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"Much as I would like all of my fellow Americans to be Christians or vegetarians or Democrats, I have no right to demand it. The leaders of the religious right have failed to observe even the most basic etiquette of democracy.
"Is there a better way? Yes, I think so. It begins with an acknowledgement that religion in America has always functioned best from the margins, outside of the circles of power, and that any grasping for religious hegemony ultimately trivializes and diminishes the faith. The Puritans of the 17th century learned that lesson the hard way, as did the mainline Protestants of the 1950s, who sought to identify their faith with the white, middle-class values of the Eisenhower era. In both cases, it was the evangelicals who stepped in and offered a corrective, a vibrant expression of the faith untethered to cultural institutions that issued, first, in the Great Awakening and, second, in the evangelical resurgence of the 1970s." -- Randall Balmer, "Jesus Is Not a Republican", The Chronicle of Higher Education 2006-06-23 (Volume 52, Issue 42, Page B6; section "The Chronicle Review").
(no subject)
I'm not sure that's true. At least, I'm not sure that the word "always" is justified.
The Abolitionists took on slavery as "immoral", not "unworkable" or "inconsistent with liberty". Theirs was absolutely a religious movement, and most of the gatherings were held in churches. The frequent rallies held by Methodists in the North were decried by Methodists in the South, and led to the fissioning of that sect. ("Southern Methodist University", in Texas, is one of the few etymological relics left after reconciliation in the 20th century.)
Likewise, in the 1960s, the civil rights movement kept butting heads with the establishment; there were all sorts of objections and contorted arguments against integration. But (evangelical) Reverend Billy Graham (who was mostly conservative) took the hard line: he declared all segregation "immoral", and demanded of many to include a moral justification for continued segregation (which, of course, they could not provide).
We have a problem with religion in this country, but the solution is not "to keep religion in its place".