Shanny Luft

Shanny Luft teaches religious studies at the University of Wisconsin, Stevens Point. His research interests include religion and popular culture, new religious movements, and American evangelicalism and fundamentalism. He is currently writing a book about evangelical attitudes toward the film industry in the early twentieth century.

(A)theologies, Politics/LawApril 9, 2013

Why Atheists Should Fight For Establishment of State Religion

By Shanny Luft

The debate over the “Defense of Religion Act” in North Carolina played out with the predictability of a sitcom. I offer this modest proposal, then, to remind both sides that if this is a war, then they have fought to a stalemate, and it is time for some new tactics, by which I mean: the history of religion in America demonstrates that the winner of the culture war will be the side that does the opposite of everything they are doing now.