Product Description
From colonial times into the twentieth century, our laws and court cases ignored atheism, assuming that all good Americans were religious. Americans came to associate atheism with radical social philosophies that advocated violence—especially anarchism and communism. Avowed nonbelievers were derided, even the famous patriot Thomas Paine. Only in the twentieth century, with the passage of laws allowing for conscientious objection to war, did nonbelief enter debates about religious liberty. Still, today every one of the fifty states has God written into its constitution, with eight requiring a belief in God for holding public office. God is everywhere in American public life: on our currency, in the Pledge of Allegiance, and in the national motto. R. Laurence Moore and Isaac Kramnick explore both God's omnipresence and the dramatic rise in nonbelievers that has led to an "atheist awakening" intent on holding the country to its secular principles.
Reviews/Praise
“Godless Citizens in a Godly Republic provides exactly what we need more of from historians but so rarely get: accessible, well-written prose combined with scholarly discipline in the service of a contemporary issue badly in need of light rather than heat.” —Eric Alterman, author of Inequality and One City
Author Bio
R. Laurence Moore is the Howard A. Newman Professor of American Studies at Cornell University. He is also the chair and director of undergraduate studies for the American Studies department. He is the author of Selling God: American Religion in the Marketplace of Culture and Touchdown Jesus: The Mixing of Sacred and Secular in American History.