The Founding Myth: Why Christian Nationalism Is Un-American

by Andrew L. Seidel

Religions, particularly established religions or religions to which a majority of the population ascribe, will nearly always oppose revolution because revolution upsets the status quo in which they are powerful. This also means that religions will usually fight progress, as can be seen across history, from flat-earthers to geocentrists to young earth creationists; from the index of prohibited books to book burnings to declaring one—and only one—book the book of truth; from outlawing pain relief during childbirth to banning contraception to preventing women from taking control of procreation; from exorcisms to opposing vaccines and stem cell research; from validating slavery to enslaving women in the home to prohibiting same sex marriage; to the religious persecution of Socrates, Hypatia, Galileo, Giordano Bruno, Spinoza, and Charles Darwin. Progress threatens religion—this was true for and well known to the founders.