In God We Trust: Was America Founded as a Christian Nation?
By John Fea (WJK Press)
Historian John Fea asks the seemingly straightforward question many are arguing today: “Was America founded as a Christian nation?” His answer will not appease either pole—those who stridently proclaim it was and those who almost as loudly deny it.
Fea has addressed the question at least since 2011 with the publication of Was America Founded as a Christian Nation?: A Historical Introduction. Over the last 15 years and with the rising debate about Christian nationalism, the claims America was founded as a Christian nation have gained in popular and political influence, leading Fea to produce this second and much shorter edition, In God We Trust.
In what amounts to a summary of the first edition, Fea asks 10 questions that serve as the titles of 10 chapters. Questions include: were the Founding Fathers Christians, did they believe in separation of church and state, and is the Declaration of Independence a Christian document? Spoiler alert: The answer is not simply “yes” and not simply “no.” Christianity did have a significant influence on the American founding, yet not in all the ways so many claim today.
Fea examines Founding Fathers who came closest to current understandings of what is an evangelical Christian, as well as those whose God was much less personal and whose view of Scripture was much less supernatural. He also examines the role of clergy in the emerging new nation and how some appropriated biblical themes for political ends, much as some clergy do today.
Fea, a professor of history for more than 20 years, frames his approach to history using fellow historians Thomas Andrews and Flannery Burke’s “5 Cs of historical thinking:” change over time, context, causality, contingency, and complexity. Interpreting the past through this framework, Fea and others like him understand history is not all one thing but is as complicated as the people who generate it.
In God We Trust is a short and quick read by a true expert of American history. It is commended for anyone wanting a balanced explanation of Christianity’s place in the founding of the United States.
Eric Black, executive director/publisher/editor
Baptist Standard
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