Bart Breen Church Leaders Musings by Bart Breen

http://www.amazon.com/review/product/0151011850/ref=cm_cr_dp_synop?%5Fencoding=UTF8&sortBy=bySubmissionDateDescending#R3OVE185S9RM1N So Help Me God: The Founding Fathers and the First Great Battle Over Church and State (Hardcover) by Forrest Church (Author) I was attracted to this book because of the Author and some prior experience I've had with other writings of his. The first book I reviewed here on Amazon was the Jefferson Bible with a forward by Forrest Church and I recall at the time being struck by the polarized reviews and voting patterns that I observed by those responding to that work and how much of it centered upon the importance of Jefferson's Bible and what it said about the religious views of that vital founding father and the original intent of the founders in terms of religion and its impact upon American society. I was struck at the time as to how easy it was for the different points of view to polarize with little middle ground and how focused the dissent was upon the point of view of the reviewer. It was almost as if their need to incorporate Jefferson or any Founding Father into their "camp" trumped objective history. I read this book after having done more study and reading in the field, and in particular I read the entire correspondance between John Adams and Thomas Jefferson and I was particularly interested in how well what I gathered from that primary source would compare with this secondary interpretation. In fact, based upon my conclusions from reading Church's take on Adams and Jefferson I was determined that I'd have a pretty good base on what to conclude on his information related to Washington, Madison and Monroe as I am not as familiar with their religious and constitutional views despite having done some reading in this field in the past as well. My conclusion is that Church has a very good handle and makes a fair and reasonable presentation that to me rang true in those areas where I was equipped to make that observation. Church is a Unitarian/Universalist Minister and it might be easy to dismiss him on that basis as biased toward finding religion wherever he looks. I found him to be reasonable in his treatment of each of the men and willing to deal objectively with their personal and public faith and willing to accept that being human, they at times were inconsistent and at times willing to make compromises to promote their own political careers and cater to the necessities of the day where religion was prevalent and entangled in public policy. The only real complaint I have, and it is the basis for the 4 star evaluation rather than the 5 I would have given it if I could, is that although there are end notes that provide sources for the more serious reader to explore and check, the lack of in-text notation leaves the reader having to rely upon the author's judgment to a great degree. The emphasis is upon flow and readability and Church does a good job in this regard. I think people taking the time to read this focused a book are going to want to be able to see the sources without having to continually turn to the back to see if there is a source in the first place and then once located by page to determine where on the page the source is incorporated. Any serious reader wishing to use this book for resource or reference will find this a frustrating element. Worth the time and effort to read and reasonably objective in my opinion. Bart Breen