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Category: Waldman Writings

The “War” on “Christianity”

The “War” on “Christianity”

Evangelical Christians go from “moral majority” to persecuted minority. Adapted from Sacred Liberty “Christianity is under tremendous siege,” said Donald Trump during the 2016 presidential campaign. “The Christians are being treated horribly because we have nobody to represent the Christians.” Trump pledged that with his election, “the Christians” would at long last have a champion. “As long as I am your president no one is ever going to stop you from practicing your faith or from preaching what’s in your…

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What the Religious Right Gets Right

What the Religious Right Gets Right

Their cries of persecution are exaggerated and mischievous — but they also have some legitimate concerns In Sacred Liberty, I offer loads of examples for how the modern claims of persecution by religious conservatives are exaggerated — and how Donald Trump has weaponized religious freedom concerns to sew division and beat up opponents. But it’s also important to understand that traditional American Christians are not hallucinating when they express concerns about their own religious status and rights. Look at it…

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The Alabama Law Bans Abortion — Except if It’s a Jewish Or Muslim Doctor?

The Alabama Law Bans Abortion — Except if It’s a Jewish Or Muslim Doctor?

The logical conclusion of the current trend toward religious exemptions There may be a strange, implied loophole in the Alabama anti-abortion law – that abortions can be performed … if the doctor is Jewish or Muslim. Here’s the logic.  We are in a moment of history when the courts are leaning in the direction of providing religious exemptions to secular laws.  This was the thrust of the Sisters of the Poor case, when a group of nuns said that they…

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Kill the Indian, Christianize The Man

Kill the Indian, Christianize The Man

The efforts to help Native Americans include the campaign to ban their spiritual practices and convert their children to Christianity. Adapted from Sacred Liberty In 1866, the “good guys” were the Christians who merely wanted to annihilate the Native Americans’ religion. It was a strange turning point in white America’s relationship with the Indians. The Native Americans had been pushed farther west. Disease and war had dramatically reduced their numbers. The buffalo population had been so decimated that the Indian…

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The Witnesses

The Witnesses

A tiny, reviled, and obnoxious American religion forces the nation to define what religious liberty really means. Excerpted from Sacred Liberty Robert Fischer was trying to escape from Litchfield, Illinois, when the mob caught up with him. The crowd pulled him out of his car and started destroying his Jehovah’s Witnesses literature. It was June 16, 1940, war hysteria was mounting, and the residents were livid that Fischer and the other Witnesses refused, as a matter of conscience, to salute…

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Trump’s Record on Religious Freedom

Trump’s Record on Religious Freedom

Believe it or not, I’ve been reluctant to come out swinging about Donald Trump’s record on religious freedom.   It’s not that I don’t have strong opinions (which I’ll soon share).  Frankly, I wanted this book to be encountered as a history book not an “anti-Trump” current events book – a) because it’s not one and b) I really want Trump supporters and/or conservatives to read and absorb the first 90% of the book (before I get to the Trump bits)…

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The Ugly History of Dual-Loyalty Charges

The Ugly History of Dual-Loyalty Charges

Ilhan Omar recently deployed an accusation that’s been used against religious minorities for years. Reprinted from The Atlantic When Representative Ilhan Omar recently complained about “the political influence in this country that says it is okay to push for allegiance to a foreign country,” many noted accurately that she had deployed a trope—dual loyalty—that had been used against Jews for years. But this accusation has a broader history in the United States, having been used against several religious minorities—including Muslims…

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Reviews of Founding Faith

Reviews of Founding Faith

“There is a fierce custody battle going on out there for ownership of the Founding Fathers. Founding Faith strikes me as a major contribution to that debate, a sensible and sophisticated argument that the Founders’ religious convictions defy our current categories….If asked to recommend the best book on this controversial topic, I would choose Founding Faith.” –Joseph Ellis, author of American Creation “Steven Waldman, a veteran journalist and co-founder of Beliefnet.com, a religious web site, surveys the convictions and legacy…

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