'Is there any question that the United States is a profoundly religious country? A 2002 survey by the Pew Global Attitudes Project found that this was the only developed country in which a majority of residents said that religion played "a very important" role in their lives. People running for offices ranging from dogcatcher to president not only routinely give speeches in churches; they court religious leaders of various faiths and pepper their rhetoric with specific Christian invocations (Democratic presidential frontrunner Sen. Barack Obama has even channeled the King James Bible and declared, "I am confident that we can create a Kingdom right here on Earth").
'Yet as Steven Waldman argues in his persuasive and timely Founding Faith: Providence, Politics & The Birth Of Religious Freedom In America, conversations about religion and its role in politics typically proceed from completely erroneous misconceptions. "The culture wars," writes Waldman, "have so warped our sense of history that we typically have a very limited understanding of how we came to have religious liberty."' (New York Post article).
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