America’s founding documents, read in their historical context and using standard originalist tools, support constitutional protection for atheism. Properly understood, the “freedom of religion” in the First Amendment is a species of a broader freedom of conscience, and that principle applies whether conscience leads someone to belief or to unbelief. I. The Founding Texts and […]
Category: The Legal and Constitutional Record
The legal record of what happens when Christian nationalism meets the First Amendment. Court cases, statutes, and legal doctrines that show how “religious freedom” has been slowly weaponized—from a shield protecting minority conscience into a sword for majority imposition. Secular government was not an accident; it was a constitutional answer to centuries of religious coercion. Every article in this category gives readers the vocabulary to evaluate Christian nationalist legal claims on their merits and to ask the question the movement tries to dodge: whose freedom, exactly, is this law protecting?
The Ghost in the Machine: Why Christian Natural Law Arguments Are Circular
In public debates over abortion, marriage, and sexuality, many religious advocates invoke “natural law” as if it were a neutral, rational framework accessible to all. But this appeal to universal reason obscures a deeper truth: we are all reasoning within a 2,000-year-old Christian intellectual tradition. What appears to be objective “nature” is often simply the […]
Christian Natural Law – A Theological Framework Disguised as Universal Reason
Summary Christian natural law is often sold as a neutral, rational framework that anyone—religious or not—should be able to accept. It claims to start from “human nature” and “reason” rather than scripture or revelation. But once you look closely, it turns out to rest on specifically Christian assumptions about God, creation, and purpose. It is […]
Why Has The Christian Right Abandoned Persuasion for Government Coercion?
The Family Research Council’s publication, “Biblical Principles for Religious Liberty,” makes a compelling case that faith cannot be coerced and that persuasion, not force, must be Christianity’s method. Yet the same organization spends millions lobbying for laws that do exactly what their theology condemns: using state power to force non-Christians to live according to Christian […]
Why Embracing the First Amendment Shows a Lack of Christian Conviction
While many Christians condemn abortion, LGBT rights, and contraception as sins against biblical law, they remain silent on the First Amendment’s promotion of religious pluralism—despite the fact that it too is a sin against biblical law. The First Commandment is clear: “You shall have no other gods before me” (Exodus 20:3). In Christian theology, this […]
Why Book Bans Are “Absolutely Essential”
Ah, book bans. Truly a shining example of how society protects itself from the dangers of free thought. You see, we humans are so fragile—so easily swayed by the mere sight of a book, or the sound of a sentence that dares to challenge the sacred, unassailable worldview of conservative Christianity. It’s a miracle we […]