Publius' Forum

A Guarded Recommendation -- verges on PC overload- 4 stars

Jon Meacham didn't wear his own religion on his sleeve as he wrote "American Gospel - God, the Founding Fathers, and the Making of a Nation" but he certainly shows his willingness to bow to PC requirements of a supposedly "balanced view" of religion in America -- show religion but denigrate it as often as possible. But I salute him for trying to be less anti-religious than most. After reading the book you understand Meacham to say that religion is responsible for many good things, some bad, and that various Christian religions were seminal in the creation of the United States of America but that we, today, should rejoice that we can dispose of it all.

But, in the reading one gets a feeling of Meacham's schizophrenia over the issue. Perhaps, though, it is a schizophrenia we all feel over this complicated theme. Is this a "Christian nation" or is it secular? Certainly, Meacham takes pains to say that we are not a "Christian nation", but for every time he makes the disclaimer comes dozens of instances that would tend to make that disclaimer somewhat hollow.

I think my biggest complaint about Mr. Meacham is he seems to constantly compare today's mores with those of our pre-founding era settlers and Pilgrims and finding, naturally, those of our forbearers wanting. I know next to nothing about writer Meacham other than he works at Newsweek, but it seems he is not very informed about the various religious creeds of America circa the late 1600's in comparison with those of other western religions of the time and because of that he seems to misunderstand the freedom and liberty that was born here.

For instance, he snarks that it was inconsistent with Christian religious views for Mayflower Pilgrim and colony leader, William Bradford, to rejoice that a particularly profane and troublesome crew member on the ship died en-route to the New World. Meacham says, "It is not exactly Christian to see the death of a man... as a special work of God's providence...” this shows how Meacham misunderstands what Bradford was saying and how his faith, strict as it was, explained such incidents. It wasn't Bradford being "happy" over a death, it was Bradford sanguine that the man deserved his death because of his rejection of God and religion -- emphasis on man's failing, not Bradford's glee. Bradford would have been happier had the man realized his error and came to faith rather than die horribly on a ship at sea, but that the crewman's own misdeeds caused his untimely death was only an affirmation of the truth as far as Bradford and his people were concerned. Meacham takes this wholly out of context and applies modern morality to Bradford, curiously letting the profane and troublesome crewman off the hook entirely.

He also seems to harp on this mythical claim that the religious right somehow wants to reconstitute the Declaration of Independence or the US Constitution into a religious document or to realize the United States as some sort of Biblical kingdom. In this he is bowing to the overheated nonsense from the secular humanists that have already succeeded in rewriting both history and the aforementioned documents to suit their own ends. Meacham's own overheated imagination leads him down this road even as his discoveries of just how infused with religion our nation's leaders and Founders were and are sort of makes his secular fears of religion groundless. The USA has always been able to combine the two ideals, secular government and religious expression, very well and this is one of the things that makes us so great a nation. After all, what American Christian leader has claimed that the USA should be run strictly via Biblical guidelines like some sort of Christian Taliban? Certainly some outspoken Christian leaders more strictly interpret the Bible than others, but all of them are merely advocating for their followers to drive the debate in the public square their own way, just as every other faction of America has a right to do and always has done. No, it is the anti-religious that is out of the ordinary in American history, not the religious, as Meacham so ably demonstrates.

Even though it seems that Meacham has no love for religion, his book is a great exposition of how intertwined religion was with the Founders and the ideas and philosophies they relied upon to create this great country. If you are religious, you will like the facts in this book, if, that is, you are easygoing enough to get past some of Meacham's snarkiness. I feel, though, that if you hate religion you will not like this book at all as it tends to prove claims of "no religion in America" utterly wrong. That he might tend to make both extremes unhappy might mean he has chosen a pretty good road to travel for his theme.

So, if you can live with some of the PCisms (like the centuries old canard of Thomas Jefferson's slave concubine), this book is filled with some wonderful expositions of just where and how religion "fit in" with the founding of the country. It also helps put various Christian sects and ideas into context for those unaware of how varied American religious experience is. Meacham also helpfully disproves the claims that "most of the Founders were Deists" that far too many half read Americans believe. In fact, some of the reviews on Amazon.com proves how too many people who read a book or two can misunderstand the whole question of the Founders and deism. (It is also quite funny that every review that says that the Founders were all Deists seems to have a preponderance of NEGATIVE votes! Perhaps these wayward reviewers might realize it is they, rather, that are ill informed?)

I recommend this book, even if I disagree with some of the author's conclusions or fears.

-By Warner Todd Huston