The United States has suffered from a romantic attitude toward religious believers, as though they can do no wrong. Were religious institutions and individuals always beneficial to the public, I would not have needed to write this book, and there would be little to add nearly a decade later.

In fact, the public needs this book now more than ever. The headlines confirm it daily: the notion that religion is always a positive is naive. The United Nations recently slammed the Vatican for its relentless failure to protect children; two young radical Muslims killed and disabled runners at the 2013 Boston Marathon; large, for-profit businesses are invoking their owners’ beliefs to impose the cost of their beliefs about contraception on employees; and in some states, businesses run by believers have demanded a right to avoid doing business with homosexuals or same-sex couples.