Taking Back "Religion" from the Far Right

            David Barton, a self-styled historian lauded by the far right, recently made the media rounds for the promotion of his new book The Jefferson Lies.  Barton purports to rehabilitate Thomas Jefferson from his reputation as a Godless secular atheist and claim him for the Christian right.

            Barton is on a mission to convince the nation that far right Christian ideology should dominate American law, politics, and culture.  And diversity-minded Americans, who welcome all Christians and non-Christians into the Great Conversation the Constitution set in motion, are unknowingly giving aid to his cause.  As a result, they are contributing to Barton’s undermining of the legacy of religious pluralism that the founders bequeathed to America.

Obamacare is Not a Threat to Liberty

Once the U.S. Supreme Court found the Affordable Care Act (Obamacare) constitutional, it was no surprise when far right radio, blogs, and cable television claimed that liberty is under attack.  But what kind of liberty is the far right talking about? As I pointed out in my May 6^th blog post, they aren't talking about the liberty of the American founders and the U.S. Constitution.

Taking Back “Liberty” from the Far Right

When politicians and media commentators reject the far right’s social Darwinism conception of freedom, as the President did recently, they often counter by emphasizing prosperity, equality, or fairness.  Those are good things, too, but why cede the mantle of liberty to the far right?

Welcome to America's Sacred Ground...

This blog is a forum to share ideas with readers on current issues from the perspective of "America's Sacred Ground," a term I coined in 2000 (as Jon Meacham noted in his New York Times Book Review on Christmas Day 2005) for the values and political framework on which the American founders grounded the nation. They are not based on strict secularism nor are they based on the interpretation of the founding by the religious right.

Rather, at heart of the nation is religious pluralism, which arises from the values of liberty, equal dignity, conscience, and participation embodied in the founding documents of the United States.

Click here for more information about my books on America's Sacred Ground.  There you can also download my "Introduction to America's Sacred Ground," which is Chapter 1 of Taking Religious Pluralism Seriously: Spiritual Politics on America's Sacred Ground, my co-edited volume with with Jo Renee Formicola.