Jesus in America: Personal Savior, Cultural Hero, National Obsession

by Richard Wightman Fox

Where else but America do people ask: What Would Jesus Do?
What Would Jesus Drive?
What Would Jesus Eat? "This book is for believers and non-believers alike. It is not a book about whether one should believe in Jesus, but about how Americans have believed in and portrayed him." -- from the Introduction Jesus in America is a comprehensive exploration of the vital role that the figure of Jesus has played throughout American history. Written by one of our most distinguished historians, Richard Wightman Fox, this book provides a brilliant cultural history of Jesus in America from its origins to today, demonstrating how Jesus is the most influential symbolic figure in our history. Benjamin Franklin understood Jesus as a wise man worthy of imitation. Thomas Jefferson regarded him as a moral teacher. The assassination of Abraham Lincoln, which occurred on Good Friday, was popularly interpreted as paralleling the crucifixion of Jesus ... as one preacher put it, "Jesus Christ died for the world, Abraham Lincoln died for his country." Elizabeth Cady Stanton appropriated Jesus' message to champion women's rights. George W. Bush named Jesus as his favorite political philosopher -- and several other GOP candidates followed suit -- during the last presidential race. As we have seen in recent presidential elections, the name of Jesus is often thrust into the center of political debates, and many Americans regularly enlist Jesus, their ultimate arbiter of value, as the standard-bearer for their views and causes. Fox shows how Jesus influenced such major turning points in American history Fox gives an expert, lively account of all the ways that Jesus is portrayed and understood in American culture. Extensively illustrated with images representing the multitude of American views of Jesus, Jesus in America reveals how fully and deeply Jesus is ingrained in the American experience.

Genres: Religion, Nonfiction, Christianity, History, Sociology, Cultural Studies

496 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2004

About the author

Richard Wightman Fox is a professor of history at the University of Southern California and the author of Jesus in America and Trials of Intimacy, among other books. He lives in Venice, California.

Reviews

[Jonathan Walton · Rating 4 out of 5]

If you want a book that looks at Jesus through the lens of white Protestant traditions and dominant culture’s regular co-opting of Jesus for its own goals, aims, and ends then this is a good book for that. The sources are worth grabbing and the chapters worth a solid skim. Most certainly a great text to grab references and it is written in an accessible way.

[Ray · Rating 3 out of 5]

"In all likelihood, Jesus is permanently layered into the American cultural soil. Yet his identity is elastic. There is no single Jesus, in America or anywhere else," he writes.

This isn't the best church history I've read. In fact it took me awhile to fall in love with it. His humility and lack of stuffinss kept me reading. But about a third of the way through he got me. It is an impressionist work , so I'll give it a similarly disjointed, impresisonistic review. Some random highlights for me:

p. 129: his take on Edwards joy in doing theology is better phrased than anything Marsden, Gerstner, I. Murray, Lee, McDermott or anybody else I've ever read on Edwards. Its only a few paragraphs but it lit me up for hours.

p. 263: His thing on Hodge on Bushnell has been said before in bits and pieces by others. But never so clearly and potently in such a short space. I finally get it. For years I hated Bushnell (for reducing the faith to a socializing process); then when I finally began to shake off my revivalism I started to think I shouldn't have been so harsh on him. Fox straightened me out in two paragraphs via Hodge.

p. 274: his sutble disdain for Henry Ward Beecher is wonderful.

p. 358 -- his thing on Niebuhr's appreciation for Edwards -- great.

p. 396 -- "evangelical Protestants like to ask 'What WOULD Jesus do?,' but many Catholics and non-evangelical Protestants prefer to ask "What DOES Jesus do?' "

p. 397 "Machen was naive, (Niebuhr) thought, to attack liberalism without also taking on the popular revivalists who did as much to undermine a proper respect for the supernatural as the liberals did. Revivalists too were reducing the Gospel to a self-help creed, an empowerment doctrine adorned in pious trappings...."

I could go on like this. This is a rather awful book if its the only American chucrh history you will read in a year or two. But read critically it has a few dozen moments that will make it wwll worth it.

[Stephie Williams · Rating 3 out of 5]

Defintiely a good book. It was rich in both deatial and scope. I appreciated Fox's approach as a neutral observer of our countries christian beliefs without pressing belief or unbelief. I think I would like to read his book Reinhold Niebuhr.

[Al · Rating 3 out of 5]

A history of Jesus in America from the time of the earliest European explorers to the present. The author presents a view of how Jesus has been a fundamental part of the many different Christian religions as well as Jesus as a cultural hero.