Compose an essay of at least 2000 words but no more than 3000 words (not including your references list) in which you discuss in depth the following topic, making sure to offer your critical thinking opinions (opinions plus reasons and evidence) of relevant ideas from the Weeks 1-4 readings wherever possible:
Since its 1947 decision in Everson v. Board of Education (with an opinion written by Justice Hugo Black), the Supreme Court has further considered and limited the active role that religion or religious institutions can play in the public sphere—that is, on government property. In your essay, present an argument for one of the two following positions:
(a) Faith groups and institutions should be allowed to form political parties and they should attempt to gain influence in the workings of government for their views and values by entering the realm of political discourse and attempting to elect their own politicians.
(b) Faith groups and institutions should not be allowed to form political parties and they should not attempt to gain influence in the workings of government for their views and values by entering the realm of political discourse and attempting to elect their own politicians.
Note: In answering these questions, you will specifically want to reference and critique, wherever possible, relevant ideas from the Week 1 readings on values; Plato, Aristotle, Locke, Jefferson, from Week 2; the Week 3 readings on interpretation of the Constitution, and the Week 4 readings listed above. You may also bring in up to five additional sources that you have found in your own research of the topic.
Employ APA format for both in-text citations and your references list. Abstracts and running heads are not required. Use the Major Essay Grading Rubric for guidance on how to write this paper successfully and well.
Class Reading Assignments:
John Winthrop: Selections from “A Model of Christian Charity” (1630)
Jonathan Edwards: The Great Awakening: “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God” (1741)
Benjamin Franklin: “A Witch Trial at Mount Holly” (1730; note: this is a work of satire—fiction—not of journalism)
Separation of Church and State:
Michael Novak: “Faith and the American Founding”
Marci Hamilton: “The Ten Commandments and American Law: Why Some Christians’ Claims to Legal Hegemony Are Not Consistent with the Historical Record” (Sept. 11, 2003)
Thomas Jefferson: Letter to the Danbury Baptists, Jan. 1, 1802
Daniel Dreisbach: “The Mythical ‘Wall of Separation’”
Christopher Clausen: “America’s Design for Tolerance” (2007)
The Bill of Rights
The Constitution
Reading that illustrates Value 1:Thomas Paine: from Common Sense (1776)
•Of the Origin and Design of Government in General, with Concise Remarks on the English Constitution
•Of Monarchy and Hereditary Succession
•Thoughts on the Present State of American Affairs
Dr. Martin Luther King: “I Have a Dream” (1963)
Plato: Selections from the Republic, Book VII
Plato: Crito
Aristotle: Politics, Book IV
From the State of Nature to Civil and Political Society:
John Locke: Two Treatises of Government (the selections here are from The Second Treatise on Government, 1689): pp. 7-20 (through sec. 33); p. 38 (sec. 77); 40-42 (sec. 86-90); pp. 44-47 (sec. 94-99); pp. 58-60 (sec. 123-131); pp. 66-67 (sec. 142); p. 72 (sec. 155)
Thomas Jefferson: The Declaration of Independence
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