Blasphemy: How the Religious Right is Hijacking the Declaration of Independence - Hardcover

Why would some of America's best-known religious and political leaders launch a campaign to knowingly distort the history, nature, and intent of one of our most precious national documents——the Declaration of Independence? Why would they seek to convert our Declaration into a baptismal certificate? How can they claim that Thomas Jefferson, who expressly rejected the divinity of Jesus and the notion that the Bible is the word of God, was the author of a Christian proclamation that, far from establishing the people as the ultimate source of political power, forms a bridge between the Bible and the Constitution?

In Blasphemy, the #1 New York Times bestselling author Alan Dershowitz proves that the Religious Right is misusing the Declaration of Independence in its drive to Christianize America. He demonstrates that repeated claims by Jerry Falwell, Pat Robertson, Alan Keyes, and others alleging the Declaration to be a Christian document are both easily disproved and deliberately aimed to mislead.

Dershowitz also reveals the motive behind this mendacity: if the Religious Right can convince enough gullible Americans that the United States was founded as a Christian nation, they can require religious control of public schools, federal funding of churches and church-based programs, religious tests for elected and appointed officials, and much more. Using the Religious Right's own public statements as evidence, Dershowitz shows conclusively that Falwell and Robertson and their followers are fervently opposed to such fundamental American values as tolerance, religious freedom, personal choice, and even democracy itself.

Quoting freely from Jefferson's many writings on religion and citing his public stances on issues such as school prayer and public funding of religious activities, Dershowitz deftly demonstrates that Jefferson was a strong advocate of church/state separation. He reveals why President John Adams, a member of the committee that drafted the Declaration, signed a treaty flatly stating that the United States was not in any way a Christian nation. In addition, he explains why even devoutly Christian delegates to the Continental Congress, having experienced firsthand the tyrannical nature of state-sponsored religion, willingly approved the Declaration's unequivocal establishment of a government based on separation of church and state.

It is more than ironic that the Declaration——which was intended to free us from the yoke of "monkish ignorance"——should be invoked in favor of a Christian America. Providing expert arguments and copious documentation to disprove this grave distortion, Alan Dershowitz is as commanding——and compelling——as ever on the front lines in the defense of the American system of government and individual liberties.

"This is an engaging refutation of an insidious form of 'political correctness' of the right—the nonsensical idea that our country was founded on Christian principles. Anyone, left or right, who admires the foundations of American democracy will enjoy this spirited reminder of the Founding Fathers' true genius."
—Steven Pinker, Johnstone Professor, Harvard University author of The Language Instinct, The Blank Slate, and The Stuff of Thought

"The wall of separation between church and state is one of the great barriers to religious tyranny. Among the wall's most articulate defenders is Dershowitz, who shows in this readable book why the authors of our Declaration feared theocracy and favored democracy."
—Nadine Strossen, Professor of Law at New York Law School and President of the American Civil Liberties Union

"Blasphemy proves that many Christians are as deliberately bewildered about the history of our nation as they are about the evolution of life on this planet. Dershowitz has done a great service in rescuing Jefferson, Adams, and the other Founding Fathers from the religious delusions of the Christian Right. This book will strike a great blow to the forces of theocracy in the United States."
—Sam Harris, author of the New York Times bestsellers The End of Faith and Letter to a Christian Nation

"Right wing Christian zealots don't know Thomas Jefferson from Jefferson Starship. The assertion that our Declaration of Independence is a Christian document is absurd. Colonists fled Europe to escape religious persecution, not to be controlled by a different religion. Dershowitz proves that Jefferson and his compatriots purposely built a wall between Church and State that the Religious Right is now attempting to destroy. If conservative Christians are successful at shoving God down our throats, the end of democracy as we know it will soon follow."
—U.S. Congressman Pete Stark (D-CA)

"Blasphemy is a brilliant, well-researched critique of the Religious Right's 'Christian Nation' mythology and its misuse of the American historical record. Just as significant, Professor Dershowitz illuminates the open hostility and vitriol this movement routinely exhibits toward all, religious or secular, who dare to challenge its faulty conclusions."
—Barry W. Lynn, Executive Director, Americans United for Separation of Church and State