Jay Wexler

Jay Wexler, author of Holy Hullabaloos: A Road Trip to the Battlegrounds of the Church/State Wars, teaches at the Boston University School of Law.

From his Q & A at Religion Dispatches:

What inspired you to write Holy Hullabaloos? What sparked your interest?

I’d always wanted to write a kind of fun, non-academic book about church/state issues, and once I got tenure it seemed like the right time. The road trip aspect of the book, however, was not part of the original plan. That idea came to me while I was reading Sarah Vowell’s amazing Assassination Vacation, where she talks about her various trips to places connected to the assassinations of different presidents. I had just finished reading some other funny road-trip books like Steve Almond’s Candyfreak, and all of a sudden it occurred to me that maybe I should get out of my stuffy office and hit the road, see what I could learn by visiting the places where these church/state cases I’d been teaching about for so long actually happened.

What’s the most important take-home message for readers?

I think the overall biggest take-home message for readers is that it is both possible and desirable to...[read on]

Read more about Holy Hullabaloos at the publisher's website, and learn more about the author at Jay Wexler's faculty webpage.

Wexler studied religion at the University of Chicago Divinity School and law at Stanford, and worked as a clerk to U.S. Supreme Court justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg.

The Page 99 Test: Holy Hullabaloos.

--Marshal Zeringue