 | |
| Author | Andrew Seidel |
|---|---|
| Subject | Christian nationalism |
| Genre | Non-fiction |
| Publisher | Sterling Publishing |
Publication date | 2019 |
| Pages | 338 |
| ISBN | 978-1-4549-3327-4 |
| OCLC | 1100422366 |
| LC Class | BR520 .S45 2019 |
The Founding Myth: Why Christian Nationalism Is Un-American is a 2019 book by constitutional lawyer Andrew Seidel about the separation of church and state in the United States.
The book began as a law review article by Andrew Seidel, the vice president for strategic communications at Americans United for Separation of Church and State. [1] According to the author, the book attempts to provide historically correct facts and arguments for its positions and those of the separationist side. [2] It rebuts the idea of Christian nationalism. In four parts, Seidel makes his case with reference to the founders and the colonies, the influence of the Bible in the United States, a contrasting of the Ten Commandments and the Constitution, and the use of uniquely American mottoes, such as In God We Trust. [3]
The foreword of the book was written by Susan Jacoby, and the preface by Dan Barker. [3]
The Los Angeles Review of Books called the book "brilliant, ambitious, well-researched, and compelling" and said Seidel presented "strong arguments" against Christian nationalism: that the United States Constitution is "deliberately godless" and that it expressly forbids religious tests for office in Article VI. [4] Publishers Weekly said that it is a "furious debut" providing a "fervent takedown" of Christian Nationalism yet also said "readers who don’t agree with Seidel will dismiss his forceful tone". [5]
In 2019, conservative evangelical pastor Greg Locke burned a copy of the book which Seidel had sent to Locke to review. Locke posted a video of the book burning to his social media accounts. While Seidel sent Locke a copy of the book in hopes of sparking a conversation about the issues in question, Locke admitted beforehand that he had no intention of ever reading the book. Response to the video included many replies expressing the intention to purchase and read the book and to donate copies to libraries, which Locke called an example of the Streisand effect. [6]
Pseudohistory is a form of pseudoscholarship that attempts to distort or misrepresent the historical record, often by employing methods resembling those used in scholarly historical research. The related term cryptohistory is applied to pseudohistory derived from the superstitions intrinsic to occultism. Pseudohistory is related to pseudoscience and pseudoarchaeology, and usage of the terms may occasionally overlap. Although pseudohistory comes in many forms, scholars have identified many features that tend to be common in pseudohistorical works; one example is that the use of pseudohistory is almost always motivated by a contemporary political, religious, or personal agenda. Pseudohistory also frequently presents sensational claims or a big lie about historical facts which would require unwarranted revision of the historical record.
The priesthood of all believers is either the general Christian belief that all Christians form a common priesthood, or, alternatively, the specific Protestant belief that this universal priesthood precludes the ministerial priesthood found in some other churches, including Catholicism and Eastern Orthodoxy.
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Quran desecration is the treatment of the Quran in a way that might be considered insulting.
David Barton is an American evangelical author and political activist for Christian nationalist causes. He is the founder of WallBuilders, LLC, a Texas-based organization that promotes pseudohistory about the religious basis of the United States.
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Timothy James Keller was an American Calvinist pastor, preacher, theologian, and Christian apologist. He was the chairman and co-founder of Redeemer City to City, which trains pastors for service around the world. He was also the founding pastor of Redeemer Presbyterian Church in New York City and the author of The New York Times bestselling books The Prodigal God: Recovering the Heart of the Christian Faith (2008), Prayer: Experiencing Awe and Intimacy with God (2014), and The Reason for God: Belief in an Age of Skepticism (2008). The prequel for the latter is Making Sense of GOD: An Invitation to the Skeptical (2016).
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Christian nationalism is a type of religious nationalism that is affiliated with Christianity. It primarily focuses on the internal politics of society, such as legislating civil and criminal laws that reflect their view of Christianity and the role of religion/s in political and social life.
Gregory A. Boyd is an American theologian, pastor, and author. Boyd is Senior Pastor of Woodland Hills Church in St. Paul, Minnesota and President of Reknew.org. He is one of the leading spokesmen in the growing Neo-Anabaptism movement, which is based in the tradition of Anabaptism and advocates Christian pacifism and a non-violent understanding of God.
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Antidisestablishmentarianism is a position that advocates that a state church should continue to receive government patronage, rather than be disestablished.
National mysticism or mystical nationalism is a form of nationalism which raises the nation to the status of numen or divinity. Its best known instance is Germanic mysticism, which gave rise to occultism under the Third Reich. The idea of the nation as a divine entity was presented by Johann Gottlieb Fichte. National mysticism is closely related to Romantic nationalism, but goes beyond the expounding of romantic sentiment, to a mystical veneration of the nation as a transcendent truth. It often intersects with ethnic nationalism by pseudohistorical assertions about the origins of a given ethnicity.
Dove World Outreach Center is a 50-member non-denominational charismatic Christian church led by pastor Terry Jones and his wife, Sylvia. After spending more than 25 years in Gainesville, Florida, the church sold its 20 acres of property in July 2013 and plans to relocate to Tampa. The church first gained notice during the late 2000s for its public displays and criticism of Islam and gay people, and was designated as a hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center. It became widely known for its pastor's controversial plan to burn Qur'ans on the ninth anniversary of the September 11 attacks.
In July 2010, Terry Jones, the pastor of the Christian Dove World Outreach Center in Gainesville, Florida, U.S., announced he would burn 200 Qurans on the 2010 anniversary of the September 11 attacks. He gained media coverage, resulting in international outrage throughout the Islamic world over his plans and pleas from world leaders to cancel the event. Jones' threat sparked protests in the Middle East and Asia, in which at least 20 people were killed. In early September 2010, Jones cancelled and pledged never to burn a Quran.
Mark David Hall is a professor in Regent University's Robertson School of Government and a Senior Research Fellow at the Center for Religion, Culture & Democracy, an initiative of the First Liberty Institute. Mark is also Distinguished Scholar of Christianity & Public Life at George Fox University, a Seniro Fellow at the Center for the Study of Law and Religion at Emory University, and a Senior Fellow at Baylor University’s Institute for Studies of Religion. In 2022-2023, he was a Garwood Visiting Fellow at Princeton University’s James Madison Program and a Visiting Scholar at the Mercatus Center.
Katherine Stewart is an American journalist and author who often writes about issues related to the separation of church and state, the rise of religious nationalism, and global movements against liberal democracy. Her books include The Good News Club: The Christian Right's Stealth Assault on America's Children (2012) and The Power Worshippers: Inside the Dangerous Rise of Religious Nationalism (2020), which also served as the basis for the documentary film God & Country (2024).
The Bible-Presbyterian Church ("BPC") was a conservative reformed denomination in Singapore. It existed from 1955 to 1988, following the history of the country, as the Bible-Presbyterian Church of Malaya, then the Bible-Presbyterian Church of Singapore and Malaysia, and finally the Bible Presbyterian Church of Singapore ("BPCOS") before the BPCOS dissolved in 1988. Since that time, Bible-Presbyterian churches in Singapore have continued to exist separately. The B-P movement grew out of the Bible Presbyterian Church in the United States. As of 2009, there were 20,000 members in 32 B–P churches in Singapore. The number of B-P churches in Singapore has grown to forty-three as of 2020/21.
Gregory Duane Locke is an American non-denominational evangelical Protestant preacher and pastor. He is the founder of Global Vision Bible Church in Mt. Juliet, Tennessee.