Freethought support for complete intellectual and religious liberty was based on principle, not pragmatism. As their numbers grew, they gradually switched sides. Once their rights were secure, many evangelicals became less passionate about defending religious liberty.

In a marriage that seems unimaginable today, religious skeptics like Jefferson joined forces with dissenting evangelical leaders to secure religious freedom. Jacoby rightly notes that Enlightenment champions like James Madison and Thomas Jefferson cannot take all the credit for religious liberty in America and its attendant wall of separation between church and state-but they certainly played a major role. Often promoted by TV preachers and their fundamentalist allies in politics, this skewed tale of America emphasizes the views of religious believers while downplaying or ignoring the considerable accomplishments of Enlightenment-era thinkers who dared to challenge the regressive political spawn of ultra-conservative Christianity.Īnd what were those achievements? For starters, little things called the Constitution, the Bill of Rights, and the very idea of religious freedom. Jacoby takes aim at what she calls the “religiously correct” version of American history.

In Freethinkers, Jacoby succeeds in reclaiming a lost freethought heritage while boldly and without apology defending the secular state. The twenty-first century may be young, but it’s hard to believe anyone is going to top this achievement within the next ninety-six years. Susan Jacoby’s Freethinkers: A History of American Secularism is the freethought book of the year.

Freethinkers: A History of American Secularism, by Susan Jacoby (New York: Metropolitan Books, 2004, ISBN 0805074422) 417 pp.

Freethinkers jacoby