NAPA --

Meet and Greet with Episcopal priest and CNN Contributor Randall Balmer featuring his latest book - America's Best Idea: The Separation of Church and State. 

Drop by our Napa store on Saturday, February 7 from 2:00 - 3:00pm. 

About the book:

A historian and ordained Episcopal priest offers everything you need to know for shaping and defending your own beliefs on the role of religion in American life

Filled with stories from America's struggle for religious freedom most readers have never heard before and perfect for fans of Jesus and John Wayne and On Tyranny

The 1st Amendment to the US Constitution codified the principle that government should play no role in favoring or supporting any religion, while allowing free exercise of all religions (including unbelief). More than 200 years later, the results from this experiment are overwhelming: The separation of church and state has shielded the government from religious factionalism, and the United States boasts a diverse religious culture unmatched in the world.

But changes have been taking place at an accelerating pace in recent years. The current Supreme Court has shifted away from excluding the influence and practice of religion at public institutions and in our laws and policies, and moved dramatically toward protecting the inclusion and promotion of religion in publicly funded undertakings.

Moreover, adherents to a Christian Nationalism ideology have grown more vocal and emboldened, and are increasingly moving into positions of power.

Randall Balmer, one of the premier historians of religion in America, reviews both the history of the separation of church and state and various attempts to undermine that wall. Despite the fact that the 1st Amendment and the separation of church and state has served the nation remarkably well, he argues, its future is by no means assured.

Author: Randall Balmer, an Episcopal priest, a CNN Contributor and part-time resident of Northern California, is the John Phillips Professor in Religion at Dartmouth College. He is the author of eighteen books, including Redeemer: The Life of Jimmy Carter, Bad Faith: Race and the Rise of the Religious Right and Mine Eyes Have Seen the Glory: A Journey into the Evangelical Subculture in America, which was made into an award-winning, three-part series for PBS. His commentaries on religion in American appear in newspapers across the country, including the Los Angeles Times, the Washington Post, the Santa Fe New Mexican and the Santa Rosa Press Democrat.