Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

This book is garbage. Barton's arguments are convincing only to those without any legal education. All Barton has done is compile a list of quotes containing references to religion and to the importance of religion on government. Essentially, Barton argues that because the founding fathers were religious, they could not have believed in the concept of separation of church and state. The existence of many people, such as myself, who are religious yet believe in the separation of church and state, completely refutes this argument. Barton's scholarship has not improved since his other works and his explanations are wrong at best and dishonest at worst. He mischaracterizes many judicial decisions in order to create in the reader a sense of horor at how judges are interpreting the constitution; he makes arguments about original intent while completely ignoring the Fourteenth Amendment (or just brushing it aside without making any valid argument); and he makes completely illogical arguments. For example, he claims that the Constitution requires office holders to be religious because it requires an "oath", i.e. a promise to God. This is especially dishonest because the constitution refers to an "oath or affirmation." Barton's writing style is to bombard readers with quotes about religion and then make an illogical conclusion based on those quotes. If anyone is inclined to read this book, I suggest that anytime they come to "therefore" or "thus" or any other conclusive words by Barton, they stop and ask themselves if Barton's conclusion actually follows from what he has quoted. (The answer will always be no, it does not follow.) Any time Barton argues that the First Amendment was only supposed to apply to the federal government, I suggest they do some research on the Fourteenth Amendment to see why Barton's arguments are so absurd. There are, to be sure, valid (at least plausible) arguments that Judges should interpret the First Amendment differently. However, one can find those arguments written by true scholars. I truly believe that if you use Barton's books to educate yourself about the issues of church and state, then you are actually doing yourself more harm than good.