Those of us who care to look into history even the slightest can see that both devout Christian laymen and Christian leaders have been make scientific strides for almost two millennia. Some examples will be sited below. In spite of these facts, I often hear claims from secularists along the lines of "Christians may donate to [insert medical cause here], but an atheist is the one who finds the cure to [insert modern medical issue here]." And, similarly, but not the same: "Medieval Christians are responsible for a lack of scientific advancement in that era."
So, if people like Gregor Mendel (https://www.google.com/#q=Gregor+Mendel) and Georges Lemaitre (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Georges_Lema%C3%AEtre) were doing scientific work, why is there this huge misconception that Christianity was against and/or is currently against Scientific discovery? Specifically, my question is, which recent (last 300 years or so) writings can be attributed to creating and perpetuating this divide in spite of historical evidence which supports that devoted Christians did important scientific work in their day, and how have they been so convincing for the general public (on both sides) in spite of all of this readily-available historical evidence?
Note: Perhaps the second part of my question is more opinion-based, but I am interested in some speculation as to why these writings would have such a powerful effect, whether from S.E. users or from another source.