One Nation Under God?: Christian Faith and Political Action in America

Mark Noll addresses a difficult topic in One Nation Under God? Christian Faith and Political Action in America (San Francisco: Harper & Row, Publishers, c. 1988). In part he provides valuable historical vignettes, indicating the delicate relationship between politics and religion in this country. In part he voices his concern for any "civil religion" which reduces historical orthodoxy to some hybrid of patriotic sentimentality. Conjoined, both of Noll's concerns, provide valuable insight into the nature of our nation. His thesis is this: ". . . Christian values have often served to strengthen this country. At the same time, the history of America also shows that Christian values to the most good for a nation when believers remember the difference between God's kingdom and their country, and also recall that only the Kingdom is forever" (p. ix). In Part One, "Perspective," Noll wonders, first, if it's legitimate to consider America a Christian nation and, second, if the Reformed tradition is the main "Christian" strand in our history. To answer the first question, as to whether there is, or ever has been, a "Christian America," he says "No and Yes." Our nation's history is a mixed bag! Certainly it has secular as well as sacred aspects, irreligious as well as religious leaders. Anyone who blandly asserts that America is fundamentally Christian--or non-Christian, for that matter--just hasn't studied the sources! To the second question, Noll argues that Colonial America's Christian tradition was thoroughly Reformed. Colonists came largely from lands of the Calvinist (not Lutheran) Reformation, with even Anglicans importing and implanting a highly Re¬formed perspective. Things changed somewhat in the Revolutionary era, however, for "The War for American Independence, and even more 'the democratization of the mind' that accompanied it, let to a rapid Americanization of the nation's religion" (p. 23). Distinctive Reformed doctrines, such as predestination, were modified if not rejected as revivalistic Methodists and Free Will Baptists won the battle for men's hearts and minds, especially on the frontier. Roman Catholic immigrants further complicated the American mix in the 19th century. Yet, Noll argues, showing (I think) his own theological bias, the Reformed perspective has endured and is, in fact, the strongest Christian tradition in American history. Here he joins those who see a lasting imprint of Puritan thought on the American mind. To a degree I differ: I would argue that by the Civil War the Reformed tradition remained entrenched mainly in universities such as Princeton and population pockets in the East and South. But the revivalists' successes made this nation more Arminian than Calvinistic by 1850 if not before. The second, and most valuable, part of this book, "history," is composed of six chapters, each focused upon a significant event, person, or movement in this nation's history. First,