Chapter 1 frames the main empirical question of The Everyday Crusade. By explaining the importance of myth in nation-making and the role of these myths in establishing American nationalism, this chapter explores how the religiously nationalistic ideology of American religious exceptionalism developed and embedded itself in American political and social culture. The authors delineate the ideology’s rich history and its link to restrictive and illiberal attitudes. This chapter reveals the power and persistence of national origin myths, their linkage to ideas about the specialness of America, and how over time they become a banal part of everyday American society.

Is America a chosen city on a hill? What does that commonly used phrase even mean and how does it shape Americans’ understandings of themselves, their neighbors, and their nation’s role in the world? The Everyday Crusade argues that Americans’ answers to these questions are rooted in a national myth that the authors call American religious exceptionalism. This chapter introduces the core questions of this book and provides a preview of the argument and research methodology employed.