Name: Colton Ray's review of One Nation Under God by Kevin Kruse
Item: One Nation Under God
Rating: 3
Author: Colton Ray

Kevin Kruse

We’re often told that the United States is, was, and always has been a Christian nation. But in One Nation Under God, historian Kevin M. Kruse reveals that the idea of “Christian America” is an invention—and a relatively recent one at that. As Kruse argues, the belief that America is fundamentally and formally a Christian nation originated in the 1930s when businessmen enlisted religious activists in their fight against FDR’s New Deal. Corporations from General Motors to Hilton Hotels bankrolled conservative clergymen, encouraging them to attack the New Deal as a program of “pagan statism” that perverted the central principle of Christianity: the sanctity and salvation of the individual. Their campaign for “freedom under God” culminated in the election of their close ally Dwight Eisenhower in 1952. But this apparent triumph had an ironic twist. In Eisenhower’s hands, a religious movement born in opposition to the government was transformed into one that fused faith and the federal government as never before. During the 1950s, Eisenhower revolutionized the role of religion in American political culture, inventing new traditions from inaugural prayers to the National Prayer Breakfast. Meanwhile, Congress added the phrase “under God” to the Pledge of Allegiance and made “In God We Trust” the country’s first official motto. With private groups joining in, church membership soared to an all-time high of 69%. For the first time, Americans began to think of their country as an officially Christian nation. During this moment, virtually all Americans—across the religious and political spectrum—believed that their country was “one nation under God.” But as Americans moved from broad generalities to the details of issues such as school prayer, cracks began to appear. Religious leaders rejected this “lowest common denomination” public religion, leaving conservative political activists to champion it alone. In Richard Nixon’s hands, a politics that conflated piety and patriotism became sole property of the right. Provocative and authoritative, One Nation Under God reveals how the unholy alliance of money, religion, and politics created a false origin story that continues to define and divide American politics to this day.

How Corporate America Invented Christian America

One Nation Under God

Justin Jerome Price

Colton Ray

Detailed but dry, and focuses all its attention on the early 20th century. I did learn a lot from this book and it exposes that the myth of the "Christian nation" is a fairly recent invention borne as much out of political machination than anything divine. The vague theology of the Founding Fathers continues to be exploited for political gain to this day.

Maurice FitzGerald

God I wanted to like this book.
I suppose it was an enlightening bundle of facts.
It has no point of view of course. Or rather it has an NPR point of view which is essentially the same.
It stops way to soon (like nixon time for the well researched stuff) to be of any use today.
If it could have kept up giving the facts up til a few years ago it would at least have been useful.
It is easy to read it and hear about all the awful things the republicans did and think that the author obviously has a point of view against these things he describes but he really doesn't. Any trumpster out there could read this and think boy those republicans should have gone farther. 
It is a Vapid book.

Justin Jerome Price &
One Nation Under God by Kevin Kruse

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Justin Jerome Price &One Nation Under God by Kevin Kruse

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Justin Jerome Price &
One Nation Under God by Kevin Kruse