When I hear the claim that America needs to get back to being a "Christian nation," it makes me uncomfortable, and the reason is that the "gospel" of American public religion and the gospel of true Christianity are two different things. American public religion is based on the "God of Nature" of many of the Founding Fathers; even the Christian ones signed on to a view of the public God of America who is similar to the God of Christianity but does not, at least as far as I can tell, require and mediator. Orthodox Christianity requires a mediator, specifically Jesus Christ. True, Christianity and Christian people played a significant role in the history of our nation; but this has not been at any point in its history a specifically "Christian nation," and I think it is confusing to label it as such.

Meacham's book clearly lays out the history of religion in America and examines the contours of the American Gospel. He is widely read and uses original sources deftly to provide the reader with a clear overview of this important topic.

From George Washington to H.W.R. Bush, Meacham follows the history of religion among our nation's presidents and civic leaders. No matter their personal beliefs, most president's concurred with the founding father's insistence that the government at all levels be separate from religion, whether Catholic, protestant, synagogue, mosque or temple. Yet nearly all professed a "public religion" which informed the morals, values, and dreams of the whole nation. More importantly, the American people have on the whole followed a moderate course, holding to the founding fathers firm belief that "no law respecting an establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof," thus building a wall of separation between Church and State. (Thomas Jefferson). There is an excellent bibliography and appendix. It is only when the extremists on either end of the religious spectrum attempt to attach religion to our legislatures and courts that we are in peril of losing "freedom" of religion.

This book begins with the religious views of the founding fathers and how they wanted to balance public religion with government but continues mentioning many later presidents right up into the Reagan administration illuminating the relationship between religion and politics in American history though solid information, inspiring quotations, and interesting anecdotes.

"The preponderance of historical evidence, however, suggests that the nation was not "Christian" but rather a place of people whose experience with religious violence and the burdens of established churches led them to view religious liberty as one of humankind's natural rights--a right as natural and as significant as those of thought and expression."

This one was a complex reading experience for me. The authors says from the get go that this is not an in-depth history, it is an essay on religion and its role in American public life, and he covers such vast swath of time that by necessity he must skim across the events. I learned a few things I had not known (that Jews settled in the colonies in 1654, that slaves, some of them Muslim, were brought to Jamestown in 1619), and yet I feel that this topic of religion, and the many things in civil life it touches on, required deeper argument and analysis. I found this book both fascinating and frustrating, and also think I might have reacted differently to it if I had read it closer to when it was published, and not now, in 2017.

This is an interesting reflection on the role of religion in public life and government in the United States. Meacham's basic thesis is that the Founding Fathers "got it right." With respect to Jefferson (sometimes referred to as "Jefferson the atheist" in his own time) (page 4): "Jefferson surveyed and staked out an American middle ground between the ferocity of evangelizing Christians on one side and the contempt for religion of secular philosophes on the other. The right would like Jefferson to be a soldier of faith, the left an American Voltaire. He was, depending on the moment, both or neither; he was, in other words, a lot like many of us." Meacham goes on to note that (page 5) "Belief in God is central to the country's experience, yet for the broad center, faith is a matter of choice, not coercion, and the legacy of the Founding is that the sensible center holds."

Meacham is quite critical of the Christian political activists, such as Jerry Falwell, who wish to impose their own religious views on the larger public; on the other hand, he speaks admiringly of Billy Graham, after he ceased politicizing religion, as a better role model.

The book begins with the roots of American history, which includes theocracy and religious intolerance in Massachusetts. Meacham is not sympathetic with this wedding of religion and politics. He is more positive about the experience in Pennsylvania. When he examines the development of the Constitution, he is fairly nuanced in noting that the Founders were religious--but did not want to impose their own faith on all. He author notes how Madison's Federalist # 10, by advocating a large republic, justified a system where no single religious grouping could exercise power over the republic, since there were so many different faiths.

He then traces the role of religion and its linkages to politics over American history. He notes the place of religion for a variety of presidents, from Lincoln onward to contemporary times.

He concludes with the following sentiments (page 243): ". . .a true Christian ought to be more interested in making the life of the world gentle for others than he should be in asserting the dominance of his own faith. . . . If the first shall be last and the last first, then who are Christians to exert power over others by the sword or the purse or the polling place?"

This is an interesting work, making one think about the complex linkages between religion and government. The course of American history provides many examples--good, bad, and ugly--of how this has worked. I am not completely satisfied with Meacham's argument. Some of the narrative seems to drift away from the thesis he is advancing. Many examples are so brief that it is not fully clear how they mesh with his thesis. Nonetheless, in the end, this book is thought-provoking and provides a sensible perspective on the religion-government relationship.

This author does not disappoint! In this work, Meacham explains the positions of the Founding Fathers of the U. S. in deciding matters of government and religion and then shows how, so far at least, those positions have lasted in spite of periodic eruptions of extremism on the right and left. I am thankful for his explanations, his scholarship as reflected in extensive notes and bibliography, and his focus on the importance of history, moderation, and reflection in decisions involving religion and government in the U. S. throughout our country's existence. The work was written in 2006; I wish there was another edition with an updated chapter about the years since. He has included interesting material in an addendum. I particularly enjoyed the listing of Bible verses each President had used in inaugural speeches. Since I am interested in history, government, and religion, this book particularly interested me.

Jon Meacham is, undoubtedly, one of the great historians of his generation. For "American Gospel", he moves his attention away from one particular event or person and focuses on the nation's longtime reckoning with religion in government and vice versa. Meacham makes a strong centrist case for the separation of church and state, spending much time in the early chapters describing the environment in America before the founders and patriots took up pens and arms to fight for liberation against tyranny. He clearly spells out the arguments for and against the 'wall of division' and also presents how god and religion were able to sneak their way into various important documents and institutions. With religion as a longtime flashpoint, Meacham moves on from the revolution and covers how several presidents (Lincoln, both Roosevelts, Carter, Reagan and others) viewed the roll of religion during their administrations. Without spoiling anything, what Meacham finds is that the presidents used religion in small doses, at the right times, without force-feeding it on the country. In other words, they tended to walk a tightrope that allowed them to not be accused of anything beyond looking out for the overall welfare of the country.

Written in 2006, the book is extremely relevant in 2024. It pre-warns us about the dangers of many of the issues in the current presidential election. Dangers that many readers should learn about.

This is a very good book for covering this topic. It covers how the Founding Fathers of the US thought about religion and how the US has had its thoughts evolve about religion and government since its founding.

The Founding Fathers certainly thought religion was important, but not in a fundamentally Christian way. The author flatly states "Properly understood, the God of public religion is no the God of Abraham or God the Father of the Holy Trinity. The Founding Father had ample opportunity to use Christian imagery and language in the Declaration of Independence and Consititution, but did not" (p. 22). This is an important fact that Meacham makes very clear. He also makes it clear that the majority of people in the US have been fine with using religious language in office, so long as it is broad language and really focused on the "God of public religion". This God is "less about veneration of the idea of country and more about the sacred origin of individual rights, the virtue of the populace" (p. 27)

Meacham does a great job of explaining this and talking about the mixture of secualrism and religion in the US. He covers all the way to Ronald Reagan, and I think he makes good points that while we should be en garde against religious intrusion, there is no need to have religious language completely banished from the political sphere. Civil religion has a long history here, and Meacham does a good job of explaining it. I think that he is far more permissive of than I would be when it comes to religion and political overlap.

My largest complaint is that he takes religion as an obvious thing that humans do in a way that is scientifically controversial. For example, he states "Human beings are what scholars refer to as Homo religiosus. We are by nature inclined to look outside ourselves and beyond time and space to a divine power..." (p. 14). The author states variations on this as if it is a known fact of human nature, when my understanding of the literature is that this is very much disputed. This is complicated by the fact that "religion" is difficult to define in a universal enough way that it doesn't encompass basically all cultural belief. He also seems to think that "In God We Trust" and putting "under God" into the Pledge of Allegiance as good things, saying they are "all signs of a vital public religion" (p. 175). I think they are unnecessary, and we'd be better off not making these things official. As a final part of this complaint, let me quote "Humankind could not leave off being being religious even if it tried. The impulse is intrinsic" (p. 233). (Are the Scandinavian countries "religous"? Most of their population claims to not have beliefs. Japan, as well, is rather "atheistic". I think both of these cultures are vibrant and have a great respect for human rights.)

Despite this complaint, the book is well-written and makes an argument that is hard to argue with. The US isn't a Christian nation (in the sense of being founded with Christianity inherent to its government), but it has used religious language and fervor throughout its history. We should keep an eye out for religion pushing too deeply into secular territory, but remember that religion and secularism can't be wholly kept apart in a nation where the majority do believe in God. We should keep these instances of overlap small, and within the civic/public religion bounds (and recognize that the boundary is going to look different for every person).

Jon Meacham's book is an interesting popular history surveying the role of religion in public life from the colonies to 9/11. He argues that understanding the history is important to understanding the concept of "public religion" a non-sectarian reference to a Supreme Being or Providence who was the "Creator" and source of one's inalienable rights referenced in the Declaration of Independence. In the 1950s, the term "Judaic-Christian tradition" became the one commonly used term to reference this "public religion." He applauds the role of the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and other ministers, who led the civil rights movement as an effort to bring the promises of equality in the Declaration of Independence to fruition. On the other hand, he disagrees with evangelicals such as Pat Roberson and Jerry Falwell who seek to impose their religious solutions to issues on the entire public. He wants to see a return to the "center"--which he deems to be the tradition of the Founders--in the role of religion in public life. His examination of history is used to undermine the evangelicals' interpretation of the Founders' faiths. He uses their own words after 9/11 to condemn Robertson and Falwell.

I found his arguments about the Founders' faiths to be consistent with what I previously understood from my training as an historian. He uses public utterances, diaries, and correspondence to support his perspective. It is not a comprehensive examination of all of the Supreme Court cases dealing with religious liberty, though he discusses many of the important ones. For example, he does not discuss the "Flag Salute" cases involving the Jehovah's Witnesses in which the high court reversed itself in 3 years in the 1940s. His argument for the importance of studying history, is a perspective which I certainly endorse.

One reason this is an important work, is that the Supreme Court has two "originalists" on it. One argues that the Constitution needs to be interpreted as the Founders understood it, and another argues that it needs to be interpreted as the people of the time understood it. How does one apply the First Amendment "free exercise" and "establishment" clauses to issues like abortion, stem cell research, and other medical and scientific controversies that even the most far-sighted of our Founders could not foresee?

The sole reason I didn't rate this book with 5 stars is because this is 2020 not 2006. This is an excellent review of the balance between religion and politics, but unfortunately it doesn't hold true today. This is the era of religious tests for appointment to courts at each and every level, and it gets scarier day by day. Selection isn't based upon judicial excellence or even competence, but upon ultra right credentials and support. I'm not suggesting that judicial membership should be religiously neutral. That would be impossible since judges are human with beliefs. But the Trump appointments have been cynically political, and I cringe to imagine what the world will look in the decades beyond my death.

An easy-to-read account on the idea the founding fathers of USA had for this country. That this is to be an open and respectful for any religious beliefs.

Insanely informative, exhaustively researched, and totally readable, this is the story of the United States' relationship with the church, believers, and the unavoidable presence of public religion. Beginning before the Founders set out to achieve a balance between faith and government, the book proceeds chronologically through several presidencies and explores the various chief executives' beliefs and how they addressed issues such as freedom of thought, the emergence of the religious right as a political force, and the use of religion as a source of comfort in times of national travail. Meacham says this book was not meant to be comprehensive, and it isn't; it is really a collection of essays that cover different moments and events in American history and how and why they affected or were affected by public religion.

It would help if the reader already has a basic knowledge of the Revolution and the founding of the US, but even if not, it's an exceedingly interesting read that offers insight into the past and hope for the nation's increasingly pluralistic future.