A Gap in the Hedge
In his new primer on religious freedom in America, Randall Balmer makes a historical defense for the separation of church and state.
Review by Sara Holston
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof . . .
For sixteen simple words, these opening prohibitions in the First Amendment remain hotly debated 235 years after their ratification. It’s a dispute that spills over into broader clashes over the place of religion in America today; Christian nationalism is on the rise again, while newspaper headlines tout Gallup polls telling us that religiosity is waning nationwide—or is it that churchgoing is on the rise among young people? But if the First Amendment is meant to be a guiding beacon for thinking about these questions, the current legal landscape doesn’t provide much clarity. A handful of Supreme Court rulings in the past few years have destabilized the doctrine interpreting the Religion Clauses, leaving very little in the way of guidance on how the Court will analyze religious freedom cases going forward. What the Court has signaled, however, is that the pendulum that swings between the opposing poles of Establishment and Free Exercise is reversing course; in lieu of a strong Establishment Clause policing the government for any indication of favor toward religion, we’re moving toward a dominant Free Exercise Clause ensuring that the government does not improperly burden religious practice by excluding it from governmental support. To many, the wall of separation between church and state seems more permeable than it was a few decades ago.
In America’s Best Idea: The Separation of Church and State, it is precisely these trends that drive Randall Balmer’s impassioned defense of a stricter separation between the institutions. He opens the book by recognizing that “various interests have sought in recent years to chip away” at this founding principle, and he flags a few cases that have helped clear the way. But he disclaims any attempt to weigh in on the legal doctrine. Instead, he offers a historian’s perspective on the evolution of the relationship between church and state over the country’s history. The result isn’t a textbook; Balmer doesn’t provide a comprehensive analysis of the issues and their development through American history. Instead, it’s a primer. America’s Best Idea is only about 128 pages, and small enough to fit in a slightly oversized pocket. The writing style is conversational, resulting in a book you can rip through in a couple hours. By writing for a broader audience, Balmer offers an engaging introduction to the story of religious freedom in America, using it to broadcast a point he thinks needs to be heard.
Balmer begins the tale at the Founding, describing how various colonies structured the relationship between government and religion. He opens with Massachusetts-based Puritan minister Roger Williams (later founder of Rhode Island), who first coined the idea of the wall of separation. Williams believed that “[w]hen they have opened a gap in the hedge or wall of separation between the garden of the church and the wilderness of the world,” God would break down the wall and allow the wilderness to run rampant. To preserve the garden, then, “it must of necessity be walled in peculiarly unto Himself from the world.” William Penn picked up these ideas and embarked on a “holy experiment” with Pennsylvania, built on the idea that government “should attend to civil matters only, not religious.” Balmer’s account masterfully outlines the ways in which, contrary to the common assumption, the separation of church and state was originally envisioned as a protection for religion—not for the state.
Balmer’s sharp-tongued primer will likely bolster those already inclined to agree with him more than it will persuade anyone else.
Balmer devotes the first half of his book to this kind of measured historical analysis, taking his readers from the early colonies through the passage of Virginia’s watershed Statute for Religious Freedom, the ratification of the First Amendment itself, and the slow adoption of disestablishment by the newly formed states. Halfway through the book, however, the gloves start to come off. Balmer opens chapter nine by observing that “at various times in American history, citizens have paused to notice that the US Constitution contains no direct acknowledgment of God — which is certainly an inconvenient detail for those who want to insist that America is, and always was, a Christian nation.” He shifts to directly targeting Christian nationalism, a vision that sees the Founding principles as explicitly Christian and which asserts that Christian values ought to publicly and directly shape the laws that govern us. Balmer, of course, disagrees, and, in the back half of his book, shows just how fully he deplores the idea.
Though he continues to go era-by-era or event-by-event, each chapter is, at its core, less about articulating some aspect of the idea of separation than it is another salvo in Balmer’s attack on the idea of integration. Writing about an Okaloosa School Board Meeting, Balmer observes that the school board attorney had cautioned against opening the meeting with prayers, “citing a small technicality called the First Amendment to the Constitution,” but “the pious Christians of Okaloosa County” were “undeterred.” He drops snide asides, suggesting that the scripture reader should have chosen Matthew 6:6 (“when you pray, go into your room and shut the door and pray to your Father who is in secret”). If these seem somewhat tame, his constant dismissiveness toward his opponents becomes sharper (and less subtle) as he goes on. In keeping with his body of work on evangelicalism in America, he comes most aggressively for the Baptists, framing his analysis of the tradition’s historical support for religious freedom with repeated claims of what a “real Baptist” would do or say.
It would be unfair to claim that these attacks stray from Balmer’s purpose. After all, he never hides the fact that he set out to hammer a very particular viewpoint. You absolutely can judge this book by its cover—or, at least by its title. Most authors would start with the subject matter, Separation of Church and State, and then signal their thesis after the colon. Balmer flips the script by putting his perspective, that this is America’s Best Idea, front and center. Then in the preface, he openly identifies Christian nationalists as his opponents, calling that vision of America both “demonstrably false” and “dangerous.” From the opening pages, then, Balmer declares that his purpose is to reiterate a defense of the separation of church and state and to fight against rising pro-integration sentiment.
But while I can’t say I was surprised, I was nevertheless a little disappointed. Balmer’s sharp-tongued primer will likely bolster those already inclined to agree with him more than it will persuade anyone else. Squeezing a lot into very few pages, the second half stays at surface level, meaning that Balmer really fails to reckon with the implications of his opponents’ arguments—or even his own. He makes bold assertions with little substantiation (for example, “religion has flourished in the United States as nowhere else in the world precisely because the government has stayed out of the realm of religion, and vice versa”), and with his snarky tone he sometimes sacrifices rigor and winsomeness for a soundbyte.
And therein lies the crux of my disappointment. Balmer’s is an important defense. By delving into the original purposes for the separation of church and state—to protect the church and foster religious life—he exposes some key cracks in the Christian nationalist argument. If he had substantiated and developed his argument that religion has flourished in America because of religious freedom, he could have presented a powerful challenge to Christian nationalism at a time when an accessible but still historically robust defense of religious freedom is noticeably absent. So while Balmer’s book seems to be the one he set out to write, it falls short of the one we sorely need.
Sara Holston is a student at HLS and the current Managing Editor of Fare Forward.
America’s Best Idea: The Separation of Church and State was published by Steerforth Press on August 5, 2025. Fare Forward appreciates their provision of a review copy. You can purchase your own copy here.
