>> at nine eastern on "after words", in his new book, the fifth gentlemen, former george w. bush administration special advisor first security talks about how to make cyberspace less dangerous. >> there are corporations in america in the pretty secure. are they invulnerable? no. but there are resilient to it. can someone penetrate their net worth? i'm not sure there's no perimeter anymore. can they do real damage to those companies and the answer is, no. >> watch book tv tonight on c-span2. [inaudible conversations] >> i have more microphones appear that i know what to do with. good evening everybody. i am bradley graham i'm a co-owner of politics and prose of long with my wife.

they stand for coming out here on this lovely saturday evening. we are very pleased to have steve waldon to talk about his new book. sacred liberty. it is about religious freedom and what steve calls in the subtitle, america's long, bloodied and ongoing struggle for that freedom. these days we tend to think of a religious freedom as a basic fundamental principle of our democracy and one we take very much for granted. but our country's history as they recount in a fascinating history is filled with examples of religious prosecution. in just the opening pages of his book, he recall stories of ministers brutalizing baptist ministers around the time of the resolution, the american revolution and later catholics and jews from holding office,

the banning of native american spiritual practices, attempts to exterminate women and much more. all of which underscores and despite the first amendment, the struggle to ensure religious freedom in the united states has indeed been challenging and competitors. in the struggle goes on today, reflected in the assaults of muslims and consumes some american christians of their own faith is being persecuted. yet through all this, america has not only been able to establish a large measure of a religious freedom but pursue an approach to religious freedom that is distinct in the world. and of the separation of church and state or the state not facing a single religion but importance of making accommodations in our life for religious practices.

all of these are pretty special in a world where many people still only have limited religious freedom and where most countries have an official government -- government preferred the religion. steve's book is both an inspiring and well researched history of the fight for religious freedom and also a warning against the voices that continue to threaten it. himself husband they can about relightinwriting about religious for years. 20 years ago working for the washington mostly u.s. news and world week. steve cofounded a multifaith website and in 2008 he came out with the founding faith would examine the founding fathers on religion. he'll be in conversation with someone else who has spent a lot

of time in recent years on religion and i know it's familiar to many of you. and the guiding hand of the popular online form of faith is a memoir viewed through spiritual lens that looks back at her own accomplish career as a journalist and author a leading role as the washington social life and celebrated a marriage. >> please join me in welcoming steve wallman and sally quinn's. [applause] >> can you hear me. i wanted to start out by reading

the short e-mail i got this afternoon. mikey weinstein, his father was at the air force academy, he was jewish, he is prosecuted into the air force academy. and he spent most of his life working against prejudice in the military. and he runs religious freedom foundation. so i get these e-mails from him, and his wife has been threatened, his children's lives have been turned, he gets eight male and death threats all the time. and he did send me this this is from an army chaplain. i got this a few minutes ago. it says, i am the chief of the

treaty development division at the u.s. army chaplain center and i was asked to provide the invitation at the fort jackson rainbow pride 5k run on the 15th of june. you can see the pictures on the u.s. army chaplain pictures, it was a great event with 400 intended including the community general and his wife. i was the only chaplain out of 52 attended. ten chaplain students also attended and took part. i am the chaplain for the chaplain officer asic course and there's appeared on shift started to take place. the flight male conservative and misogynistic, homophobic still prevails at the senior levels. the changes coming.

blessings. i thought that was pretty interesting because what he is basically saying, these issues still prevail and that is one of the things, it's so fascinating about steve's book, which is a fabulous book by the way. because the stories are so good. there is so much blood and gore and it's so shocking. >> you say oh my gosh this is awful this person is being prosecuted and then you hear about this guy that he did not say the pledge of allegiance he was going to be castrated and he said go ahead and they did. because he didn't say the pledge of allegiance. jehovah witness. that's right. steve is a book with a few

guidelines and i went to make a couple of comments about that. i want to ask you how we got here from there. except for the physical, particularly in the mage of manson was not so bad. there were a lot of in-line people there and he seems we're headed in the wrong direction. >> i don't know if i agree with that. >> we really have not had religious freedom in any robust sense for most of her history. a lot of the founding myths about this being a religious freedom. at the point of the american

revolution, nine of the 13 states bands jews and catholic from holding office. in the peak moments are fighting for liberty. very recently in the history, quakers were hanged from the common for the crime of being a quaker. you had catholics attack mercilessly early in american history and then in the 19 century. so while there was, a spirit of liberty and obviously the pivot that happened around the time of the constitution is a big deal and a big step in the right direction. with horribly unsuccessful models of religious freedom. >> one of the things that you

say is your final outlet, i want you to explain this, as we go back. the idea of strengthening religious freedom because right now, i think as you can see in this e-mail i just read you, there is still an awful lot of prejudice out there and we see it in the last two years more and more. and it's really frightening and horrifying that we've gotten there. he says one, religious groups must cultivate a heartier all for 11 for all around religious freedom. americans should come to appreciate each person's right to seek god even when they detest the person's ideology. america's democratic values should alter the dna even of ancient religions, eve

evenchristians. they need to understand it's a corporal and religious freedom. that we don't have to love our neighbors, americans should feel more obliged to understand. we should remember that just because certain acts are constitutional it does not being by advanced religious liberty, they need to compromise as well, that is a tough one. lgbtq writes should drop the assumption that everyone opposes same-sex marriage is a bigot. that's a tough one. >> american muslims must continue to lead and we should all develop a sense of respective. >> i meant to the last two years and how we got there. and i want you to go back and talk about the history and what led up to this. when donald trump was running for president and he was elected he was talking about how he was

a wonderful, true christian. and it was quite clear he did not even go to church. but he was trying to get the evangelical vot vote. which he did prayed. >> my favorite version, start to interrupt is his profession. his great christian faith, he said the real reason that his taxes were audited was that he was a strong christian. [laughter] >> that makes sense. [laughter] but anyway, his virtual advisor paula white, who is a representative of the prosperity of gospel, if you make a lot of money god loves you because god wants people to make money and if you're successful that means that god is shining his light on you. and paula white, after trump

said really completely dopey things about religion and christianity. he said he's a baby christian. >> he is just learning how to be a christian. but, you know, he has courted the liberty university and the dobson's and the franklin graham's, although george bush had franklin. he has came out and said is low is an evil religion. and you know, you look today, i think one of the things so shocking, the whole attitude about the lgbtq community and why that should be a religious issue. and i know you're more sympathetic to that than i am. but also anti-semitism is on the rise. there are colts, private clubs

in palm beach and los angeles that do not accept jews. it's unbelievable to think that could be happening in this day and age particularly in palm beach. everywhere you look, i remember when my husband, his best friend was jack kennedy and his parents belong to the somerset club in boston which is a very posh club. ben wanted to take jack kennedy to the somerset club. he was an irish catholic. so that wasn't happening. >> the bigotry against kennedy is about all i knew at the catholic discrimination before i started working on this book. it really was one of the big revelations to meet of the whole research that and take opposes him was so deeply ingrained in the american experiment that it was not about, it was a feature of how america was crated. it was settled as a way against

opposes him. and you cannot really understand the fight over religious freedom of understanding how important that was but anyway, the attacks on kennedy were the end of the line. that was like the last hurrah of anti-catholic sentiment was starting dependent. if you look left in the 1920 election, which was a precursor to that was unbelievable. my favorite one from that, the cartoons that the kkk was handing out that was a picture of the holland tunnel that said this is the tunnel that the vatican built to make it easier for the pope to travel to america to run the country. things like that were happening all the time in the course of the 1928 election. by the 1960s it had started to shift. but it was a good 300 worth of anti-catholic sentiment.

>> one is even's, how they started out and where they ended up now. you basically said, that they were really the ones who fought hardest for religious freedom. and so, there they are. the other issue is islam. >> i make the case that there is no group in american history that did more to advance religious freedom than evangelical christians. and that they are now on the wrong side of fifth street. it starts in the 1760s where there is a massive wave of persecution against baptist and virginia. and really, half of the ministers, half of the baptist ministers in the area of virginia were imprisoned by the

time of the marking revolution. really brutal stuff. a minister on preaching, a minister comes in and takes the button of a whip and jammed it in his mouth, dragged him out to the field and has him beaten. they threw hornets nest and snakes into the churches where the baptists were reaching. really horrible stuff, the reason it was so significant, this all happened away from james madison's house. james mattis obviously very well read person and we tend to be taught in school that his views of the constitution came from understating european history. it was happening right there in his backyard. and he was involved in it. he answered went and defended some of the baptist. the baptists were what we know now call even. that is what they were. what did happen, he's a defender of the baptist, he saw the persecution, the baptist not only were saying were being prosecuted and we shouldn't be, then a theology in a political

view that we should have a separation of church and state. that is biblical. so madison was hearing that. then what happened, there was a very odd amazing political alliance that developed between the evangelicals on one hand and madison and jefferson on the other. these two enlightenment thinkers turns out, when james mattis was running for congress and is congressional ways, patrick henry major he would not get elected, he gerrymandered a district -- >> that was the first time i heard of gerrymandering. >> which jerry was still alive so he can vouch it was a gerrymander. they packed the district with evangelicals taking this would be the end of madison. and so madison had to campaign on evangelicals. and patrick henry and his forces, they put up james monroe

to run for congress against madison. he was tall, dark, handsome. it was not looking good for madison and they were spreading the word that madison no longer cared about religious freedom. even though madison had really thought for the baptist. because he did not want to have a bill of rights, he initially did not want a bill of rights. so he goes to virginia and meets with the baptist leaders and you couldn't argue it's a most consequential campaign promise in a murky history. , if you support me, i will propose a bill of rights, when i get to congress. and he won by a few hundred votes. an proposed the bill of rights bring what became the first amendment. so then there's an alliance between madison and jefferson in the even's and it continues on. >> jefferson was ambassador of france at the time.

>> they were riding back and forth instead of behind the scenes. >> he was poking at madison saying you should do a bill of rights. madison was skeptical. he called it richmond barriers. he had suspicions that they would not do much. so then in the 1820s, and 18 tents, the big compromise was the first nine months, he lost on one of the biggest issues he cared about which is the first amendment did not apply to the states, it only applied to the national government. he tried to make it apply to the states and he lost. so he was very conscience of the first moment. so the next 20 or 30 years yet on state-by-state basis, fights for religious freedom besides the thing that they did at the national government, should we do that here and many of the states said no. in the congregational church for

another 30 years, this is going on case-by-case. but also the second great awakening was happening which was a religious revival, and it basically had the function of knocking down the state establishment to the eve evenevangelical in a moment that was so interesting, madison was an old man, they said how do you think it turned out. and he said great. what was surprising to me, that it is proof the proof was not less persecution, the truth was the first amendment had all the religion that we had. i think the boosters are better the people see more pirates and going to church more. it's basically like a religious

revival. madison he was a hip guy, and very stodgy and temperamentally asserted fellow. was excited by the fact that this religious revivalism going on because it's of literary and regulations that he thought. >> so then the evangelicals were in favor of religious freedom. so how do we get to hear word seems like they stole all of the values in the beliefs and morals. and for one thing, that is for politics. and their behavior seems so unchristian in so many ways and prejudices against gays, and tough on abortion, and i certainly understand people who are antiabortion, i do see that

is a religious issue. but the anti-muslim and the anti-semitism that is growing and really an inability or unwillingness to accept anybody or anything who is unlike them. and except people like donald trump who would think that would represent everything that they do not stand for. >> this is a history, i was pumped into reddit by trump announcing his proposals for muslim man during the campaign. and for setting up the registry for muslims which are both on president. we have never, anther american history we've had a lot of horrible executions, and a lot of horrible leadership read we've never had a presidential

candidate make an attack on a particular religious group on the campaign. that did not happen before. >> this is different from the japanese internment camp, that was not a religious issue. in itsel also different from the migrants today, just many examples of horrible things the president has done. i feel like, the foundation of religious freedom are soaked with gasoline right now. and that the persistence of his attack and what has happened on the internet and concerns of media, there was a poll in 2015 the second only half of republicans were willing to say the -ism should be illegal in america. there were not talking about issues of religious, were talking about some of the fundamental tenets over the just

freedom. and you may think well, i was in some ways, religious freedom is optimistic. like we really have come a long way with a bloodied battle of all these different groups and the sacrifices that people have made. they have worked. and we have purchased through the blood of sacrifice religious freedom and yet you look at something like that and think this could unravel quickly. the consensus is much shallower than i thought it was. on the question of the conservatives christians feeling like they are the persecuted -- >> we went from a moment almost overnight and they went from being the more majority to thinking they were the persecuted minority. a fight the shift in happen really fast. i think the number one thing about excusing it, we also went from a country that is majority christian to one that is not.

the majority white christian to one that is not. we went there in 20 years. that is about a demographic shift that you can imagine and also happen alongside ethnic -- >> a lot is there being threatened. >> i think some of being threatened. yes. i think that is a real visceral emotion to the reaction is that there being threatened. i also think, in the book i say, when talking about the whole issue of christianity being under threat. i say, there is one cup exaggeration, one cup seminar agree and grievance. and we can talk about either one of the. >> i would like to talk about the dell agreement. >> it is this, this is a pitch

but i'll tell you a small three with a member can and we were going to a son's elementary school winter concert. they were adorable and had their khaki pants and button-down shirts and singing don mclean ever comply. do you have faith in god, everybody told you so. everybody told you so? that is not the lyrica. it's if the bible tells you so. but they cut that out. in summit school thought we would hurt somebody's feelings if we say the bible tells you so, so we're going to make it more neutral. and of course to the people who are going to be offended to the word bible but they weren't sensitive to the people they were going to be offended by them deleting the word bible. every once in a while, yum

incidents were overly rigid implementation of separation of church and state leads to religion of having a second-class start. there is a program that the department of education had that gave willing forgiveness to public service jobs except they defined it as not concluding ministers, they said minister is not public service job. that is a case where religion is getting second-class status. for every one of these examples there is tenant on the other side. so that is why i gave the ratios first. but since this is a part that is in washington, d.c. and less understood. i wanted to expand. i think there is an element that is part feeling as secularism risers that the legitimacy of the religious belief and acting out in public square is harder. and feels market strength.

>> yes you talk about this, it was an eisenhower's time that we added, in god we trust on the coin. and we also added the pledge of allegiance, one nation under god. i was only about ten years old and i was outraged at the time. [laughter] thinking i was a baby atheist. >> i was outraged because they pulled sparky. >> i still don't understand why, if were an antireligious that does not talk about christ, i still don't understand why that is acceptable. and i also have a problem with ministers, and you are talking how great it was that we have hindu ministers and hindu thanksgiving ceremonies and prayers in congress.

and my question is, why would you have to have anybody giving prayers in congress? why do you have to have somebody talk about god in congress when you know half of the people are secular at best. so it is not speaking to what will soon be the majority of this country? >> if you don't mind, i want to go back to madison again on this. because there are two ways that madison theory was radical and country. one is the most familiar where he basically said, the religious freedom is to leave religion of loan. that lets to the separation of church and state. it kind of removed role for government. the second part that we understood, he was skeptical about parchment barriers, he said the real thing that will give you religious freedom and preserve it is what he said the multiplicity of said s.

he doesn't get the ink the jefferson does. so, what he meant by that, essentially what now we would sing his parole o pearl is. no one religion will dominate. and he understood that religious freedom is not just from government it's also from other religions and state legislators. so he liked the idea, we tend to think it's about thing but he thanks it's a great thing. he liked when religion splintered and had more. he looked at it as a 19th century progressive economist

would look at the economic field. the way to have this, you have to have a market with rules that enabled you, the big guys will not crush the upstarts. in what madison also believes, and most of the founders did, you want the religious country, they did not want a second country, they thought the success from public was a healthy vibrant religious sphere. so madison would rather have a case where there is a hindu priest in the session of the house of representatives one day and a catholic priest the next day and a rabbi the next day. >> they talked about a creator, even the jefferson took all the religion out of the bible. it seems to me, from jefferson's time, i just wonder during jefferson's time if he would

agreed to say one nation under god or in god we trust. >> that is why i would say anyone who said the founding father believed, whatever the rest of the senses, it is not true. because the founding fathers were not a unitary thing, they were a group of people who disagreed about all sorts of things. i actually think if you're using modern congressional analysis, you can break them down into different caucuses. in enlightenment caucus, jefferson and ben franklin and thomas, they were most into religion, they viewed it as that would interfere with our freedoms. then you had on the other side of the spectrum a traditionalist, those were people happy to have two churches. then you had the religious freedom centrix. this would be like george washington, john adams, madison, to some degree who believed in

separation churches, but also wanted there to be religion in the public square in a religious benediction at the house of representatives. >> and the reason they wanted it was because they felt that morality came from religion. and i don't think that is necessarily, maybe even angelical believed you don't have to be religious to be moral. that's a whole new attitude we have in this country. >> i think there is a lot of things where you can debate with the founding fathers believed about this or that. but i think it's fair to say, the consensus among them, which does not mean we have to believe it, but what was the majority view them was as you said in order to have a republic which was unusual thing and endearing tremendous amount of authority

on regular people and they needed moral guidance. and that was their view. i think that part of why madison was successful was because he breached the different constituencies, he pulled together a coalition that allowed for religion because that is what a lot of people wanted but created the framework that has really worked. i think the reason it has worked better than a place like france, which would be more of the model of secularism enforced, when you enforce secularism that way, it actually ends up leading to discrimination of other sorts. >> it's really answers this of religious freedom. france won't let a woman or they won't let women go swimming in the beach unless you have a bikini.

you have to put on a bathing suit. >> exactly. so that's why i think if you're an atheist you should support the religion model, the religious freedom model that was crafted in america and gives atheist the freedom not to believe. in a way that is much more robust than the french approach to this. >> we were talking about how ten years ago, there was a rise in atheism and people like christopher hitchens and sam harris and daniel denton made the word atheist acceptable and secularism cool or pretty much a part of the norm. i think that has changed things too. people who are secular, i've said before that there will be again president before an atheist president prayed i think that is true. we may see one sooner rather

than later. [laughter] >> as pete buttigieg says my gaydar is not very good but i'm sure we've had others that are gay. >> the point they were making, it is true that under god was not there from the beginning, it was in the 1950s, we tend to think of these things of being a straight line. >> the people that happen to most are dead. >> there is another side of the story and world war ii that i do not know about until i researched the book, one site is yes, this is a period of religiosity. enduring eisenhower under god went into the pledge of allegiance. the progress started, he is religion in his inaugural than any other president has ever h

had. >> this is 70 who do not go to church. this is an amazing thing. but here's the thing that is important to understand. he was combining the notion that there should be a strong american lor equal ism for plurm that did not exist before. >> that was because of world war two. >> everybody gets drafted and they're all in the same and eisenhower said i think every american should have a strong religious belief and i don't care what it is. and he's made fun of for that and it sounds like he has a very good religion. but we live in an important moment because we went from a country that said the heart of

america is religion to the heart of a country of freedom. there are two really different things kids comparing ourselves to the fascist and no when you have the advent of these amazing things called the intolerant trios, these are all the sudden thousands of cases of rabbi and a minister and a priest. >> that's where the joe came in. >> they went around to military breaks and there were thousands of them. they go across the country to do this. and suddenly yeah the term judeo christian which was the same

time and jews were invited to the table in a big way around world war ii in the fight against communism. how to fight the communist to show. it was really significant of roosevelt truman did, they went up to the same page and said we are religious people but we are pluralistic people and that make seem obvious now but that's a real change, a shift from the notion that we were christian nation. but as a matter of presidential authority and rhetoric, that was a huge shift. >> which brings us to donald trump and his use of his own. in a pervasive you. a lot of trump's reporters, islam was an evil religion and it was not true that they would

take over, the terrorists, we should burned down the mosques. i remember after 9/11, with the long con and his wife daisy had a community center, about four blocks from twin towers. they had already started to plan to build a bigger community center with a mosque inside and paula, after them and called them crazy in a mosque at ground zero. it was in at ground zero and it was not a mosque. the absolutely killed it. >> that was the most well-known. and you had communities all over the country diffusing permits for the construction of mosques. this is not just a matter of muslims, the active effort on

the ground and communities to deny some of the basic elements of religion. >> so that was like 9/11, without many years ago. and yet, instead of on the run, ambassador, the injection fastener said i used to be an investor and everybody calls me a muslim ambassador and it was almost overnight. eat sims to me that the pressure against muslims has gotten worse and worse and predictably under trump and i don't know where it is going but it's dangerous. and it's really scary. and what you see is outcome? >> i agree with dangerous and scary but i guess a couple of historical points of context not necessarily in a comforting way, one is, antagonism toward muslim after 9/11 did not go up. there was a pull a couple months

after 9/11 said the approval in america rose in the three months after 9/11. >> i think it was because he positioned the war on terror as being a war against terrorism not against his will. he was criticized by his own party subsequently four. one of the first things he did, was to go to a mosque, the mosque in washington and he preached directly to americans saying you need to be aware that your neighbor, the muslim is not the enemy and they are grieving in the same way that you are grieving. and i think that had a really importanimpact. by 2010 and started to unravel within a few years.

they really accelerated and you started to have things about the anti-sharia movement. >> i would dare anybody who is anti-sharia to explain what that was. because i have no idea. [laughter] >> the anti-sharia which is broadly defined approach to islamic law, the historical matter, if sound so similar to the criticism of catholics in the 1920s into other parts. the whole attack on american muslims, every part, there is like there is a playbook for attacking religious minorities that we've used or people have used throughout making history in the same thing start to come. one, this religion is not really a religion. it's a political system.

it's authoritarian system, it was said about jehovah witnesses, catholics and muslims, why would you go through the trouble of making things like a ridiculous argument that there religion, is not religion and doesn't merit the protection. this is something that has happened over and over again in american history. the second thing, religion is antidemocratic and it's almost like saying it's not that we hate them, they hate us. in the b into a sympathetic. >> muslims hate us. and that is what he says, you will never hear him say i hate muslims, he says muslims hate us. that is laying the ground. so we should not be affording them -- there is another element, they are aliens.

in the religious minority are cast as aliens. in the catholics in the 1830s, when you look at the mass cartoons, the anti-catholic cartoons in the 1870s, the irish catholics were drawn as blacks. they looked like blocks. and that was to double down on the alien nature, if you made it a racial sense. we are also considered to not be white, they were cast as asians. which is funny, because now many comedians have talked about norman's being the widest people on american. [laughter] but they were casted as asians and by the way, they also viewed it as a big threat to religious freedom was immigration, illegal immigration from the porous border of canada and mormons coming across the border to infiltrate communities.

in 1830s when the attack on catholic growing, you have samuel morris who is the inventor of the telegraph, up, up shut your gates. it's time to build walls and fences around the country because these other countries are sending us immigrants who will destroy the country and are not sending us the best people. -- they are sending us in the destroy social systems and they are referring to irish catholics. but the pope was sending an army to destroy america of catholics in the way this works, one of the attacks on catholics, that it was very well to the pope and foreign law. this is amazing in the elliptic

magazine, they wrote this whole article about how a catholic cannot become president because he would have to follow the catholic law. it was word for word. >> and even ben carson has said when he was invited to the catholic, we can never have a muslim president. i certainly would not vote for that. >> and al smith do without. he felt partly with humor by saying could someone please tell me what that is. [laughter] but his point was,. >> also, if you talk to an american catholic, that is not what a ball schism was. in you read one thing at the end, sometimes the american values actually should change

these ancient religions. that is a controversial statement. the reality is, we forced mormons to jettison one of their most important tenets as a condition of them being welcome they had to drop polygamy. catholics would be accepted had to go against the pope, american catholic said, we disagree with the vatican's approach and separation of church and state in the way the vatican did. american muslims are doing the same thing. >> going to finish up with a little bit of -ism in the will take some questions. i still don't understand where there's an absolute raven hatred of muslims come from and that he would want to banish among, he even talked about putting them in camps. he actually said, we might have to do something, and i think the

irony is, watching trump with his arm around mohammed the saudi, they are all muslims. my best friend the best friend d up an american reporter and chop them up into little pieces, you would think trump would say -- and i can't understand why the saudis and the other muslims are thinking in the world of when trump says, he so it's a muslim that he even wants to have a band. could you just hallucinate a little bit on that and the will to questions. >> trump did that because six or seven years before he ran for

president, there was a movement among conservatives, some conservatives, it was considered a small french group initially. in some conservatives were small groups initially to demonize muslims and according to a group, fewer by social media, and by the time trump ran it was not that he found an issue he made up, he found an issue that was resonating or ready -- >> is partly angelica's, but a lot of it is not. it actually fused together a bunch of conservative, and i tried to put this on its head when i talked to evangelical groups, the #.

>> my messages, about his own, no group has done more than evangelicals to religious freedom in american history as a subwoofer. religious freedom is one of america's greatest inventions. i believe that to be true two. and you should feel so proud about the history of what evangelicals have done to promote religious freedom, now on the wrong side of history and your attacks on muslims and at exactly the moment that you are wanting other people to be more sympathetic, you are saying you are being prosecuted in your religious right to be triple, and you want people to hear that with an open mind, that's attacks on the another group. in one of the most important beneficial things that can happen to strengthen the

american freedom, the 21st century of evangelical to learn the history of 18th century then the 19th century evangelicals in the leadership around religious freedom. which would involve defending the rights of muslims instead of leading the charge. >> five words or less, are you optimistic about this? [laughter] i am basically optimistic about the false trajectory. [laughter] >> i am very worried about the erosion of religious freedom even though we've come a really long way and i think one of the things that has to happen for this to be secure, not only conservatives that we look at differently, the liberals need to start caring about religious freedom to. >> thank you.

[applause] i learned a lot from reading this book and more talking to steve. are there any questions? >> christians have issues like hobby lobby, are they creating problems for themselves when groups muslims or jews or the stepanek temple which is one of the religious beliefs of woman's right to abortion. >> it's a great question, you could actually rerun history into the progressive groups great problems for themselves in the 1960s and 70s when they pioneered this argument that is now being used by the religious christians prayed just to unpack

that, this is basically, yeah religious conservatives make an argument that their rights are being infringed. that legal argument was invented by jehovah witnesses in the native american church in cases that happen during the 60s and 70s where they said, before that, you define religious freedom of being an active persecution. and that was it. but then they started around world war ii started to be a new argument they came to the table. there was a very secular neutral law that said, if you are fired because you refuse to work on the day your employer says he after work, you cannot get an appointment benefits. and then they said he wanted me too work on saturday in our sabbath is on saturday, not sunday. in the supreme court ruled in favor and it was the birth of the approach, not only should we have persecution, we should bend over backwards to accommodate

the religious practices of americans in one you hear a lot, people should have to choose between the law in their faith. flashforward, you have all sorts of exemptions that come about as a result of that. we all agree that catholic hospital should not be forced to participate in abortion or quakers should not have to be drafted if there is a draft. we start to get used to the idea that it's not just about having prosecution, you should not be forced to do things that go against your religious. this is codified by the state law. most of the history was used by progressive groups to defend religious minorities. with the cases you are talking about, the hobby lobby case, christians started to think a religious minority and litigate like a religious minority. they took the tools that a been pioneered by progressive and

they started using it. so depends what side you're looking at it. i think it's true that progressives use those arguments just as conservatives use. and you end up with a fascinating case, i love it when it gets scrambled and you can't tell from your scorecard who use postal work for. it's a tough situation, how far do we bend over backwards to accommodate religious people before religious freedom itself starts to be saved and be an excuse for this rumination or an excuse for people coming up with excuses to get out of religious basis. >> thank you. when i look at the 1 dollar bill i am reminded, i wondered if you could talk about why it was that a secret religious society had so much power of what that was

in the formation of this country? >> i think you had a positive impact on religious freedom because a lot of the founders were taught about judaism through masonary. masonary is based on the building of the first temple, that is like the construct that makes you a mason. the whole theology was built around that. a lot of the rituals, at least at that moment, yet to be really specific of a time. because apparently they changed a lot and meant different things in different areas. but again the moment of the founding father and kind of an aligning group, they taught

about the old testament and they taught about power, it was a sophisticated thing that people do. i don't know why but i think it oddly enough had a net positive impact. >> one more question. >> we had the second awakening, we had the first. would you give some background about franklin in the religious freedom and political freedom coming at the time which is great 23's later. >> the first great awakening in the 1740s, there is a really strong argument that that was a first religious revival, that had an important impact on the american revolution, that was when americans taught how to reveal against powerful institutions. in that case it was the church of england that they were rebelling against.

there's an amazing moment that proves the point where benedict arnold, is asked by george washington, this is when they were still on good terms to go up to canada and lead the charge, that is when they got canada to support us and also the back story, one of the things that washington did is that he got the continental army to stop making fun of catholics. in washington said, we are trained to get the support of france and canada, we should stop bringing up the pope and he said, benedict arnold on a mission to woo the catholics and back. benedict arnold decides to stop at the grave, the minister led, the great revival in the 1740s, they exhumed the poor

guy, open the casket and cut off a piece of the clothing as a keepsake to take them with the on their trip to canada. because he was very revolutionary and he was a fighter for freedom. we tell of him as a religious leader, but he had an impact. in effect, it led to, it proves the point that there has often been a case where in american history religious revivals have actually led to more political freedom, that may seem odd in the modern context but throughout american history religious crusades have led to more religious freedom. >> thank you so much. [applause] you are terrific. thank you all for coming.

[applause] >> the copies are available at the checkout desperat desk. can you please fold a preacheup yourtariffs. nechairs. >> book to become a television for serious readers. [inaudible conversations] >> all right, we are about to get the event started. thank you also much for coming. we are a packed house tonight. hello and welcome. we're really excited to host an event tonight around, we have been to patient. almost a key part of it tonight. will be reading from the kitchen readers