American Gospel: God, the Founding Fathers, and the Making of a Nation

The American Gospel - literally, the good news about America - is that religion shapes public life in the US without controlling it. In this vivid book, New York Times bestselling author Jon Meacham tells the human story of how the Founding Fathers viewed faith, and how they ultimately created a nation in which belief in God is a matter of choice. At a time when the US seems divided by extremism, American Gospel draws on the past to offer a new perspective. Meacham recreates the fascinating history of a nation grappling with religion and politics - from John Winthrop’s ‘city on a hill’ sermon to Thomas Jefferson’s Declaration of Independence; from the Revolution to the Civil War; from a proposed nineteenth-century Christian Amendment to the Constitution to Martin Luther King, Jr.‘s call for civil rights; from George Washington to Ronald Reagan. Debates about religion and politics are often more divisive than illuminating. Secularists point to a 'wall of separation between church and state’, while many conservatives act as though the Founding Fathers were apostles in knee britches. As Meacham shows in this brisk narrative, neither extreme has it right. At the heart of the American experiment lies the God of what Benjamin Franklin called ‘public religion’, a God who invests all human beings with inalienable rights while protecting private religion from government interference. It is a great American balancing act. Meacham has written and spoken extensively about religion and politics, and he brings historical authority and a sense of hope to the issue. In his American Gospel, he provides a refreshingly clear, balanced, and wise historical portrait of religion and American politics at exactly the moment when such fairness and understanding are much needed.