Steven K. Green, renowned for his scholarship on the separation of church and state, charts the career of the concept and helps us understand how it has fallen into disfavor with many Americans.  In 1802, President Thomas Jefferson distilled a leading idea in the early American republic and wrote of a wall of separation between church and state. That metaphor has come down from Jefferson to twenty-first-century Americans through a long history of jurisprudence, political contestation, and cultural influence. This book traces the development of the concept of separation of church and state and the Supreme Court's application of it in the law.   Green finds that conservative criticisms of a separation of church and state overlook the strong historical and jurisprudential pedigree of the idea. Yet, arguing with liberal advocates of the doctrine, he notes that the idea remains fundamentally vague and thus open to loose interpretation in the courts. As such, the history of a wall of separation is more a variable index of American attitudes toward the forces of religion and state.    Indeed, Green argues that the Supreme Court's use of the wall metaphor has never been essential to its rulings. The contemporary battle over the idea of a wall of separation has thus been a distraction from the real jurisprudential issues animating the contemporary courts. 

All Americans, liberal or conservative, religious or not, can agree that religious freedom, anchored in conscience rights, is foundational to the U.S. democratic experiment. But what freedom of conscience means, what its scope and limits are, according to the Constitution - these are matters for heated debate. At a moment when such questions loom ever larger in the nation's contentious politics and fraught policy-making process, this timely book offers invaluable historical, empirical, philosophical, and analytical insight into the American constitutional heritage of religious liberty. As the contributors to this interdisciplinary volume attest, understanding religious freedom demands taking multiple perspectives. The historians guide us through the legacy of religious freedom, from the nation's founding and the rise of public education, through the waves of immigration that added successive layers of diversity to American society. The social scientists discuss the swift, striking effects of judicial decision making and the battles over free exercise in a complex, bureaucratic society. Advocates remind us of the tensions abiding in schools and other familiar institutions, and of the major role minorities play in shaping free exercise under our constitutional regime. And the jurists emphasize that this is a messy area of constitutional law. Their work brings out the conflicts inherent in interpreting the First Amendment - tensions between free exercise and disestablishment, between the legislative and judicial branches of government, and along the complex and ever-shifting boundaries of religion, state, and society. What emerges most clearly from these essays is how central religious liberty is to America's civic fabric - and how, under increasing pressure from both religious and secular forces, this First Amendment freedom demands our full attention and understanding.

Ryan Hinricher and Stephen Green founded Investor Nation in 2009. The housing and mortgage crisis was in full swing and many people fled real estate investments. Hinricher and Green felt it was the beginning of a whole new real estate opportunity: value investing. These two real estate investors have executed more than $55 million in real estate transactions since 2000, and they know the long term, highly profitable approach isn't about "fast flips" or cheap rental properties.

One of the most enduring themes in United States history is that of its religious founding. This narrative is pervasive in school textbooks, political lore, and the popular consciousness. It is central to the way in which many Americans perceive the historical legacy of their nation. It is also largely a myth-one that this book sets out to unravel. Steven K. Green explores the historical record that supports the popular belief about the nation's religious origins. His aim is not to take part in the irresolvable debate over whether the Founders were devout Christians or atheistic deists, or whether the people of the founding generation believed chiefly in divine providence and the role of religion in public life or in separation of church and state. Rather, he seeks to explain how the ideas of America's religious founding and its status as a Christian nation became a leading narrative about the nation's collective identity. Moreover, Green takes seriously the notion that America's religious founding is a myth not merely in the colloquial sense, but also in a deeper sense, as a shared story that shapes the way we define ourselves and gives meaning to our history.

Few constitutional issues have been as contentious in modern times as those concerning school prayer and the public funding of religious schools. But as Steven K. Green surprisingly reveals in The Bible, the School, and the Constitution, the apogee of this debate was probably reached about one hundred and forty years ago, in the years between 1863 and 1876. As Green shows, the controversy over Bible reading in public schools captured national attention to an unprecedented degree, providing Americans with the opportunity to engage in a grand-and sometimes not so grand-public debate over the meaning of separation of church and state. Rarely in the nation's history have people from such various walks of life-Protestants and Catholics, skeptics and theocrats, nativists and immigrants, educators and politicians-been able to participate in a national discussion over the meaning of a constitutional principle. The debates of this period, Green shows, laid the foundation for constitutional arguments that still rage today.

"Toward Benevolent Neutrality" (5th edition, 1996), a longstanding favorite for professors of church-and-state relationships in the U.S., has been revised and updated by one original author, Robert B. Flowers, and two new ones, Melissa Rogers and Steven K. Green. "Religious Freedom and the Supreme Court" contains a new introduction clearly explaining specific ways the Court delineates the idea of religious freedom on a case-by-case basis. As clearly written as its predecessor, and as appropriate for the classroom, this new book contains explanations of more recent cases, decided by a contemporary Supreme Court. It is clear, relevant, and an essential text for the twenty-first century.