The Atlantic

The American Faith I Was Raised In

Growing up in the Bible Belt, I was taught that Church and state should never have been separate.
Source: Dagli Orti / Getty; Joanne Imperio / The Atlantic

I was raised in a very specific American faith. This American faith is not patriotism, not a love of this country—though it contains some of that. Nor is it Christianity—though it contains some of that too. It is the belief that Church and state should never have been separate in American life, despite all the un-Christian aspects of the Founders, such as their distinctly secular philosophies and their explicit, repeated commitment to that separation. Today’s Christian nationalists have fought for this particular faith over decades.

And that fight paid off when, at the end of June, the Supreme Court released its long-awaited decision in . Joseph Kennedy, a high-school coach, had sued the Bremerton School District for firing him for praying on the field at the conclusion of football games. Prayer in schools, a practice that had been considered illegal since was decided in 1962, was instantly legal again. Conservative-Christian groups did nothing to

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