Constitution Day 2007

Constitution Day Background

In December 2004, the United States Senate and House of Representatives passed an amendment proposed by Senator Robert Byrd of West Virginia, requiring all educational institutions that receive federal funds to make available educational programs that relate to the U.S. Constitution on September 17 of each year. September 17 was chosen to commemorate the signing of the U.S. Constitution on September 17, 1787. When that date falls on a weekend, Constitution Day may be observed during either the week preceding or following the weekend.

Educational Information

As part of the recognition of Constitution Day, Princeton Seminary’s Center of Continuing Education is offering a seminar, “God in Public,” led by Dr. Mark Toulouse, professor of American religious history at Brite Divinity School at Texas Christian University in Fort Worth, Texas. This event will be held in the Erdman Center, 20 Library Place in Princeton, on Friday, September 21 from 9:00 a.m. to 12:00 p.m. The registration fee is $30. Princeton Seminary students can attend the seminar free of charge, but still need to register. For more information or to register, go to http://ptsem.edu/ce/Course20070921.php.

Additionally, to encourage members of our community not only to learn more about the U.S. Constitution, but to engage constitutional issues in a theologically significant manner, below is a bibliography of books relating to the history of the U.S. Constitution, as well as church and state issues. This bibliography has been prepared by Larry Stratton, a Ph.D. candidate in Princeton Seminary’s Religion and Society Program and former adjunct professor at Georgetown Law Center.

For any additional information and resources related to Constitution Day, you may visit the web sites of the U.S. National Archives at http://www.archives.gov/national-archives-experience/charters/constitution/constitution-day.html and the National Constitution Center at http://www.constitutioncenter.org/.

Bibliography

Amar, Akhil Reed. America’s Constitution: A Biography (New York: Random House, 2006)

Feldman, Noah. Divided by God: America’s Church-State Problem—and What We Should Do about It (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2005)

Hamilton, Marci A. God vs. the Gavel: Religion and the Rule of Law (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005)

Kramnick, Isaac and Moore, R. Laurence. The Godless Constitution: A Moral Defense of the Secular State (New York: W.W. Norton, 2005)

Levy, Leonard. The Establishment Clause: Religion and the First Amendment (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1994)

McGarvie, Mark Douglas. One Nation Under Law: America’s Early National Struggles to Separate Church and State (DeKalb, Illinois: Northern Illinois University Press, 2004)

Meacham, Jon. American Gospel: God, the Founding Fathers, and the Making of a Nation (New York: Random House, 2006)

Noonan, John T. Jr. The Lustre of Our Country: The American Experience of Religious Freedom (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1998)

Witte, John Jr. Religion and the American Constitutional Experiment 2d ed. (Boulder, Colorado: Westview, 2005)