© National Journal Group Inc.
Thursday, Nov. 11, 2004

By James A. Morone ISBN 0300105177 Yale University Press 575 pp. Purchase This Book By Stephen Prothero ISBN 0374178909 Farrar, Straus and Giroux 376 pp. Purchase This Book

Attention blue-state elitists -- isn't it about time to get a firmer grasp on the religiosity that plays such a vital role between the coasts? And you red-state faithful shouldn't get too smug in your success just yet -- that "value voter" majority is much more complicated than simply getting evangelicals to the polls. America is constitutionally secular, yet culturally is among the most religious nations on Earth. While Christianity remains the dominant faith, Americans today are more religiously diverse than ever before. Politicians ignore these facts at their peril, but what, exactly, should a blending of faith and politics entail?

For those who'd like a better understanding of the U.S. religious landscape, two recent books offer particularly relevant surveys. In "Hellfire Nation," James A. Morone chronicles some 400 years of the "the politics of sin" in America, while Stephen Prothero's "American Jesus" covers more than two centuries of this nation's fixation on Christianity's favorite son.

Morone's book is the broader work, in subject as well as time span. His main argument, however, is quite simple: Over and over again, sin has been the fulcrum of America's most important debates -- and almost every time, the state has extended its power in the process. Slavery, segregation, alcohol, abortion -- "Hellfire Nation" covers them all, and Morone finds "exactly the same cycle -- persuasion, prohibition, and state power." Even the creation of the Department of Homeland Security is folded into this model.

The battles that led to these expansions, meanwhile, also share a common thread. Morone sees a centuries-long struggle between two camps -- Puritan, even Calvinist, Americans focused on the depravity of others, and those focused on the "social gospel," who seek to emphasize communal responsibility over individual morality. It's no secret that Morone favors the latter camp, and that he worries about the former's dominance in recent decades. But "Hellfire Nation" offers little in the way of proposals, its true value is in the exhaustive accounts of skirmishes at intersection of vice, virtue, politics and policy.

Take, for example, Morone's assessment of the Roe vs. Wade debate. He argues convincingly that this central issue has dramatically reshaped the political landscape -- and that it may be a main reason Democrats have so much trouble being accepted as politicians of faith. It's not simply the two parties' stances on abortion itself, Morone contends. Evangelical Protestants and conservative Catholics, who had long been at odds, found themselves on the same (largely Republican) side, while pro-choice partisans united around issues of privacy and "constitutional penumbras." However religious these groups may have been in other regards, the abortion issue put their (mostly Democratic) politicians on a decidedly secular path that's proven very hard to change. John Kerry, the former altar boy, is a clear case in point.

Prothero, meanwhile, focused less on the nation's religion than on its culture -- and the remarkable hold Jesus has on it. The book's subtitle, "How the Son of God Became a National Icon," sums up Prothero's argument nicely. Not only has Jesus played a steadily increasing role in American Christianity for more than 200 years, the author suggests, he has been embraced (and reshaped) by everyone from Thomas Jefferson and Teddy Roosevelt to modern-day feminists and Hindu immigrants -- not to mention many, many less-savory groups and individuals in between.

"It is highly unlikely that Americans will ever come to any consensus about who Jesus really is, but they have agreed for some time that Jesus really matters," Prothero concludes. "In a country divided by race, ethnicity, gender, class, and religion, Jesus functions as common cultural coin."

And while Prothero stresses time and again that his book is about the "cultural Jesus," not the Christian one, he also shows how thoroughly Christian tenets are woven into our technically secular nation. While Jews, Muslims, Buddhists and agnostics may claim Jesus on their own terms, doing so means starting within a decidedly Christian framework.

What's most interesting about "American Jesus," however, are the many examples of how Christians -- and particularly modern-day evangelicals -- have separated their spiritual savior from many of the creeds and orthodoxies that for centuries defined Christianity. "What Would Jesus Do?," Prothero notes, is a question early Americans would never have heard from the pulpits of New England. And few present-day faithful are losing much sleep over predestination and whether they are one of the "elect."

It's here that "American Jesus" and "Hellfire Nation" complement one another -- together, they effectively detail the many shifts in the uniquely American approach to faith. While religion is generally seen as clearly defined and, well, orthodox, these books reveal a remarkably messy evolution -- one that has marked dramatic shifts, and is clearly still underway.

Neither author, of course, is so bold as to predict where the country goes from here -- politicians so inclined would do better to pray for guidance on that front. But faith and knowledge can coexist quite nicely, and a clearer sense of America's religious history might do both parties some good. --Troy K. Schneider, NationalJournal.com

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