American Gospel: God, the Founding Fathers, and the Making of a Nation By Jon Meacham 416 pp. New York: Random House, $23.95 (hc).
THEY SAY TIMING IS EVERYTHING. Jon Meacham's latest book is very well timed. Short, filled with erudition, and, surprisingly—comfort. At least, I found it so. American Gospel tracks 350 years of the American concept that a government can protect its citizens from the excesses of philosophical and religious enthusiasms.
Today the American public is barraged by combative and erroneous versions of historic narrative that identify America as an essentially Christian nation. The gospel in American Gospel does, in fact, imply that there actually is a public religion in America, but that this unofficial, shared religion doesn't control or dictate anything. And amazingly, every time during the founding of the country that a concerted intent arose to impose the "truths" of any one set over the nation's pluralist character, it was skillfully and consistently rejected. In other words, the Founding Fathers did not cave.
