"One of America's finest reporters and essayists explores the powerful currents beneath the roiled waters of a nation coming apart. Across the country, men "of God" glorify materialism, a gluttony of the soul, while citing Scripture and preparing for civil war--a firestorm they long for as an absolution and exaltation. Lies, greed, and glorification of war boom through microphones at hipster megachurches that once upon a time might have preached peace...

Examines the many ways that a once-vilified belief system with cultic roots has emerged as one of the fastest-growing religions and entered into the mainstream via television, politics, and popular culture.

"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...

"This book shows how imperialism molded American religion-both the category of religion and the traditions designated as religions-and reveals the multifaceted roles of American religions in structuring, enabling, surviving, and resisting the U.S. Empire"--

"In his Second Inaugural Address, Abraham Lincoln said both North and South "read the same Bible and pray to the same God, and each invokes His aid against the other." Lincoln quoted several biblical texts in this address - which, according to Frederick Douglass, "sounded more like a sermon than a state paper." The Bible, as Lincoln's famous speech illustrated, saturated the Civil War. In this book, James Byrd offers the most thorough analysis yet...

"American life today is consumed by politics. Even our churches are tearing themselves apart over political candidates, cultural flashpoints, and debates about whether certain pastors are vessels for the Holy Spirit or an unholy political agenda. So how should Christians approach our lives in this time of strife and division? How should we engage in politics and respond when we find that our beliefs are at odds with the culture? And how do we keep...