Customer Reviews

Backfired: A Nation Born For Religious Tolerance No Longer Tolerates Religion

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Local St. Louis patriot and statesman William J. Federer writes a book that shows how American religious tolerance has evolved from "Puritans to Protestants to Catholics to Liberal Christians to Jews to Monotheists to Polytheists to All Religions to Atheists, to ONLY POLITICALLY CORRECT"...

He asks questions such as "How did America go from Pilgrims seeking freedom to express their Judeo-Christian beliefs to today's discrimination against those very beliefs in the name of tolerance?"

This book is comprised mostly of primary documents - there are 379 endnotes for the 287 pages! It is a good resource for thinking through the historical development of this concept of tolerance. Mr. Federer has done us a service by compiling these resources together under this theme.

Mr. Federer is a local hero to conservatives - he went against the mighty political machinery and bankroll of Dick Gephardt - 3 times losing in the November election, but 3 times giving us a strong candidate to root for nonetheless.

This is a great starting point for anybody looking to research the founding of the USA and the Christian influence that was indelibly etched in the hearts of the vast majority of our country's founding fathers!

This book excavates long-forgotten and ignored historical documents that refer to Christianity. It is very exhaustive and in-depth. The footnotes section shows you where you can find these documents, so that this book is not your only reference--just where to find the best quotes.

God will get the foolish athiests in the end, for sure, but William J. Federer's book, BACKFIRED: A NATION BORN FOR RELIGIOUS TOLERANCE NO LONGER TOLERATES RELIGION, will help us out, today, to set the record straight.

This book is not perfect. It could use a little more editorial and aesthetic polish. The author is more like a bare-bones editor, introducing the next set of quotes with very minimal fanfare. He lets the quotes speak for themselves, but I wish he would have added a little more background and by-the-way information to make the book a little less dry.

An editor could easily give a writer this book and say, "Here, go write something truthful and good about the Christian influence on the founding of the USA," and the writer would find plenty of ammunition from this book to do a great piece on the topic.

There are definitely some gems to be found, especially when the author quotes the most famous Americans, like George Washington or Thomas Jefferson.

In the case of Thomas Jefferson's historically and hysterically misquoted "separation of church and state" comment that appeared in a PERSONAL letter, (NOT in the First Amendment), but has been the foundation for athiests destroying the Christian influence in our public institutions, via judicial tyranny and activism in our courts; it is especially interesting to see documentation of Jefferson ordering Christian activities on public government property, which today would generate a lawsuit from the highly litigious, immoral, anti-Christian organizations of today.

At any rate, in this day and age in the USA, where fundamental atheism is the (un)official state religious view--to the detriment of our public schools and institutions swearing that the USA has been and must always be a Godless nation; this book puts the truth to the lies of the radical athiest movement.

Fight the Good Fight! Our country got messed up in the last 60 years, largely because good Christians stood silent while the media and atheists told us lies, and nobody spoke out against them. This book will help you speak out against the lies about the founding of the USA.

Get this book to help yourself make more convincing points in the culture wars.

This book was an eye opener and very informative about our nation's Christian heritage being the reason we are tolerate of all religion.

I remember the first time I heard Mr. Federer. He was of the position that it was ok for states to disallow atheists to run for public office or to be even notary publics. This is most ironic because Federer states that his religion led to tolerance of other beliefs. Secularists had to fight for being tolerated in society. Just 150 years ago it was politically correct to imprison someone for the imaginary crime of "blasphemy." I believe that Mr. Federer if alive at that time would probably have defended those kind of laws. There is no free exercise in the bible. In fact worshiping other deities is punishable in the bible, including by death. Hardly a basis for freedom. The fact is, up to 50 years ago Christian conservatives were used to the government actively promoting their religion without restraint. Now that the government is limited in its' promotion of Christianity, men and women like Mr. Federer are angry. I support the right of Christians to freely proclaim their belief but the government must be neutral when it comes to religion. Let the marketplace of ideas decide the question if a deity exists or not.

Interesting read. Too bad it was ruined by including smut, filth, porn. It would have been a great book.

It's funny how intolerant people love to portray themselves as
victims. The author of this book is living in a parallel universe where the US is a country "intolerant of religion".
The reality, of course, is that the US is very tolerant of
religion, and extraordinarily deferential toward the majority
relition, Christianity. Just consider how the American press
(unless the press in most of Europe, including Germany) treated
with kid gloves the new Pope's former Nazi affiliation,
avoiding the indelicacy of suggesting that a soldier who deserts
only AFTER his army has been utterly routed and his Fuehrer has
committed suicide is not exactly a conscientious objector.

Federer claims there is discrimination against religion. The anecdotes and case studies presented, however, hardly show discrimination against
religion; they show the defense of the rights of those
against whom the religious discriminate.

The spoiled members of a religious majority, which has traditionally had its way in making the laws for everyone
else, now objects to not being able to do that (at least, not all the time). The book is fundamentally a long whine along these lines.

Unfortunately, this book only adds to the mass amount of unrealistic and sometimes ridiculous views of conservatives, republicans, and "people of faith". On a further note, Mr. Federer (On a personal level) has more extreme views coming to from the "lovely left wing". In his perfect world, Mr. Federer would set back woman's rights nearly 100 years. Any type of sexual activity outside of marriage would be punishable by the death penalty. And, everyone would firmly believe that Jesus will come back from the dead (A second time) and take only the "good Christians" to heaven. As you can see, I'm exaggerating but, I feel it is necessary to contrast his event more massive exaggerations from the other end of the spectrum. In conclusion, DON'T BUY THIS BOOK! In fact, do an audio search on the comedian George Carlin, he is much more accurate on these issues than Mr. Federer.