Andrew L Seidel

Did not finish. I was hoping this book would explain why Christian Nationalists held these beliefs about American principles. Instead, the book reads more like a New Atheist screed that treats "religion", "Christianity", and "Protestantism" as interchangeable, with a concordant loss of explanatory power. Similarly, Seidel seems to uncritically accept the (largely Christian Nationalist) appending of "Judeo-" to "Judeo-Christian values"—an important rhetorical move that also feeds into American evangelical politics in important ways.

Given that the remainder of the book seemed to be a point-by-point rebuttal of specific C.N. beliefs/talking points with similarly medium analytical rigor, I didn't feel a need to finish reading it.… (mer)

American Crusade: How the Supreme Court Is Weaponizing Religious Freedom by Andrew L Seidel is a clear and concise analysis of the ways that the extreme religious right wing has twisted the Constitution in order to maintain their undeserved entitlements, privileges, and (faux)supremacy.

While it would be wonderful if everyone read this with an open mind, those who know quite well that what they are doing is un-American will just pretend that they are doing what is "right." It would be great if those who have been supporting the right without fully realizing what has been happening (part of being privileged is being blind to what is happening to others while you exercise your entitlements) read this and had to actually make the decision to either stop the un-American activity or admit they are, indeed, anti-democracy and pro religious persecution of every religious belief other than their own. For those of us aware of the evil these people represent, this book makes explicit the areas where rule of law has been either ignored or completely flipped in order to serve the crusade for an anti-humanity pro-(right kind of)Christian regime.

While one of the things this book does is offer us specific talking points for debating those who are actually open to discussion, the bigger thing, for me, is as a call to action before it is too late. We must stop the twisting of our system and mend the holes that have always needed mending and have now been used to shred our democracy and the rule of law. If we can't make those changes internally, then, by any means necessary, we must stop each and every one of these people from doing more damage. They are a minority, but they also control, or are controlled by, the most money. So we MUST do whatever it takes to make sure they are stopped, permanently, without recourse to any more of their hate filled faux Christianity.

Highly recommended for those who support democracy and rule of law. Also recommended for those on the religious right, but be aware, there are big words in here that will likely confuse you.

Reviewed from a copy made available by the publisher via NetGalley.… (mer)

A solid scholarly work on the founding of America, detailing all the ways in which the founders declared that we are not, in fact, a Christian nation. The author uses the founder's own words, because they so eloquently declare what the Christian right is constantly trying to deny - the founders deliberately kept church and state separate, and it was not so much to protect the church as to protect the state. They were aware of the dangers of mingling government and religion, and did their best to forestall such an event. This was true even of most of the religious founders, which demonstrates that it is inadequate to point to the piety (real or supposed) of any founder and assume that means that founder, let alone all of them, wanted us to be tied to any church. Should be required reading, but probably the people who need to read it the most will not.… (mer)