This new edition includes over 650 mordant definitions by Bufe—twice as many as in the original edition—and 40 illustrations by San Francisco artist and filmmaker J. R. Swanson. The definitions skewer such targets as religion, the "right to life" movement, capitalism, marxism, the IRS, politicians of all stripes, and common euphemisms, as well as male-female relations and sexual attitudes, something which Bierce, writing in more conservative times, was not free to do. The book concludes with a lengthy appendix of the best 200 definitions from Bierce's The Devil's Dictionary.

This new edition includes over 650 mordant definitions by Bufe--twice as many as in the original edition--and 40 illustrations by San Francisco artist and filmmaker J. R. Swanson. The definitions skewer such targets as religion, the "right to life" movement, capitalism, marxism, the IRS, politicians of all stripes, and common euphemisms, as well as male-female relations and sexual attitudes, something which Bierce, writing in more conservative times, was not free to do. The book concludes with a lengthy appendix of the best 200 definitions from Bierce's The Devil's Dictionary.

A penetrating account of the religious critics of American liberalism, pluralism, and democracy--from the Revolution until today "A chilling consideration of persistent mutations of American thought still threatening our pluralist democracy."--Kirkus Reviews (starred review) The conversation about the proper role of religion in American public life often revolves around what kind of polity the Founders of the United States envisioned. Advocates of a "Christian America" claim that the Framers intended a nation whose political values and institutions were shaped by Christianity; secularists argue that they designed an enlightened republic where church and state were kept separate. Both sides appeal to the Founding to justify their beliefs about the kind of nation the United States was meant to be or should become. In this book, Jerome E. Copulsky complicates this ongoing public argument by examining a collection of thinkers who, on religious grounds, considered the nation's political ideas illegitimate, its institutions flawed, and its church-state arrangement defective. Beholden to visions of cosmic order and social hierarchy, rejecting the increasing pluralism and secularism of American society, they predicted the collapse of an unrighteous nation and the emergence of a new Christian commonwealth in its stead. By engaging their challenges and interpreting their visions we can better appreciate the perennial temptations of religious illiberalism--as well as the virtues and fragilities of America's liberal democracy.

This compilation of hundreds of biting, witty, cruel, and hilarious definitions combines the best 200 definitions from Ambrose Bierce’s classic The Devil’s Dictionary, with more than 500 definitions from the most humorous and stinging entries in Chaz Bufe’s The American Heretic’s Dictionary. This new edition includes 50 new definitions from Bufe and new biting illustrations by San Francisco artist and filmmaker J. R. Swanson. The Bierce definitions focus on his favorite targets, including religion, jingoism masquerading as patriotism, the “lickspittle” press, the thievery inherent in the American economic system, and the multitude of idiocies and hypocrisies pervading American social and political life. Bufe’s definitions share many of the same targets, but also skewer such contemporary plagues as the “right to life” movement, religious fundamentalism, the IRS, and the puritanically “politically correct.” Bufe also turns a jaundiced eye on both male and female sexual attitudes, something which Bierce, writing in much more conservative times, was not free to do.

The first of its kind, this volume presents fifty formal and informal trials of individuals and institutions that have been labeled as heretical. These are challenging stories of ministers, professors, and laypersons who literally risked their careers and lives for their understanding of religious truths. From Roger Williams and Anne Hutchinson in the colonial period to the latest 1990s casualties in the Southern Baptist Convention, trials from all major periods in American History and from all the major denominations are presented by leading scholars in the study of religious history. Of interest to scholars, students, and the general religious public. In this moving work, Catholic heretics mingle with Baptists and Mormons, female heretics are hanged and banished, and laypersons are dismissed from membership in their beloved church. Heretical professors lay the groundwork for academic freedom in the 20th century. It is evident from these essays that heretics in the American religious tradition have been among the most creative and voluminous contributors to American society. The trials they suffered were costly, but their contributions were vital. Their legacy informs present religious culture in a myriad of ways.