Michael Knowles, welcome to Within Reason.

Alex, thank you for having me.

We have unfinished business, I think.

The last time I saw you will have been in this cigar bar in Nashville. were out there filming for a Catholic mass

a traditional Latin mass organization and I was something of the token or resident

atheist I say that I mean they treated me very well and I had a very good time

filming this project but I think I might have been the only atheist in the room and so the

the conversation at dinner was really interesting in particular when we briefly got onto the subject of America as a Christian nation,

I think we had about a few sentences each and then swiftly moved on to other things.

So I was hoping we could sort of pick that back up again but do so in the

fine company of my podcast audience. I was hoping that the unfinished business would be

the Scotch and the cigars but I suppose the conversation is fine enough.

So yes, that's a very important question because I know you've been traveling around the

states, but in recent months, this notion of Christian nationalism,

this grand debate over the religious origins of America,

has become the hobby horse of the left.

I think that the Democrats think this will be one of their best chances to really

beat Trump in November. So it's come into prominence and a lot of both sides are making lots of claims that seem dubious and only

lightly related to historical reality, but it reminds one of the line of Ronald Reagan you know

our opponents are not so much ignorant as they know so many things that aren't so

and in America to quote a fellow British atheist, Christopher Hitchens, he observed that Americans just never read history ever.

So unfortunately the consequence of that is that people don't know even our own founding history.

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