Under God
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- $15.99
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- $15.99
Publisher Description
In Under God, Pulitzer Prize winner and eminent political observer Garry Wills sheds light on the frequent collision between American politics and American religion.
Beginning with the 1988 presidential contest, an election that included two ministers and a senator accused of sin, award-winning author Garry Wills surveys the tapestry of American history to show the continuity of present controversies with past religious struggles, and argues that the secular standards of the Founding Fathers have been misunderstood. He shows that despite reactionary fire-breathers and fanatics, religion has often been a progressive force in American politics, and explains why the policy of a separate church and state has, ironically, made the position of the church stronger.
Marked by the extraordinary quality of observation that has defined Will’s work, Under God is a rich, original look at why religion and politics will never be separate in the United States.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Explicating his theory that religion is an inextricable element of American political life, Wills sheds new light on the 1988 presidential campaign. While George Bush wooed Jerry Falwell and extolled patriotism, religion, law and order, Jesse Jackson and Pat Robertson--both ordained ministers, both from the South, both advocates of a moral revival--represented antipodal political extremes. The ``secularity'' of Michael Dukakis's campaign came across in his ``pinched ideal of politics,'' while Gary Hart, a product of Yale Divinity School, failed to find ``a new moral language'' to account for personal indiscretions. Wills ( Reagan's America ) writes incisively of Mario Cuomo's stand on abortion and of Robert Bork, ``a friend of censorship.'' He gives his central thesis historical ballast; for example, Abraham Lincoln saw the Civil War as an act of ``expiatory suffering,'' and deist Thomas Jefferson in his private writings revealed his enthusiasm for Jesus's ethical doctrines. Author tour.
