Quotes from Stephen R. Prothero

But even if religion makes no sense to you, you need to make sense of religion to to make sense of the world.

the disparity between Americans' veneration of the Bible and their understanding of it, painting a picture of a nation that believes God has spoken in scripture but can't be bothered to listen to what God has to say.

what makes religious folks religious today is not so much that they believe in Jesus' divinity or Buddhism's Four Noble Truths but that they hold certain moral positions on bedroom issues such as premarital sex, homosexuality, and abortion.

Religious illiteracy is more dangerous because religion is the most volatile constituent of culture, because religion has been, in addition to one of the greatest forces for good in world history, one of the greatest forces for evil.

Rebellion to Tyrants is Obedience to God.

you cannot really respect a religion that you do not understand

Why allow John Boehner or Nancy Pelosi to dominate your book group when Jefferson, Lincoln, and King are in the room?

George Gallup has called the United States "a nation of biblical illiterates."8

We are least ourselves when those bodies are stuck in the concrete of a city sidewalk. We are most ourselves when walking through the mountains.

Today the eyes of all people are truly upon us—and our governments, in every branch, at every level, national, state and local, must be as a city upon a hill—constructed and inhabited by men aware of their great trust and their great responsibilities.

were we truly men of dedication—with an honor mortgaged to no single individual or group, and compromised by no private obligation or aim, but devoted solely to serving the public good and the national interest?

Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed.

Americans are both deeply religious and

What, to the American slave, is your 4th of July? I answer: a day that reveals to him, more than all other days in the year, the gross injustice and cruelty to which he is the constant victim.

piety went public in postwar politics: "under God" was written into the Pledge of Allegiance in 1954, and "In God We Trust" became the nation's official motto in 1956.