“Many Americans are unaware of how our ancestors used Christianity to justify subjugating other peoples. Christianity was the heart of the Puritan ideal of a city on a hill, a concept that undergirded the later belief in manifest destiny,which led to genocidal wars against the peoples of our First Nations, the Mexican- American War, and the romantic myths of the Noble South and the Lost Cause. The combination of toxic political ideology, religious fervor, and a belief that one’s views mirror God’s can be used by the faithful to fuel fires of extremism and to blind followers to the evils they commit in the name of their God.”