Holy Smoke: How Christianity Smothered the American Dream

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“The US is a bizarre outlier among prosperous and educated nations. On the one hand it is the greatest scientific powerhouse in the world, boasting more than its fair share of the world’s top universities. On the other hand it is a quagmire of religious fanaticism no less ridiculous than the worst that Iran or Pakistan have to offer. The explanation for this strange incongruity must surely be sought in the religious history of the republic. Rick Snedeker’s erudite yet readable book gives us just such a history. And very illuminating it is.” — Richard Dawkins, author of “The God Delusion," in reviewing “Holy Smoke" The Dismantling of Church and State in America Since the first English Christian fundamentalists arrived in the 1600s on the shores of what would become the United States, Christianity has become increasingly embedded in the nation’s social and cultural fabric. This is completely contrary to the Founding Fathers’ original vision of America; it was designed by them to be a secular democratic republic built on evidence-based Enlightenment values, emphatically not religious faith. Indeed, the Founders purposefully intended that a high, strong “wall of separation” keep church and state apart in the new nation, while allowing individual religious freedom untrammeled by government—and vice versa. But Christians with theocratic dreams keep trying to breach the wall. Through their efforts, God is now in evidence everywhere in the country—on our money, in our schools, even in high-level-government officials’ speeches. Freedom of — and from — religion is the American promise to all its people whatever their belief—or disbelief. This is how the Founding Fathers wanted it to be, not the undemocratic theocracy zealous evangelicals are trying to force on American society.