ABSTRACT
Civil liberties are those individual freedoms that in the United States are guaranteed primarily in the Bill of Rights, especially the First Amendment, and the Fourteenth Amendment. They are derived from ideas about the value of the individual, freedom of conscience, equality of all before God and thus before government, the right of unpopular and minority views to be heard, and a need to place limits on government. The prominent role of civil liberties in American political thought and action derives from several sources. One of these is Christianity. Christians in Europe, and America became a haven for many dissenting interpretations of Christianity. Analyzing the civil liberties, one scholar has divided them into two broad categories-Puritans and Evangelicals. Original sin and human depravity were prominent themes in Puritan theology, and these led to an inherent skepticism about human government. Contemporary studies of public opinion indicate that Christians often rank low on scales measuring tolerance and support for civil liberties.
