The Americanized Gospel

Author : Jon Meacham
Publisher : Random House
ISBN 13 : 1588365778
Total Pages : 443 pages
Book Rating : 4.74/5 ( download)

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Download or read book American Gospel written by Jon Meacham and published by Random House. This book was released on 2007-03-20 with total page 443 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • Pulitzer Prize-winning author Jon Meacham reveals 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 our country seems divided by extremism, American Gospel draws on the past to offer a new perspective. Meacham re-creates 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, and it has served us well. Meacham has written and spoken extensively about religion and politics, and he brings historical authority and a sense of hope to the issue. American Gospel makes it compellingly clear that the nation’s best chance of summoning what Lincoln called “the better angels of our nature” lies in recovering the spirit and sense of the Founding. In looking back, we may find the light to lead us forward. Praise for American Gospel “In his American Gospel, Jon Meacham 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. Anyone who doubts the relevance of history to our own time has only to read this exceptional book.”—David McCullough, author of 1776 “Jon Meacham has given us an insightful and eloquent account of the spiritual foundation of the early days of the American republic. It is especially instructive reading at a time when the nation is at once engaged in and deeply divided on the question of religion and its place in public life.”—Tom Brokaw, author of The Greatest Generation

Author : Erik Reece
Publisher : Penguin
ISBN 13 : 9781594488597
Total Pages : 248 pages
Book Rating : 4.92/5 ( download)

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Download or read book An American Gospel written by Erik Reece and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2009 with total page 248 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Erik Reece's grandfather was a Bible-thumping, fire-and-brimstone Baptist preacher. He loved to hunt and fish and explore the Kentucky woods, but for him, existence on this earth was about denying the pleasures of this life in preparation for the next. Erik's father was a Baptist minister, too. But at the age of thirty-three-not coincidentally, Jesus' age when he was crucified- Erik's father violently took his own life, and Erik ended up spending much of his childhood in the care of his grandparents. So, while Erik grew up with a conflicted relationship with Christianity, he also grew up with an acute awareness of a part of the country suffering ongoing economic, environmental, and even spiritual collapse. When he himself neared age thirty-three, he found unexpected comfort and guidance in his intellectual hero Thomas Jefferson's famous Jefferson Bible, especially when he began to track similarities between it and the Zen-like message of the Gospel of Thomas. Inspired, he undertook what would become a spiritual and literary quest-to identify an "American gospel" coursing through the work of both great and forgotten American geniuses, from William Byrd to Walt Whitman to William James to Lynn Margulis. In synthesizing that gospel-one that prizes the pleasures and glories of this earth-Reece began to find a way to a spiritual and intellectual peace with his own American soul.

Author : John M. Jerpe
Publisher : Wipf and Stock Publishers
ISBN 13 :
Total Pages : 79 pages
Book Rating : 4.30/5 ( download)

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Download or read book The Americanized Gospel written by John M. Jerpe and published by Wipf and Stock Publishers. This book was released on 2024-04-01 with total page 79 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this book I have tried to raise the awareness of mainly working Catholics regarding the spiritual pitfalls of excessive nationalism. Nationalism in this book is not synonymous with patriotism. Nationalism, carried to its natural conclusion, amounts to the “de facto worship” of the nation state. In our current state of collective anxiety, we can and will be easily victimized.

Author : Richard Kyle
Publisher : Routledge
ISBN 13 : 1351321676
Total Pages : 353 pages
Book Rating : 4.79/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Evangelicalism written by Richard Kyle and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2017-09-20 with total page 353 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Most forms of religion are best understood in the con- text of their relationship with the surrounding culture. This may be particularly true in the United States. Certainly immigrant Catholicism became Americanized; mainstream Protestantism accommodated itself to the modern world; and Reform Judaism is at home in American society. In Evangelicalism, Richard Kyle explores paradoxical adjustments and transformations in the relationship between conservative Protestant Evangelicalism and contemporary American culture. Evangelicals have resisted many aspects of the modern world, but Kyle focuses on what he considers their romance with popular culture. Kyle sees this as an Americanized Christianity rather than a Christian America, but the two are so intertwined that it is difficult to discern the difference between them. Instead, in what has become a vicious self-serving cycle, Evangelicals have baptized and sanctified secular culture in order to be considered culturally relevant, thus increasing their numbers and success within abundantly populous and populist-driven American society. In doing so, Evangelicalism has become a middle-class movement, one that dominates America's culture, and unabashedly populist. Many Evangelicals view America as God's chosen nation, thus sanctifying American culture, consumerism, and middle-class values. Kyle believes Evangelicals have served themselves well in consciously and deliberately adjusting their faith to popular culture. Yet he also thinks Evangelicals may have compromised themselves and their future in the process, so heavily borrowing from the popular culture that in many respects the Evangelical subculture has become secularism with a light gilding of Christianity. If so, he asks, can Evangelicalism survive its own popularity and reaffirm its religious origins, or will it assimilate and be absorbed into what was once known as the Great American Melting Pot of religions and cultures? Will the Gospel of the American dream ultimately engulf and destroy the Gospel of Evangelical success in America? This thoughtful and thought-provoking volume will interest anyone concerned with the modern-day success of the Evangelical movement in America and the aspirations and fate of its faithful.

Author : Brian Dewey
Publisher : CreateSpace
ISBN 13 : 9781514120439
Total Pages : 172 pages
Book Rating : 4.37/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Americanity written by Brian Dewey and published by CreateSpace. This book was released on 2015-06-06 with total page 172 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Americanity: How the American Church Tamed Christianity. What is the Gospel? The Gospel is the power of hope, redemption, freedom, joy and LIFE that is found in, and given to us by, Christ. It brings light where there is darkness, healing where there is brokeness and life where there is death. When we are united with him, he changes us. He enables our lives to be transformed. Made new. Lives that are redemptively different. Biblical Christianity, the Gospel that Jesus proclaimed, is what offers us such a living and vibrant faith. However, it seems that the American church has dulled down the power of the Gospel and tamed its followers. It has taught a similar gospel, and sometimes the two are the same, but sometimes they are drastically different. For those of us who have grown up in the church, the American gospel is so closely tied to the Gospel of Christ that it can be painfully difficult to separate the two. It is almost impossible to discern between God's will and the American dream; between following the good Master and following good morals; between affectionately loving Christ and passionately knowing Biblical facts. And, when faced with the two, the American gospel is much easier and even more appealing than the one Jesus proclaimed. When you blend the dreams, traditions and values of America with the message, values and life of the Gospel, you get something that only vaguely resembles the kingdom of God: a kingdom devoid of the heart of its King. What you get is not Christianity, but rather Americanity. Americanity takes a look at the heart of the gospel and compares it with the beliefs and practices of what the average American Christian is taught. The goal is to reveal the gap between the gospel of Christ and the American church; challenge the ways in which we believe and practice our faith; and to encourage followers of Christ that there is more to life and faith than what we have experienced. The true gospel brings abundant LIFE!

Author : John M. Jerpe
Publisher : Wipf and Stock Publishers
ISBN 13 :
Total Pages : 79 pages
Book Rating : 4.54/5 ( download)

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Download or read book The Americanized Gospel written by John M. Jerpe and published by Wipf and Stock Publishers. This book was released on 2024-04-01 with total page 79 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this book I have tried to raise the awareness of mainly working Catholics regarding the spiritual pitfalls of excessive nationalism. Nationalism in this book is not synonymous with patriotism. Nationalism, carried to its natural conclusion, amounts to the “de facto worship” of the nation state. In our current state of collective anxiety, we can and will be easily victimized.

Author : David Dark
Publisher : Westminster John Knox Press
ISBN 13 : 1611649382
Total Pages : 190 pages
Book Rating : 4.83/5 ( download)

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Download or read book The Possibility of America written by David Dark and published by Westminster John Knox Press. This book was released on 2019-04-09 with total page 190 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Published in the years following 9/11, David Darks book The Gospel according to America warned American Christianity about the false worship that conflates love of country with love of God. It delved deeply into the political divide that had gripped the country and the cultural captivity into which so many American churches had fallen. In our current political season, the problems Dark identified have blossomed. The assessment he brought to these problems and the creative resources for resisting them are now more important than ever. Into this new political landscape and expanding on the analysis of The Gospel according to America, Dark offers The Possibility of America: How the Gospel Can Mend Our God-Blessed, God-Forsaken Land. Dark expands his vision of a fractured yet redeemable American Christianity, bringing his signature mix of theological, cultural, and political analysis to white supremacy, evangelical surrender, and other problems of the Trump era.

Author : Ronald Cedric White
Publisher : Temple University Press
ISBN 13 : 9780877220848
Total Pages : 330 pages
Book Rating : 4.40/5 ( download)

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Download or read book The Social Gospel written by Ronald Cedric White and published by Temple University Press. This book was released on 1976 with total page 330 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Author note: Ronald C. White, Jr. is Chaplain and Assistant Professor of Religion at Whitworth College in Spokane, Washington. >P>C. Howard Hopkins is Professor of History Emeritus at Rider College and Director of the John R. Mott Biography Project. He is the author of The Rise of the Social Gospel in American Protestantism.

Author : William A. Dyrness
Publisher : Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing
ISBN 13 : 9780802804372
Total Pages : 184 pages
Book Rating : 4.73/5 ( download)

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Download or read book How Does America Hear the Gospel? written by William A. Dyrness and published by Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing. This book was released on 1989 with total page 184 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This is a print on demand book and is therefore non- returnable. In this book Dyrness explores the relationship between the biblical gospel and American culture. He shows how three dominant American cultural values -- pragmatism, optimism, and individualism -- have both a positive and negative impact on our Christian discipleship, looks at Walter Rauschenbusch and Robert Schuller as case studies, and sets out a distinctively American way of appropriating the gospel.

Author : Thomas E. Bergler
Publisher : Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing
ISBN 13 : 146744202X
Total Pages : 189 pages
Book Rating : 4.22/5 ( download)

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Download or read book From Here to Maturity written by Thomas E. Bergler and published by Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing. This book was released on 2014-11-27 with total page 189 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Expert guidance on how to grow up in Christ This book is a follow-up to Thomas Bergler’s acclaimed work The Juvenilization of American Christianity, which documents how church youth ministries over the past several decades have contributed to a process of adolescent spiritual traits becoming accepted and even celebrated by Christians of all ages. This “juvenilization” in the church is a real problem that must be addressed, says Bergler, and in his new book he addresses it head-on. Bergler’s From Here to Maturity is an accessible guide for helping both individuals and whole faith communities to grow spiritually. Bergler claims that spiritual maturity -- defined as “basic competence in the Christian life” -- is both desirable and attainable, and he effectively presents a biblical theology of spiritual maturity, identifying its traits from pertinent New Testament passages. Adapting Dallas Willard’s model of spiritual formation and applying it to congregational life, Bergler offers a wealth of practical, research-based guidance as to how Christian leaders can effectively foster spiritual maturity in their congregations. He also identifies six key faith-sustaining factors and provides a system for evaluating a church’s state of spiritual maturity and steps for improving it. Ecumenically friendly, From Here to Maturity will be useful to individuals and leaders from many different churches and theological traditions.