Book Review: "America's God" by Mark Noll

For those who would like to know more about the development of the theology of the United States of America, I recommend this book heartily. It is extremely eye-opening.

America's God portrays the development of American theology from Jonathan Edwards to Abraham Lincoln, the great formative period that has led to so much of the current American religious landscape.

The story begins with the state of American religion in the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries, demonstrating how American Christianity had not essentially changed much from European Christianity. One important facet from this period is to note the Puritans of Massachusetts, and particularly their nation-covenant theology, the idea that as God covenanted with the nation Israel, so He was now in covenant with the entire people. Jonathan Edwards was part of a great change in the Puritan belief system, closing the communion to professing Christians as opposed to leaving it open to the community, representing a shift away from that nation-covenant system to a more "evangelical," belief-based system.

The next phase of the narrative-- the eighteenth century-- tells the simultaneous stories of the decline in American religion, with the advancement of Universalism especially among the elite that would comprise the "founding fathers," along with the beginnings of the vast "evangelical" movement that would eventually explode in the antebellum nineteenth century. This, of course, is the critical period that is so highly contested today, for the "intent of the founding fathers" is a great motivator in many a discussion about the future of America.