This is my fourth book by Jon Meacham, and while it might not be my favorite of his, I can confidently say that he has secured his place as a favorite historian. This book explores the role faith played in the founding and shaping of the US, with the hopeful message that our Founding Fathers left us with a tradition of allowing God into politics in a way that was not divisive. He speaks of religious influence on the Founders, The Constitution, and forward--briefly discussing Lincoln and slavery, the Great Depression, the World Wars, Jim Crow, JFK, Johnson/civil rights, Roe vs Wade, Reagan, and the influence of famous religious leaders. Meacham covers a lot of ground quickly. I liked learning about the history of the balance between religious influence and religious freedom in the US, and appreciated how the founding of our country and constitution included both faith and reason. I also appreciated how Meacham differentiated between public religion (e.g., morals and values) and private religion (e.g., Catholicism and Judaism), and how both are needed to build a virtuous country.

-Paradox/Inconsistency - “All of the founders were devoted to liberty but most kept slaves. All were devoted to virtue, but many led complex private lives. All were devoted to the general idea of religion as a force for stability, but more than a few had unconventional personal faiths.”

-Extremism - “If totalitarianism was the great problem of the 20th century, then extremism is, so far, the great problem of the 21st. It need not be this way. Extremism is a powerful alliance of fear and certitude. Complexity and humility are it’s natural foes. Faith and life are essentially mysterious, for neither God nor nature is easily explained or understood.”

-“The wall Jefferson referred to is designed to divide church from state, not religion from politics. Church and state are specific things. The former signifies institutions for believers to congregate and worship in the private sphere. The latter, the collective milieu of civic and political and legal arrangements in which we live in the public sphere. The church is private religion…The specific beliefs, practices, and positions of any faith are protected from government interference by the 1st Amendment, which mandates religious freedom. Yet the Founders consciously allowed a form of what Benjamin Franklin called public religion to take root and flower at the same time they were creating a Republic that valued private religious liberty.”

-“Religion alone did not spare America, but the Founding Fathers’ belief in the divine origin of human rights fundamentally shaped our national character. And by fits and starts, Americans came to see that all people were made in the image of nature's God and were thus naturally entitled to dignity and respect. To argue against a role for faith in politics is essentially futile. The more useful enterprise is to ask first what kind of religion, either public or private, is at work in a given situation and, if it is predominantly private, how much that religious thought or belief ought to shape one's opinion or vote.”

-“According to the Declaration of Independence, rights being protected by the creation of the constitutional system, came from God. In a way, the entire exercise was an act of faith.”

-Lincoln’s covenant - “President Lincoln chose to emancipate the slaves at that particular moment because, he said, he had made a deal with the Almighty…Lincoln called them together and said the slaves were to be freed. He had, he said, made a vow, a covenant, that if God gave us the victory in the approaching battle which had just been fought, he would consider it his duty to move forward in the cause of emancipation…There were times when he felt uncertain how to act. That he had in this way submitted the disposal of matters when the way was not clear to his mind what he should do. God had decided this question in favor of the slave. He was satisfied he was right, was confirmed and strengthened by the vow and its results. His mind was fixed, his decision made.”

-“Where religious liberty is so indivisible that an act against one church is treated as an act against all.”

-“There is no doubt, as we have seen, that the Founders lived in and consciously bequeathed a culture shaped and sustained by public religion. One that was not Christian, or Jewish, or Muslim, or Buddhist, but was simply transcendent, with reverence for the Creator and for nature’s God. To hope, as some secularists do, that faith will one day withdraw from the public sphere…is futile. Humankind could not leave off being religious even if it tried. The impulse is intrinsic. We and God have business with each other and in opening ourselves to his influence, our deepest destiny is fulfilled…The universe takes a turn genuinely, for the worse or for the better, in proportion as each one of us fulfills or evades God's demands.”

-“Such extremists are not Christians but pagans worshipping the gods of self-righteousness and violence rather than the Lord of history and love.”

-“Why, some Christians ask, must the majority be silenced or made to feel as though their beliefs and customs are to go unremarked or uncelebrated simply because a minority, and probably a tiny minority at that, believes something different. One religious reply is that 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.”

One complaint that reveals a shocking weakness in Meacham's thinking - or is a result of intellectual peer pressure: the founding fathers did not get slavery wrong. Exactly the opposite, they got every state to agree to a Constitution that was guaranteed to eventually free the slaves. America was not founded as a monarchy. Half of "the people" would never have joined the Union if the founders demanded an end to slavery. This government is of/by/for "the people." The Constitution freed the slaves, it just took time, and a war, to convince "the people" that it was right to do so. Other than that one complaint, I really enjoyed the book. Excellent prose, and I thoroughly appreciate his middle of the road approach. He communicates the same balance the founders implemented: freedom of conscience. Great read!

This particular book seems incredibly appropriate for the times, but I’m willing to bet the same could be said for most periods of history in the United States. It seems as though there’s quite the division amongst the populous as to what role, if any, the Supreme Creator should play in our government. There are those of the Christian faith (not all Christians, mind you) who believe that all the problems that are nation endures is because we have somehow turned away from God. Once you take God out of schools and government, you can’t reasonably expect anything but a fierce decline in the morale of civilization. Then, there are those of the Godless (again, not all) that think that religion is, in fact, THE cause of all our problems. Once you take God and religion out of the equation, these folks on the fringe seem to think that man is smart enough to resolve his own issues, and life will one day be peachy keen.

Author Jon Meacham believes neither of these extremes, and recognizes what the founding fathers of our country were smart enough to realize. While God is definitely important for the core of our culture, it is imperative that the church and state remain detached. This book isn’t so much an argument of such a position, but rather a reflection of how our brightest, smartest leaders have all realized such an important concept. He doesn’t just focus on the founding fathers, but also on leaders throughout our country’s history that have wisely felt the same way. He includes many instances of when such sentiments were reflected in famous speeches and orations by these leaders.

Extremism, on either side, is never a good thing. Maybe it’s the advent of social media and individuals masking their presence behind e-Walls of anonymity that have made it such a prevailing factor, but it seems as though we’re exposed to more and more rhetoric on both sides. Observe someone making a statement about religion (pro or con) on the World Wide Gossip-Web, and you’ll stir up quite the hornet’s nest.

Calmer heads must prevail, Meacham argues, and fortunately, it seems as though we tend to eventually drift back to the center in the “religion” department. I seem to remember a quote in the book (and to be fair, maybe I heard it somewhere else. Again, it’s been too long since I’ve read this) that makes the comment that if Jesus didn’t force people to love and believe in him, how can a mere mortal man expect to accomplish the same thing?

I found this to be a great book, but I’m sure that there are those on both sides of the religious fence that will be radically opposed to Meacham’s message. It’s a shame that both of these camps can’t see themselves in the mirror when they view their “enemy”.

Just once I wish an historian would study the Treaty of Tripoli so we can (once and for all) stop pretending that America was "founded on christianity". Freaking foolish, and very dangerous.

Meacham makes an argument for an American civil religion, based on the persistence of a generalized non sectarian religiosity in American politics. I was skeptical, having always seen civil religion as being as useful as yesterday’s dishwater, but Meacham convinced me. I’ll never care for the bland nostrums politicians favor, but I see that they function helpfully, acknowledging and approving the inevitable religiosity of the American people without favoring formulas that exclude people.

Lots of good quotes and stories, including Roosevelt’s arguments w Litovsky about including the right to religious freedom in a proclamation of the Allies. Churchill was amused and promised to make him the Archbishop of Canterbury if he lost the next election.

I don't give too many 5 star ratings, but American Gospel was most deserving. This scholarly and thoughtful book about religion in American is a good refresher course in the American history and includes many facts not commonly taught. Starting with the colonists at Jamestown and ending with September 11, Meacham discusses how faith and religion played a part in the founding and development of our country. The last chapter is one of the best essays on the place of religion in America that I have every read. Whether you are a person of faith or not, I highly recommend this book.

Current politicians and all Americans should read this book before stating that the founding fathers established a Christian Nation. They were, for the most part, Christians, but the God of whom they reference in the founding documents of this country is more expansive - Nature's God - allowing the right of religious freedom to be secured by all religions. But for those Americans who believe God or religion should not be part of public discourse, this book isn't going to lend them ammunition to their cause.

I love it when writers do good research! John Meacham never disappoints - cannot wait for his biography on Jefferson coming out in the fall.

In my years as a minister, I came to believe that The United States of America was founded as a Christian nation and, somehow, fell away from the true faith. As most Fundamentalists, I believed that America is the New Israel, chosen by God to be a haven of holiness and a light to the world, the Shining City on a Hill.

It took me years to break out of that mindset. In "American Gospel: God, the Founding Fathers, and the Making of a Nation," Jon Meacham puts order to what I had put together on my own. America was, in fact, founded as a nation where all religions could exist in peace. Americans would be free to worship--or not worship--as they chose, not as dictated by the government.

Freedom of religion had long been a sticking point in America. Roger Williams and Ann Hutchinson were expelled from Massachusetts because the Puritans had established a colony that granted freedom for their own religion, not anyone else's. Later, Virginia law decreed that parents could have their children taken away if they did not baptize their children in the Anglican religion. These an d other stories showed the Founders that, "civil societies dominated by compulsory religious rigidity were unhappy and intolerant, while religious liberty seemed to produce more prosperous, stable, and popular cultures.

The Founders' own views on religion would not track well with the prevailing conservative view of today's American Church. In the treat with Tripoli, President John Adams wrote that America was not founded on the Christian religion. Franklin and Jefferson did not believe in the divinity of Jesus and, "the Holy Trinity was seen as an invention of a corrupt church more interested in temporal power than in true religion."

In the recent Presidential election, religion again became an national issue, from Romney's Mormonism to the religious objections to contraception. Once again, the myth that America was founded as a Christian nation was proffered as truth by the revisionist history of religious ultra-conservatives. "American Gospel" combats this ignorance with clear, well-researched history. Anyone who is repulsed by what is going on in the American church needs to read this book.

Jon Meacham’s book American Gospel is, without a doubt, one of the most disappointing pieces of literature ever assigned to me in all my years of schooling. Upon my initial entry into this text, I believed I would find enjoyment in the take on history this tome had to offer; once I read past the introduction, however, I was sorely mistaken. It does have its strengths, but they are generally outweighed by the numerous and glaring flaws that can serve to cause a disconnect between the reader and the author.

Meacham’s thesis is quite explicit: the most important thing modern America can do for the sake of resolution regarding its multitude of religious controversies is look back on the ripe history of faith in this country and the implications it has had on every era of our nation’s development. This use of the rearview mirror as a lens through which we can examine our own beliefs and personal ideologies regarding religion is the backbone of his work, allowing for a clear, timeline-based structure around which Meacham weaves his narrative.

Structure, however, is something which (beyond the overarching chronology of his chapter-by-chapter themes) seems to be lost on Jon Meacham. In any argumentative piece of literature, evidence should be analyzed, and tied back to the author’s claim. In American Gospel, Meacham regularly quotes important figures in American history on their views regarding many different aspects of faith in society. While there is value in the insight this technique provides into the most prominent characters in our nation’s mythos, these quotes are ripe for analysis, and leave the reader confused when the author sporadically jumps to another quote without first even attempting to connect it back to his thesis. For example, on page 53 Meacham quotes Connecticut’s Code of 1650 (which basically states that all who do not worship a Christian god shall be put to death), a text which could yield pages of analysis into the mindset of its authors. Instead of providing even one line of examination, Meacham immediately inserts an Alexis de Tocqueville quote which basically restates the aforementioned legislature, then starts a new paragraph discussing (instead of region-specific views on faith, like the previous paragraph suggested) the overall American stance on public religion in the 17th century, and spends only a single sentence summarizing it before resorting to a recitation of just short of a paragraph out of Cotton Mather’s book The Wonders of the Invisible World. Throughout chapters 1-5, a true challenge is provided to find paragraphs in which Meacham offers his pure claim on the topic at hand without providing at least one quotation. Paraphrasing, it seems, is lost on this author, although he does quite often rephrase quotes directly after he has included them in his text. This sporadic tendency is repeated throughout the book, and only in brief glimpses does Meacham occasionally offer the reader a refreshing glimpse into what this book could have been.

Now that I have concluded my attempt to articulate my frustrations with this text, I must acknowledge the numerous strengths Meacham exploits in his writing. His writing, when not riddled with non sequiturs, is quite engaging and concise, and makes the reader consider their own point of view on whatever topic he was tackling in each portion of the text. He uses satisfyingly prosaic diction, which allows the intake of his work to feel not like a slog through a textbook but more like a conversation between his arguments and my personal beliefs. In this sense, this book’s greatest value may lie in the fact that, for any reader, it allows an inner dialogue to be opened on the topic of religion, which can lead to increasingly introspective examination of personal beliefs, a powerful complement to Meacham’s narrative on public faith over the last four centuries.

Throughout the book, Meachum suggests that looking back is the only way to efficiently go forward, both as a society and as individuals, often reiterating this claim with statements like, “A grasp of history is essential for Americans of the center who struggle to decide how much weight to assign a religious consideration in a public matter.”(232) He also often discusses the idea that religious impulses are inherent in Americans, and our society will never be uncoupled with religion; on the contrary, he believes that, for the foreseeable future of our nation and its people, faith will be one of the primary components of the public’s most prominent ideological dissents. Personally, I hold similar beliefs to Meacham regarding the importance of history in our personal modern worldview. After all, if a nation is made up of hundreds of millions of people with conflicting ideas and stances on modern issues, there are two things that we all have in common: our humanity and our history. Indeed, our brains make decisions based on memories and experiences, so by this rationale the sole path towards reconciling our differences as a nation is reflection on the public history we share.

Meacham point is an important one and he makes it well. With concise and gripping historical depictions of important American figures from Jefferson to FDR to MLK to Reagan, Meachem is able to clearly define the American civil religion and its essential role in our nation's founding and development. So many of the struggles and debates in politics today are based around virtues deeply rooted in the American story. Faith is not the enemy and never has been. Rather, respecting the role of civil religion, Meachem points us towards how it might be a tool for the future, facing the challenges of today, and fighting the divisive extremism of radical religious and secular factions-and the harmful polarization they contribute to.

As a believer in Jesus, the Bible, and the supremacy of God in all things, I found this book helpful in distinguishing my faith and my duties as a citizen and participant in the American story. The two are not mutually exclusive and my faith is not/cannot/should not be divorced from my civic life. But at the same time I must and should respect the importance of having a civil society in which religious sectarian power is limited in the public sphere and people are free to believe and not beleive as they will. As someone who beliefs that faith in Jesus is the only salvation, this gives me hope. It makes me proud of what our nation can be when at its best and deeply committed to confronting what it often becomes at its worst.

It probably won't come as a surprise that I found Meacham a bit dismissive of aetheism, but this book is very worthwhile just the same. It explains the misperceptions many of us have about the notion of a separation of church and state in the U.S. Meacham argues convincingly that it is practically impossible to separate the two. The Founding Fathers' notion of God-given, or natural rights are fundamental to our understanding of the U.S.

But it is just as incorrect to describe the U.S. as a Christian nation as it is to describe it as a secular nation. It is a republic that guarantees freedom of religion. In that way, it respects all religions equally (including the right not to believe). Meacham illustrates all this with multiple examples over three different centuries of U.S. politics, from pre-1776 to Ronald Reagan.

Really impressive.

Jon Meacham writes a short (250p) book to tell us what the Gospel of the United States is and then measures that gospel against the evangelical church of his day (the book was published in 2006.)

Using plenty of quotes from the likes of Washington, Jefferson, and Lincoln, he demonstrates how the freedom from a state religion does not keep American leaders from being religious nor keep them from drawing from an American Gospel to speak to the populous. In the later sections of the book, he argues that the religious right that sprung up in the wake of Roe vs. Wade does not honor the general American Gospel and threatens the lines between church and state.

It's instructive, at times inspiring, and, in this time, a bit quaint. Partisanship in religion is nearly complete. Walk into any church and it will be either predominantly or unanimously Republican or Democratic. The blows to the church from sexual misconduct have led to a hardening of the church's leaders and a disenchantment by the congregants. Churches are not recruiting new members, some churches are more authoritarian and even fascist-lite. People are losing the binding language of Meacham's discerned gospel, and are suspicious of words that might have worked in times past, but now must be proven through proper signals of allegiance.

One wonders what he thinks about today and if he has any solutions to offer.

Another book with similar purpose, but more detail, is Wills' Head and Heart -- American Christianities pub 2007.