Argued it's central thesis exceptionally well, and would have been an easy 5 star had the author not taken so many detours to (accurately, but unrelated to the main argument) criticize Christianity ( )

Did not finish. I was hoping this book would explain why Christian Nationalists held these beliefs about American principles. Instead, the book reads more like a New Atheist screed that treats "religion", "Christianity", and "Protestantism" as interchangeable, with a concordant loss of explanatory power. Similarly, Seidel seems to uncritically accept the (largely Christian Nationalist) appending of "Judeo-" to "Judeo-Christian values"—an important rhetorical move that also feeds into American evangelical politics in important ways.

Given that the remainder of the book seemed to be a point-by-point rebuttal of specific C.N. beliefs/talking points with similarly medium analytical rigor, I didn't feel a need to finish reading it.

A solid scholarly work on the founding of America, detailing all the ways in which the founders declared that we are not, in fact, a Christian nation. The author uses the founder's own words, because they so eloquently declare what the Christian right is constantly trying to deny - the founders deliberately kept church and state separate, and it was not so much to protect the church as to protect the state. They were aware of the dangers of mingling government and religion, and did their best to forestall such an event. This was true even of most of the religious founders, which demonstrates that it is inadequate to point to the piety (real or supposed) of any founder and assume that means that founder, let alone all of them, wanted us to be tied to any church. Should be required reading, but probably the people who need to read it the most will not. ( )

An important, well written book, logical and factually accurate. My only problem is it's so ... "lawyer-speak," I mean uber dry! I would have given another star if Seidel had simply handed it over to a good, veteran co-author who could have injected a little prose, a little life into it. I mean I've published academic papers and white papers, and your average reader would have said about those works what I just wrote about this book. But the difference is those papers were not intended for general readers but for niche target audiences. That's what this book feels like, but I was under the assumption that this book is intended for wide, general audiences, and I just don't think it'll appeal to your average reader, even for some more specific target audience. The only readers I see this book appealing to are Constitutional lawyers and scholars, a few historians, a number of atheists (preaching to the choir) and possibly a few intellectually curious Christians... But great topic, superb research and arguments to support his thesis. I do hope more people than I anticipate will read it. ( )