This month, the University of Chicago Press releases a new book by our friend, Vincent Phillip Munoz (Notre Dame), Religious Liberty and the American Founding. A few years ago, we hosted an online symposium on Phillip’s work on the Founder’s understanding of the natural right of religious liberty–what the right entailed and what it did not entail–and his new book continues to address that subject. Looks very interesting. The publisher’s description is below. Congrats, Phillip!

An insightful rethinking of the meaning of the First Amendment’s protection of religious freedom.

The Founders understood religious liberty to be an inalienable natural right. Vincent Phillip Muñoz explains what this means for church-state constitutional law, uncovering what we can and cannot determine about the original meanings of the First Amendment’s Religion Clauses and constructing a natural rights jurisprudence of religious liberty.  

Drawing on early state constitutions, declarations of religious freedom, Founding-era debates, and the First Amendment’s drafting record, Muñoz demonstrates that adherence to the Founders’ political philosophy would lead neither to consistently conservative nor consistently liberal results. Rather, adopting the Founders’ understanding would lead to a minimalist church-state jurisprudence that, in most cases, would return authority from the judiciary to the American people. Thorough and convincing, Religious Liberty and the American Founding is key reading for those seeking to understand the Founders’ political philosophy of religious freedom and the First Amendment Religion Clauses.