How We Became a Nation of Heretics

As the youngest-ever op-ed columnist for the New York Times, Ross Douthat has emerged as one of the most provocative and influential voices of his generation. In Bad Religion he offers a masterful and hard-hitting account of how American Christianity has gone off the rails—and why it threatens to take American society with it.

Bob Brier is an Egyptologist and Professor of Philosophy at the C.W. Post Campus of Long Island University. He received his Bachelor’s degree from Hunter College and Ph.D. in philosophy from The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

From 1981–1996 he was Chairman of the Philosophy Department at C.W. Post Campus of Long Island University. He has served as Director of the National Endowment for the Humanities’ “Egyptology Today” program.

Professor Brier has twice been selected as a Fulbright Scholar and has received LIU’s David Newton Award for Teaching Excellence in recognition of his achievements as a lecturer.

In 1994, Dr. Brier became the first person in 2,000 years to mummify a human cadaver in the ancient Egyptian style. This research was the subject of a National Geographic television special, Mr. Mummy. Dr. Brier is also the host of The Learning Channel’s series The Great Egyptians.

Professor Brier is the author of Ancient Egyptian Magic (1980), Egyptian Mummies (1994), Encyclopedia of Mummies (1998), The Murder of Tutankhamen: A True Story (1998), Daily Life in Ancient Egypt (1999), and numerous scholarly articles.

Teofilo F. Ruiz
University of California at Los Angeles
Ph.D., Princeton University


Teofilo F. Ruiz is a Professor of History and Chair of the department at the University of California at Los Angeles. A student of Joseph R. Strayer, Dr. Ruiz received his Ph.D. from Princeton University in 1974…