Separation of Church, State - Misunderstood Metaphor

This book should be part of every citizen's library of Liberty: Thomas Jefferson and the Wall of Separation between Church and State by Daniel Dreisbach. http://www.nyupress.org/

Jefferson's letter to the Danbury, Connecticut Baptist Association has undergone too little scholarship to understand its context, its contents, and Jefferson's intent and understanding of the metaphor, which was neither as high nor as inpregnable as modern interpretations since 1947 (Everson vs. Board of Ed.) would have us believe. One need merely begin with Robert Frost's poem "Mending Wall" to arrive at serious doubts as to whether or not we have got it right.

This book fills that gap with important insights and analysis, and is thereby essential for its "scholarly critique of separationist pieties" (Christianity Today).

Question stuck-in-the-mud authority, and dogmatic adherence to separationist policies, which over-emphacize the "Congress shall make no law respecting" section of the First Amendment, and assign too little emphasis to the "nor restrict the free exercise thereof" clause.