Chosen land : how Christianity made America and Americans remade Christianity / Matthew Avery Sutton.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Sutton, Matthew Avery, 1975- author.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Christianity--United States.

Christianity.

Church and state--United States--History.

Church and state.

United States--Church history.

United States.

Church and state--History.

Physical Description:

viii, 644 pages : illustrations ; 25 cm

Edition:

First edition.

Place of Publication:

New York : Basic Books, 2026.

Summary:

"In the United States today, there is no faith more dominant than Christianity. In Chosen Land, historian Matthew Avery Sutton chronicles Christians' five-hundred-year endeavor to turn North America into their version of the kingdom of God, revealing the fruitful and dynamic entanglement between the history of America and the history of American Christianity. In the centuries after Christianity first arrived on American shores, colonizers and colonized from New England to Spanish California practiced many varieties of the faith. After the founding of the United States, the nation's lack of a state religion forced new and evolving strains of Christianity to battle for potential adherents, as they still do to this day. As American Christianity has bent, fractured, and adapted to changing times, Christian belief has shaped everything from the promise of Manifest Destiny to Ronald Reagan's approach to the Cold War, the rise of the Southern Lost Cause narrative to the triumphs of the civil rights movement. A landmark work of narrative synthesis tracing the faith's major figures and currents, Chosen Land confirms the unique place that American Christianity, always both steadfast and precarious, occupies at the center of our shared history"-- Dust jacket flap.

Contents:

Introduction

Part I Origins. The Christian invasion begins ; The city on the hill ; Varieties of Christian liberty ; The birth of revivalist Christianity ; Revolution ; Sanctifying the West

Part II Building a Christian empire. Disestablishing Christianity ; Reviving the new republic ; Liberated Christianity ; Creating American originals ; Building the moral establishment

Part III A nation in crisis. Going into the world ; Setting captives free ; An almost chosen people ; Reconstructing the nation

Part IV The challenges of the modern world. Immigrating faith ; Saving and purifying bodies ; Christianity, capitalism, and the signs of the times ; New Christianities for the new century

Part V Shaping the American century. Making the world safe for democracy ; The rise of fundamentalism ; Relaunching culture wars ; The populist revolt ; Wars of faith

Part VI Unraveling the religious establishment. One nation under God ; Still seeking liberation ; Apocalypse now ; The terminus of the mainline

Part VII Remaking American Christianity. The religious right ; Living at the close of the millennium ; The end of Christian America or a new beginning?

Conclusion.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (pages 571-617) and index.

ISBN:

9781541646339

1541646339

OCLC:

1527591453

Publisher Number:

CIPO000333266