarding the King’s right to give away the land of others on his observation of Indian behavior regarding land boundaries and their methods of bargaining for rights to even small plots (Gaustad, 29).  Morgan includes this episode in his litany of Williams’s offenses against the Massachusetts Bay Colony, writing that the alternatives that Williams suggested “were ridiculous”, (Morgan, 123) without ever mentioning why Williams claimed that the King’s land grants were invalid.

What Gaustad and Morgan really set out to do with their biographies of Roger Williams and John Winthrop is to shed some light on how the United States developed its religious and governmental structures.  Both illustrate the depth of religious belief of many early colonists, as well as their attitudes toward the proper relations between Church and State.  Edmund Morgan’s The Puritan Dilemma clearly shows how intertwined church and state were in both Old and New England during the early 17th century, while Liberty of Conscience shows the long road toward religious tolerance among Christian denominations and other religious groups.  Both texts show how difficult it was for people to accept the idea that a polity could be the home of a variety of religious beliefs without constant discord, even if those people had migrated primarily so they could worship according to their own beliefs.

It is interesting to note that some of the issues examined in both texts are still with us today.  The proper role of religion, particularly Christianity, in government continues to be a major issue in American politics.  The current Supreme Court docket contains multiple cases regarding the public display of the Ten Commandments, with the First Table continuing to represent the key argument.  At the same time Constitutional Amendments have appeared in Congress that attempt to further identify civil marriages according to religious dictates found in the Old Testament book Leviticus.  Congress is also involved in a national debate over whether the courts should be allowed to rule on the phrase “under God” being included in the Pledge of Allegiance – passing legislation that would prevent the United States Supreme Court from even hearing cases on this issue.  Even at the start of the 21st century religious issues remain at the forefront of American public discourse.