The separation of church and state is under real, measurable pressure in the United States—and Randall Balmer’s compact new book America’s Best Idea is the plain-spoken toolkit many of us needed to name what’s changing and why that matters.
If you’ve felt the legal ground shift under your feet in recent years—school-prayer rulings, public money flowing to religious schools, Christian nationalist rhetoric creeping into policy—this is the book to read right now.
Religious liberty thrives when government remains neutral, yet court decisions and political movements have been steadily eroding that neutrality. Balmer shows—in history, law, and lived reality—what we lose if we stop defending America’s Best Idea.
America’s Best Idea is not a doctrine against religion but a civic design for everyone’s religion (including none): government favors none, protects all, and leaves conscience free—which is exactly why faith and democracy flourished here.
Evidence snapshot
In 2020 and 2022, the U.S. Supreme Court expanded public support for religious schooling (Espinoza; Carson) and allowed a public-school coach to pray on the 50-yard line (Kennedy), signaling a durable turn toward entanglement; at the same time, Christian nationalism stands at roughly 3 in 10 Americans (adherents or sympathizers), even as about two-thirds of Americans reject it—facts that make Balmer’s warning both timely and testable.
America’s Best Idea is best for curious citizens, teachers, clergy, lawyers, and students who want a brisk, good-faith map of how we got separation of church and state—and how to defend it practically. Not for readers seeking a theocratic blueprint or a partisan scream; the book is concise, historically grounded, and refuses sectarian triumphalism.
Table of Contents
1. Introduction
America’s Best Idea: The Separation of Church and State by Randall Balmer (Steerforth Press). Balmer is an ordained Episcopal priest and the John Phillips Professor of Religion at Dartmouth.
Balmer writes popular history with a scholar’s spine and a pastor’s pastoral concern, keeping his argument tightly focused on how the United States designed a political order that neither sacralizes the state nor marginalizes religion.
His thesis is spare and strong: the separation of church and state is America’s “best idea,” historically successful in shielding the republic from religious factionalism while catalyzing an unmatched religious vitality—and it is now being whittled away by jurisprudence and movements that mistake privilege for liberty.
2. Background
Balmer stands in a long line of American advocates for religious liberty, from Roger Williams—who argued in 1644 for a “wall of separation” to protect conscience—to Thomas Jefferson, who echoed that “wall” in his famous 1802 letter to the Danbury Baptists.
Williams saw that entangling state power with sacred claims corrupts both; Jefferson, facing a patchwork of state establishments and sectarian tensions, translated that insight into a political idiom that would anchor the First Amendment’s Establishment and Free Exercise clauses.
3. Summary
America’s Best Idea — what the book argues, shows, and why it lands now
Balmer’s core claim is beautifully simple: the separation of church and state is not anti-religion; it’s the constitutional design that protects everyone’s conscience and has made American religion unusually vibrant—and it’s being eroded by legal and political moves that confuse privilege with liberty. In his words, it has been “spectacularly successful,” yet is “under attack today as in perhaps no time in American history.”
He moves briskly through four strands: (1) Origins—how early American pluralism and Europe’s grim memory of religious wars shaped a pragmatic settlement; (2) Design—what the First Amendment’s two religion clauses actually do; (3) Evolution—how two centuries of law—from Everson (1947) to Kennedy (2022)—have drawn and redrawn the “wall”; and (4) Present stakes—how rising Christian nationalism and a new Supreme Court majority have tilted policy toward entanglement, especially in public education. The book is compact (about 160 pages) and pitched to citizens as much as scholar.
Highlighted cheat-sheet
- 1644–1802: Intellectual and political seedbed. Balmer reprises Roger Williams (1644) and Thomas Jefferson (1802 Danbury letter) to show that “wall of separation” was first a theological insight (protect conscience from state power) that became a political norm.
- 1786–1791: The legal blueprint. The Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom (1786) and the First Amendment (ratified 1791) produce a two-clause system: no establishment, free exercise—government neutrality paired with personal protection. Balmer treats the pair as a “juggling act” we must keep in the air together.
- 1947–1971: The modern wall takes shape.
— Everson v. Board of Education (1947): first case to apply the Establishment Clause to the states; allowed bus reimbursements but announced a sweeping, neutrality-protecting principle.
— Engel v. Vitale (1962): school-sponsored prayer violates the Establishment Clause.
— Lemon v. Kurtzman (1971): the famous “Lemon test” (purpose, effect, entanglement) polices government support for religion. - 2002–2017: Carving exceptions.
— Zelman v. Simmons-Harris (2002): vouchers survive when aid reaches religious schools only by “private choice.”
— Trinity Lutheran (2017): a church may not be excluded from a public benefit solely due to religious status—a new Free Exercise vector. - 2020–2022: The hinge years Balmer worries about.
— Espinoza v. Montana (2020): strikes down state “no-aid” (Blaine) bars when they exclude religious schools as such.
— Carson v. Makin (2022): Maine can’t bar sectarian instruction from its tuition program; “status vs. use” gap narrows.
— Kennedy v. Bremerton (2022): reframes school-prayer disputes around individual expression/free exercise (coach’s midfield prayer). - Today: Cultural headwinds. Balmer situates the legal turn inside a cultural one: Christian nationalism (roughly three in ten Americans are adherents or sympathizers across recent PRRI waves) pushes openly for state privilege, which by definition undercuts neutrality. (The PDF you shared captures those PRRI proportions succinctly.)
- Bottom line: What made American religion vigorous (diversity, voluntarism, competition) was the state’s refusal to pick winners. If we abandon that, we will wound both faith and democracy. That is the through-line of the book’s warning.
Extended summary
1. Why separation became “America’s Best Idea.”
Balmer opens by clearing away a common confusion: the founders weren’t trying to launder the country of faith—they were trying to make a country where many faiths could live together without state interference.
He leans on the messy reality of colonial pluralism and the fresh memory of Europe’s religious wars to explain why the founders aimed for government neutrality rather than any Christian establishment.
In modern Balmer phrasing: it has been “spectacularly successful,” and it’s precisely because it protects everyone’s conscience that religion flourished here instead of ossifying into a state church.
2. The constitutional design (what the two clauses do).
Balmer then teaches the First Amendment like a civics coach. The Establishment Clause means government cannot sponsor, fund, or privilege a religion; the Free Exercise Clause means you get to live your faith without punishment.
The “genius,” he argues, is not in choosing one clause over the other but in maintaining both at once. A clean way to hear that: the clauses are a “full-time juggling act, keeping religious rights and government neutrality in the air at the same time.”
3. A short, strategic history (how the wall rose).
He builds a tight timeline. Roger Williams’s theology of conscience (1640s) meets Jefferson’s 1802 “wall of separation”1 letter; the Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom (1786) becomes a template; by 1791 the First Amendment locks in the two-clause architecture.
Those weren’t anti-religion moves—they were pro-pluralism moves that, ironically, benefited religion by forcing it to rely on persuasion rather than state aid.
4. How courts drew the line (mid-20th century to Lemon).
To show how neutrality became law, Balmer revisits the landmark cases. Everson (1947) announces incorporation (the Establishment Clause2 binds states) and describes a very high wall—even as it allows bus fare reimbursements.
Engel (1962)3 ends school-sponsored prayer, a pivot that clarifies that no student should feel state pressure to pray. Lemon (1971) creates a test—purpose, effect, entanglement—that for decades kept most direct aid to religious schools out of bounds.
These aren’t trivia questions; Balmer’s point is: the “wall” is not just a metaphor—it has been operationalized in legal doctrine.
5. The education battleground (why vouchers matter).
Education is the book’s recurring stage because it is the largest public commons we share. The late-20th-century voucher and funding cases become a hinge: Zelman (2002) keeps vouchers alive if public money reaches religious schools only through parent choice; Trinity Lutheran (2017) says the state can’t deny a neutral benefit solely because the applicant is religious (status).
Balmer flags this shift because it sets up the 2020–2022 run.
6. The hinge years (2020–2022) and why Balmer sounds alarms.
He then explains three cases the way a pastor would explain a headline—brisk but accurate:
- Espinoza (2020)4: a state constitution’s “no-aid” clause barring religious schools is unconstitutional when it bars them as religious. Translation: it’s harder for states to keep public money away from sectarian schooling.
- Carson (2022)5: Maine can’t exclude schools that teach religion from its tuition program; the Court reads “nonsectarian” as a Free Exercise violation—collapsing the old line between religious status and religious use of funds.
- Kennedy (2022): a public-school coach’s midfield prayer is protected personal expression; critics warn this blurs coercion in school settings. For Balmer’s project, the takeaway is that constitutional air is now blowing toward entanglement.
7. Culture meets law (Christian nationalism as accelerant).
Balmer is emphatic that law never floats alone. He charts the rise of Christian nationalism—the view that the U.S. should be officially (or functionally) Christian—and shows how it feeds policy efforts to privilege religion in public life.
Current survey work makes the scope legible: about 10% of Americans are adherents and roughly ~20% are sympathizers (≈ three in ten combined), with about two-thirds skeptical or opposed—concentrations that make a minority view politically potent.
8. Public schools as the test case (and why neutrality is solidarity).
Balmer keeps returning to schools because they’re where children of all backgrounds meet the state. If tax dollars flow to sectarian institutions or if school officials publicly perform religious acts in ways that carry implicit pressure, neutrality collapses.
He argues that, historically, neutral public education knitted a people out of difference; loosen that seam and you risk sectarian sorting—socially and fiscally. That’s not just theory—those recent cases already re-shape district policies and state budgets.
9. What the founders actually chose (and did not choose).
To defuse “but the founders wanted a Christian nation,” Balmer emphasizes Article VI (no religious test) and the First Amendment’s plain text.
For a compact, vivid re-statement of that premise, he puts it this way: the Constitution “doesn’t contain a single mention of Christianity” and the First Amendment forbids establishment while protecting free exercise. It’s also a useful reminder that Jefferson’s “wall” language has long framed the debate.
10. The moral upshot (why believers should defend the wall).
Because he writes as a Christian historian and an Episcopal priest, Balmer is careful here: a neutral state is good for religion itself. Political power corrodes faith; establishments breed complacency; coercion breeds backlash.
The American bargain—no state church, free conscience—has given the U.S. unmatched religious diversity and energy. That’s his reason for calling separation “America’s Best Idea.”
“All chapters combined” takeaways
- Separation is a freedom technology, not a secular shibboleth. It protects believers and non-believers alike and explains why American religion remained dynamic. That is the book’s repeated thesis.
- The First Amendment’s two clauses work together. When the state is neutral (no establishment), personal religion breathes (free exercise). Treating one clause as a trump card against the other distorts the design. For a quick civics mnemonic, remember the “juggling act” phrasing from the book.
- Courts wrote the “wall” into practice over 75 years. Everson incorporated the Establishment Clause (1947); Engel ended school-sponsored prayer (1962); Lemon kept entanglement at bay (1971); then vouchers and benefit cases introduced exceptions; finally, 2017–2022 decisions accelerated a pro-entanglement tilt—especially Espinoza, Carson, and Kennedy.
- Public education is the proving ground. Follow the money; follow the rituals. Who gets taxpayer aid and what happens on school property are the real-world tests of neutrality today. That is why Balmer devotes so much urgency to vouchers and school-prayer disputes.
- Culture shifts the law that shifts the culture. Minority but intense Christian nationalist sentiment—roughly three in ten when you combine adherents and sympathizers—has outsized impact on policy and judicial pipelines. Balmer maps that loop without caricature, but with urgency.
- Balmer’s prescription is civic, not sectarian. Re-teach the founders’ settlement; remember Jefferson’s wall; keep both clauses in view; defend the public school commons; resist tax-funded religious favoritism; protect everyone’s conscience. The “best idea” survives only if we consciously keep it.
Balmer’s storyline
- Everson (1947): Establishment Clause applies to states; doctrine of neutrality becomes explicit, even while upholding bus reimbursements.
- Engel (1962): No school-sponsored prayer.
- Lemon (1971): Three-part test to avoid entanglement.
- Zelman (2002): Vouchers okay via private choice.
- Trinity Lutheran (2017): No exclusion from general benefits based on religious status.
- Espinoza (2020): State “no-aid” provisions can’t bar religious schools as such.
- Carson (2022): Maine can’t exclude sectarian instruction from tuition program.
- Kennedy (2022): Personal religious observance by a public-school coach protected; dissent warns about coercion optics.
Together, those last three rulings explain why Balmer writes now and why his tone is alarm-bell rather than museum tour.
Final synthesis
- The thesis: Separation is America’s best civic invention because it protects conscience and keeps the peace in a plural nation; it is pro-religion and pro-democracy at once.
- The history: From Williams (1640s) to Jefferson (1802) to the First Amendment (1791) to modern doctrine (1947–1971), the U.S. built a high wall—then carved exceptions in schooling and public benefits. (
- The turn: 2017–2022 cases (especially Espinoza, Carson, Kennedy) mark a shift toward entanglement under a Free-Exercise frame—why Balmer says the wall is “under attack.”
- The stakes: Public education, budget flows, and minority protections sit right where law and culture meet; Christian nationalism amplifies the pressure.
- The ask: Keep both clauses in view, keep schools neutral, keep aid religion-blind, keep conscience free—for everyone.
If you want a one-line Balmer-style takeaway to use in class, in church, or at a school-board mic: Neutral government is how a deeply religious—and deeply diverse—people keep the peace and keep the faith. That’s why he calls it “America’s Best Idea.”
4. America’s Best Idea Analysis
Balmer’s most persuasive move is historical scale compressed into clarity: he keeps the through-line simple—diverse colonies, violent European confessional past, pragmatic founders—so that the First Amendment reads as invention, not inevitability.
He builds the case by triangulating: the founders’ memory of Europe’s religious wars, the pluralism on the ground in the colonies, and early American policies (like “Blaine” provisions) that kept public funds from religious schooling, helping public education flourish into the 20th century.
He pairs that with a present-tense warning about Supreme Court cases that, cumulatively, paste cracks into the wall between church and state. And he makes the civic payoff visible: a “free marketplace” for religion that produced energy, diversity, and vitality unmatched elsewhere.
The legal chapters (and the book’s timing) matter: Espinoza v. Montana (2020) weakened state “no-aid” provisions; Carson v. Makin (2022) required Maine’s tuition program to include sectarian schools; Kennedy v. Bremerton (2022) reframed school-prayer disputes around personal expression—three decisions in two years that shift the center of gravity toward religious entanglement in publicly funded contexts.
Balmer argues this isn’t neutrality; it’s preference.
And he’s right to tie jurisprudence to culture: Christian nationalism—the claim that America should be explicitly Christian in identity and law—now counts about 10% adherents and ~20% sympathizers, while ~67% are skeptics or rejecters (PRRI’s 2023–2025 waves surveying >22,000 adults). That’s not a majority view, but it’s concentrated in key constituencies and institutions.
The book fulfills its purpose by restoring the founders’ practical genius: a state strong enough to keep the peace, modest enough to avoid meddling in belief, and keen enough to know that conscience is not the government’s business. And by the end, Balmer isn’t preaching secularism; he’s defending the only arrangement that has ever let many religions—and none—thrive together.
Does he support the claims with evidence?
Yes—by stitching founder intent, constitutional text, landmark cases, and current data: Jefferson’s “wall” (1802), the First Amendment’s two-clause “juggling act,” the Espinoza/Carson/Kennedy trilogy, and PRRI’s state-by-state counts. If you’re tracking this topic, these are the right bricks.
Contribution to the field:
Balmer’s unique contribution is tone and timing: 160 pages that are accessible for classrooms and community forums but sourced enough to anchor op-eds, sermons, or school board testimony. In a moment when doctrine and identity are shouted, he rebuilds the civic grammar quietly.
5. Strengths and Weaknesses
I loved how America’s Best Idea centers real people’s freedom—Jews, Baptists, Huguenots, unbelievers—showing that neutrality is solidarity in a plural republic.
The book’s insistence that public education is the democratic commons feels especially vital; Balmer connects 19th-century funding choices to today’s voucher fights with plain language and no scare-quotes.
He also explains that the “bright line” against taxpayer funding of religious schools—long a pillar of the wall—has dimmed in recent rulings. And he is careful to say this isn’t anti-religion; it is pro-democracy and, paradoxically, pro-religion, because faith breathes best without state oxygen.
The book works as both history and civic catechism; you can hand it to a skeptic and feel proud of the conversation that follows. The writing balances urgency with charity.
Weaknesses (for me): it’s short.
Relatedly, brevity means some debates (e.g., Free Exercise vs. Establishment tensions in schools or prisons) pass quickly; readers wanting case-law depth will still need court opinions or longer monographs.
Still, Balmer’s curation is wise, and the book’s job is orientation, not exhaustion. The narrative could also give more space to Black church traditions and immigrant faiths as separation’s beneficiaries, though hints are there. And sometimes a quick aside about the modern Court could have used a footnote or two more.
My verdict: the strengths far outshine the quibbles; the book equips ordinary readers to defend extraordinary principles. (
6. Comparison with similar works
If you’ve read Balmer’s earlier Solemn Reverence (2021), this is the tighter, classroom-friendly sequel: same moral weather, more barometer readings.
On the same shelf, John Fugelsang’s Separation of Church and Hate (2024) approaches the crisis from the culture-and-scripture angle, not law.
Where Balmer tracks founders and courts, Fugelsang demystifies proof-texts and calls out Christian nationalism’s theological distortions, writing: “Our Constitution doesn’t contain a single mention of Christianity but does say ‘Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion’ … [and] Article VI forbids any religious test for holding public office.”
That line is as civics-clean as it gets.
Fugelsang also summarizes the Establishment/Free-Exercise “juggling act,” then cites PRRI’s Christian nationalism figures (about 10% adherents and 19% sympathizers)—numbers that align with PRRI’s 22,000-respondent analysis, which found “roughly three in ten Americans” qualify as adherents or sympathizers. The books converge in warning; they differ in method.
7. Personal takeaways
I finished Balmer’s book feeling less cynical and more equipped; it’s the rare polemic that feels like civic hygiene.
Reading as a citizen and parent, I appreciated the defense of public schools as democratic commons—Balmer argues they knit a people out of difference, and that vouchers risk hollowing them from within. Pair that with the PRRI map of beliefs (which shows how deeply divided yet persuadable the country is), and the stakes become practical: school board policy, library fights, curriculum standards, transportation funding to sectarian schools.
The book’s human tone matters; it invites persuasion instead of warfare. And the historical memory of Williams/Jefferson keeps the argument rooted in an American tradition, not imported hostility to faith.
I also found it clarifying to read Balmer alongside a culture-facing work like Fugelsang’s, which restates first principles in a way neighbors can hear: “The founders kept religion separate from the state for a good reason … [mixing] the two rarely—if ever—works well,” and, crucially, the Constitution bars religious tests for public office. Those lines worked on my heart as much as my head.
In practical terms, this little book gave me talking points that scale: teach Jefferson’s Danbury letter in civics; teach both clauses of the First Amendment together; show students how recent Supreme Court holdings recalibrate neutrality. That’s how a republic remembers itself.
Who should read this now?
Educators, clergy, community organizers, school-board members, journalists, and any reader who wants a common vocabulary before the next local skirmish over curriculum or funding.
Who might bounce?
If you want a theocratic apologetic or a long legal treatise, this isn’t that; it’s a moral-historical brief meant for living rooms and classrooms.
8. Conclusion
Balmer’s America’s Best Idea isn’t just a history of the separation of church and state; it’s a civic owner’s manual for a plural nation that still wants to be free.
Read it if you care about public schools, minority rights, religious diversity, or just the everyday peace that neutrality buys in a country as varied as ours.
It’s fully suitable for general audiences (high school and up) and a useful primer for specialists who want a compact, quotable frame for teaching, preaching, or policymaking.
Notes
- A famous 1802 letter written by U.S. President Thomas Jefferson to the Danbury Baptist Association. In it, Jefferson used the phrase “wall of separation between church and state” to describe the First Amendment’s Establishment Clause, which prevents the government from establishing a religion. The letter was a response to the Baptists’ concerns about religious freedom and asserted that the government should not interfere with religious practices. ↩︎
- In United States law, the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment to the United States Constitution, together with that Amendment’s Free Exercise Clause, form the constitutional right of freedom of religion. The Establishment Clause and the Free Exercise Clause together read: “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof…” ↩︎
- The state cannot hold prayers in public schools, even if it is not required and not tied to a particular religion. ↩︎
- In Espinoza v. Montana Department of Revenue, 591 U.S. 464 (2020), the Supreme Court held that when a state offers a scholarship program for private schools using public funds, it can’t exclude religious schools just because they’re religious; doing so violates the Free Exercise Clause. ↩︎
- In Balmer’s book, “Maine” is shorthand for the Carson v. Makin (2022) fight: the state’s rural “tuitioning” program (which pays private-school tuition when a town has no public high school) used to require schools be nonsectarian. The Supreme Court ruled Maine can’t exclude religious (sectarian) schools from that public program, which Balmer treats as a key moment in the ongoing erosion of the wall between church and state—especially in public education. ↩︎
