American Gospel

God, the Founding Fathers, and the Making of a Nation

By: Jon Meacham

Narrated by: Grover Gardner

Length: 7 hrs and 5 mins

Publisher's summary

In American Gospel (literally meaning the "good news about America"), New York Times best-selling author Jon Meacham sets the record straight on the history of religion in American public life. As Meacham shows, faith, meaning a belief in a higher power, and the sense that we are God's chosen, has always been at the heart of our national experience, from Jamestown to the Constitutional Convention to the Civil Rights Movement to September 11th. And yet, first and foremost, America is a nation founded upon the principles of liberty and freedom.

Every American is free to exercise his own faith or no faith at all. And so a balance is struck, between public religion and private religion; and religious belief is distinct from morality. As Meacham explains, the well-known "wall" between church and state has always separated private religion from the business of the state, yet religious belief is part of the basic foundation of government. Brilliantly articulating an argument that links the Founding Fathers to an insightful contemporary point of view, American Gospel renews our understanding of history, and what public religion has meant in America, so that we can move beyond today's religious and political extremism toward a truer understanding of the place of faith in American society.

©2006 Jon Meacham (P)2006 Random House, Inc. Random House Audio, a division of Random House, Inc.

Critic reviews

“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)

“An absorbing narrative full of vivid characters and fresh thinking, American Gospel tells how the Founding Fathers - and their successors - struggled with their own religious and political convictions to work out the basic structure for freedom of religion. For me this book was nonstop reading.” (Elaine Pagels, professor of religion, Princeton University, author of Beyond Belief: The Secret Gospel of Thomas)

In God We Trust

American Gospel is a wonderful book. Jon Meacham takes us through each era of American History and shows how our relationship with religion as a society has evolved over time. Most notably, he explains how the founding fathers foresaw their impact on our society, in respects to religion, and how the blueprint should be to ensure complete freedom for all regardless of personal belief.

A Must Read for People of Whatever Faith

Right upfront let me say that I am a fan of John Meacham. He has a dynamic writing style that draws me into whatever story he’s telling.

Also, I am a United Methodist Pastor— a mainline Christian denomination. Mainline churches like mine are populated by people on both sides of the theological and political spectrum. So, I have heard all my ministerial life the extremes of the left and the right when it comes to either attempting to force a Christian faith perspective on society, or do everything one can to exclude Christian influence on society.

Meacham‘s book gives a fantastic overview of the role religion – – particularly Christian faith – – has played in the American story. He also gives a fair and intriguing account of the role of American civil religion in shaping the American experiment.

I always appreciate it when an author addresses a topic in a fully researched, non-sectarian and non-partisan way. That’s what John Meacham has done in this book.

Thoughtful and superbly written, but too delicate for the foolish.

A clear, thoughtful, nuanced, well researched, and (as usual, for Mecham), superbly written account of the history of public religion in the United States. Well worth reading for any literate and moderately educated American. If, however - like many of the reviewers here – you bring to the fray a silly preconception based on your own dogmatic view of faith, don’t waste your money. The topic is too complex for you.

As usual, Grover Gardner’s narration is excellent.

Worth Hearing!

Again, Americans should be reminded of the beginning and the historical impact of that beginning. The Founders intention and the nation's process. Consideration and reflection.

Powerful

American history pure yet not so simple. Look at what religious freedom meant to the founding fathers from their writings, and how that impacts our understanding of our most challenging freedo even to this day. Great listen!

A Sing Song on Religion: An American Tune

American Gospel, by Jon Meacham, presents a balanced case displaying the place of religion in our personal lives and therein projects his discernment of religion’s persistence into our political affairs. He accomplishes the task by surveying situations where religion and political matters have come together in competition with and in support of goodness. He then adds to his storytelling by reiterating short commentaries of persons who were contemporaries of the coming-together occurrences.

At first, the reader may be discombobulated, but hang in there and experience the joy of learning the importance of truth in preserving the Constitutional political system. Our forefathers were well-read in the classics and knew how to apply their erudition. Meachum just tells their story in soft words and meaningful considerations.

A guide for us less devote

I have and continue to be troubled by the dogmas of our current times. I intellectually know that the main difference between the extremism of the past and now is the enormous efficiency of today’s communication.

This is a story about the struggle for balance. My admiration for the author could not reach higher than with this well researched walk through the battles of old to teach us for today.

what you weren't taught in school

Do you think the early settlers on our shores wanted to escape religious intolerance and to plant the seeds of religious liberty? Do you think America was founded to be a "Christian nation"? Do you think the founding "fathers" were men who shared a religious or world view with today's Christian fundamentalists/evangelicals? Think again.

Our history is very much more complex and fascinating than quick yes answers to those questions might suggest. Founded by religious men -- without a doubt. But founded too by deists, by agnostics, by men who felt the divinity of Christ to be an idea created by a corrupt Catholic church.

The author does have a point-of-view, of course, and he's not shy about setting it out. But it's fair to say that his aim is to help readers see through our national myths to the varied religious and intellectual currents that brought the country together.

He does it masterfully -- an engrossing yarn filled with information you didn't hear in school, well told, and well read.

Helpful!

Meacham offers an excellent and accurate and balanced story of religion in America. He offers a true account of how the two forces of faith and politics danced with one another in the history of the nation. Thank God we have good historians like Meacham!

Facts presented in a wonderful telling of history.

As America ages, many become too misinformed by contemporary sources or even too lazy to investigate exactly WHAT good information from historically significant periods really does tell us. Here's a book pertinent to a tremendous number of modern age issues that brings forward FOR us the realities and some of the thinking of our founders and one that does so honestly. Highest recommendations!