By Shane Lems - Posted at The Heidelblog:
Christians often mimic the tactics of non-Christians in the social and political realms. For example, the “cancel culture” found in legacy media and social media is also found in evangelical media and Christian social media. American politicians and pundits use scare tactics, name-calling, warfare lingo, and shock language to rally people around their political causes. Similarly, popular Christian pastors and pundits use the same strategies to rally people around their political causes.One other way Christians fall prey to the tactics of non-Christians is on the topic of American history. Just as some left-wing progressives interpret American history in a way that suits them, some right-wing Christians do the same. Left-wing liberal progressives say America’s founding is darkly clouded by selfish white supremacists who were manipulative, power-seeking men. Right-wing evangelical conservatives say that America’s founding is a glorious example of a nation purposely established on Christian principles by Christian men. In reality, the truth lies somewhere in between.
On this topic of America’s founding, here is a helpful volume: The Search for Christian America (TSFCA) by Mark Noll, Nathan Hatch, and George Marsden. The authors wrote the first edition of this book in the early 1980s when evangelicals were proclaiming the need to bring America back to its “Christian” foundation. Tied to the presidencies of Ronald Regan, evangelicals in America grew confident they could take the country back to the Christian roots upon which it was built. Noll, Hatch, and Marsden heard these calls to return to a Christian America. As university history professors, these men knew America’s founding was not explicitly or expressly Christian. Thus, they wrote TSFCA “to introduce a note of realism to tone down a romanticized view of America’s Christian heritage” (156). Noll, Hatch, and Marsden wrote this book from a Christian perspective to give Christians a more balanced view of America’s founding.
TSFCA has seven chapters, a concluding biographical essay, a bibliography, and a general index. The book is well-documented and includes numerous citations and plenty of information for further study. In this book, the authors did not share their personal views on America’s founding. Nor were they out to gloss over some of the dreadful aspects of American history, such as the evils of slavery. Instead, this book is based on extensive research that helps readers understand some of the nuanced religious and political views of America’s founding fathers in a balanced way. The book also gives insight into America’s founding documents and its moral, political, and religious ethos in the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries.