Finally... and well worth it

I just don't know why this book took me so long to read, but it was definitely worth reading. Last night I finished Jon Meacham's American Gospel: God, the Founding Fathers, and the Making of a Nation. This is a fantastic book and it should be required reading for anyone who wants to enter into the debate about the "separation of church and state." Whenever discussions arise around the issues of prayer in schools (or at football games), Ten Commandment displays on courthouse lawns and nativity scenes in public parks, the arguments are usually most loudly stated by those on the extremes, those extreme secularists who insist on a complete absence of any god from any public arena and the extreme religionists who insist that America is a Christian nation and that there should be no barrier at all to religion in the public sphere. This book helps us to understand the complexity and history of the argument. As with most modern arguments of this scale, this one is much more nuanced and much less black and white than some would suggest.

Meachum is a news guy, the managing editor of Newsweek and a historian, he also wrote Franklin and Winston: an Intimate Portrait of an Epic Relationship. His news and historical background make his take on the issue just detached enough that it would probably annoy people on either extreme end of the debate. But for those who are interested in understanding the history of this issue, his insight is fascinating.

I want to share one quote from the book that captures the importance of the entire work.

A grasp of history is essential for Americans of the center who struggle to decide how much weight to assign religious consideration in a public matter. To fail to consult the past consigns us to what might be called the tyranny of the present - the mistaken idea that the crises of our own time are unprecedented and that we have to solve them without experience to guide us. Subject to such a tyranny, we are likely to take a narrow or simplistic view, or to let our passions get the better of our reason. If we know, however, how those who came before us found the ways and means to surmount the difficulties of their age, we stand a far better chance of acting in the moment with perspective and measured judgement. Light can neither enter into nor emanate from a closed mind. (p. 232)

peace,

will