"We are not a Judeo-Christian nation."
The Bill Press Pod
BP Pods
4.7 • 601 Ratings
🗓️ 9 July 2019
⏱️ 34 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Rachel Laser, CEO of Americans United for Separation of Church and State, talks with Bill about the misuse of religious freedom to advance racism and how the religious Right is putting a stain on religion, especially for young people. And Bill calls Jerry Falwell, Jr. "a phony Christian."
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hello again and welcome back to the Bill Press Pod. Your place to dive in and explore some of the big issues facing us as Americans. |
| 0:11.9 | And today, an issue that's bedeviled us, yes, and that's the right word, be deviled us since our founding. |
| 0:19.3 | And that is the complex relationship between religion and politics. |
| 0:24.3 | What's the role of each? Is it possible to separate church and state? Are we in fact a |
| 0:30.0 | Judeo-Christian nation? We explore that issue today with Rachel Lazar, who's president and CEO of a great |
| 0:37.0 | organization, Americans United for the separation of church Rachel Lazar, who's president and CEO of a great organization, Americans |
| 0:38.7 | United for the separation of church and state, whose primary purpose is to protect the freedom |
| 0:44.1 | of religion and to protect the wall of separation between church and state. |
| 0:50.5 | Rachel, it's good to see you. Thanks for joining us. Great to be with you. I think when, I know you've heard this before, when a lot of people hear the name, |
| 0:57.5 | Americans United for Separation of Church and State, they immediately think you must be atheist, anti-God, anti-religion. |
| 1:08.0 | Yeah. |
| 1:08.5 | Are you? |
| 1:09.1 | No, no, not at all, quite to the contrary. |
| 1:11.6 | We're a group whose mission is to advance religious freedom for everyone, not just for some |
| 1:17.4 | in this country. |
| 1:18.4 | And what a lot of people don't realize about Americans United is when we were founded 73 years |
| 1:23.2 | ago, we were founded by a bunch of Protestant clergy in Chicago, my hometown, but also involved was the president of the Southern Baptist Convention, Seventh-day Adventists, Seminary Presidents, and other very devout folks. |
| 1:38.3 | So we are rooted in a religious, positive background. |
| 1:43.4 | Yeah, a different day then, of course, when |
| 1:45.6 | U, American United was founded. So the central question, people keep debating and have, I guess, |
| 1:52.4 | from our founding, are, is the United States a Judeo-Christian nation? No, we are not a Judeo-Christian |
| 1:59.3 | nation. If you look in the Constitution, there's not one |
... |
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