Quotes from Katherine Stewart

Christian nationalism pretends to work toward the revival of "traditional values" yet its values contradict the long-established principles and norms of our democracy.

Yet the fundamental difference today is that one party is now beholden to a movement that does not appear to have much respect for representative democracy.

In God We Trust" was adopted as the national motto in 1956;

City on a Hill is able to thrive and grow precisely because so many of its essential expenses are covered by the taxpayer. After all, it did not pay to construct the Coolidge Corner School, nor did it cover any portion of the $120 million renovation. It does not have to purchase furniture, pay the heating bill, or contribute in any meaningful way to the building's ongoing operations and upkeep.

Also in Texas, Allen Beck, the founder of Advantage Academy, a four-campus charter school funded by taxpayers, has said he established the schools in order to bring "the Bible, prayer, and patriotism back into the public school system.

A lightly regulated charter school industry, they realized, could achieve many of the same goals as voucher programs. They could drain funding from traditional public schools, deregulate the education sector, and promote ideological or even religious curricula—all without provoking the kind of resistance that vouchers received.

It would be hard to overestimate the degree of outrage that the threat of losing their tax-advantaged status on account of their segregationism provoked.

The documentation of the Blitz is particularly valuable in that it shows that Christian nationalists have self-consciously embraced a strategy of advancing their goals through deception and indirection.

As the historian and author Randall Balmer writes, "It wasn't until 1979—a full six years after Roe—that evangelical leaders, at the behest of conservative activist Paul Weyrich, seized on abortion not for moral reasons, but as a rallying-cry to deny President Jimmy Carter a second term. Why? Because the anti-abortion crusade was more palatable than the religious right's real motive: protecting segregated schools."33

In order to achieve political unity around abortion, the leaders of the emerging Christian nationalist movement understood, it was also necessary to change the deep frame of American religion. So that is what they set out to do. The modern pro-life religion that dominates America's conservative churches and undergirds a variety of their denominations is a political creation.

the anti-abortion crusade was more palatable than the religious right's real motive: protecting segregated schools.

prominently placed "In God We Trust" signs in every public school building are now mandatory.

We have heard the single-issue, pro-life or -death refrain so many times that we no longer remember a time when America's houses of worship, including conservative ones, tended to approach a vast range of issues that affect our society with the humility and appreciation of their complexity that is their due.

More than half of Detroit's children now attend charters—second in the nation only to New Orleans (and possibly Flint, Michigan)—and 80 percent of these are for-profit.

Betsy DeVos's brother, Erik Prince, founded the private contracting firm Blackwater

How to Think about Vladimir Putin." The latter defends the Russian dictator

Christian nationalism exploits and intensifies inequality, and dominionism is its logical endpoint and the actual engine of the so-called culture wars.

An aim of the movement, it would seem, is to turn houses of worship into the cash machines of the political system by allowing special interests to pour millions of tax-free dollars into churches, which could then turn around and spend like super PACs to elect or defeat candidates.

Are we a nation in which one brand of religion enjoys a place of privilege? Are we a nation of laws—except in cases where the law offends the feelings of those who subscribe to our preferred religion? Will we recognize the equal dignity of all of our citizens? Or are we the kind of society that heaps contempt upon those groups that our national religion happens to despise?

Speaking to the New York Times, Scott Romney, a board member of the civic and social justice organization New Detroit, said that the "point was to raise all schools" but instead "we've had a total and complete collapse of education in this city.

Multiple studies show that increased contraceptive access, including better insurance coverage policies, over-the-counter availability, and comprehensive sex education, dramatically reduces rates of both unintended pregnancy and abortion. If antiabortion activists were truly interested in lowering abortion rates, they would champion such measures. Instead, they support measures that interfere with access.

district schools are shown to outperform charters on important national measures, including SAT scores—even as they accept all students, including those with learning disabilities.

For the evangelical church right now, membership is no longer based on color," Onishi notes. "It is also not really based in religion anymore, either. Your litmus test for religious belonging comes via your political beliefs.

The judicial strategists of the Christian Right claim that all they want is "equal access" and "toleration." But that isn't in fact all they want. They don't want equality; they want control. They don't want toleration; they want the opportunity to practice their intolerance. They don't want their religion to be included in the schools; they want the schools to be absorbed within their religion.