The Freedom From Religion Foundation is giving every member of Congress a copy of a timely new book dispelling the “founding myth” that the United States is a “Christian nation.”
Each senator and representative is receiving a hardcover copy of The Founding Myth: Why Christian Nationalism is Un-American, by Andrew L. Seidel, recently published by Sterling Press. Seidel, an attorney, serves as FFRF’s director of strategic response. The preface is by FFRF Co-President Dan Barker and the foreword is by journalist and author Susan Jacoby.
“The author recounts the legal issues in a lively, lucid fashion accessible to readers unfamiliar with the fine points of either the bible or the Constitution,” Jacoby notes. “Above all, he makes the vital point that when faith is politically weaponized, religion itself ‘is weakened and tainted.’”
The first half of the book examines the historic evolution of the constitutional principle of separation between religion and government. The second half trenchantly examines why the bible itself is full of “un-American” concepts and laws, such as original sin and the concept of hell.
The Founding Myth compares “the principles of Judeo-Christianity and the principles that founded the United States of America,” Seidel writes in the introduction. “The two systems differ and conflict to such a degree that, to put it bluntly, Christianity is un-American.”
Renowned constitutional law scholar and Dean of UC-Berkeley School of Law Erwin Chemerinsky calls The Founding Myth “a beautifully written book that demolishes the myth that American law is based on scripture.”
In a cover letter to members of Congress, FFRF Co-Presidents Dan Barker and Annie Laurie Gaylor write: “We are pleased to provide your congressional office with this groundbreaking resource — chronicling why Christian nationalism is an existential threat to our government of the people, by the people, for the people; and how you can help stop it.”
The cost of the major undertaking was generously underwritten by University of Arkansas Professor Emeritus Brian Bolton, who has funded FFRF’s new Bible Accountability Project.
The Freedom From Religion Foundation is a national nonprofit organization with more than 30,000 members and several chapters across the country. FFRF’s purposes are to protect the constitutional principle of separation between church and state, and to educate the public on matters relating to nontheism.
