Nonfiction about the author's anthropological study of "Christian Heritage" tours of DC – tours sold to white Evangelicals tourists promoting a view of American history in which, yup, Thomas Jefferson was definitely a devout Christian, and Starbucks is leading a War on Christmas to hide this truth.

Let's be real: I absolutely read this book because I wanted the hot gossip about how crazy these tours are, and was less interested in the academic analyzing of cultural narratives. There is, unsurprisingly but unfortunately, very little hot gossip and quite a lot of academic analyzing. Which is not a critique of Kerby! Her analyzing was actually very interesting – her take on how Donald Trump came to be embraced by evangelists, despite seemingly failing at every moral qualification, was thorough and insightful. One of the points she made that I found particularly insightful were how evangelicals are able to manipulate their messaging by deploying both insider and outsider narratives; ie, America was founded as a Christian nation BUT ALSO Christians are oppressed by the libs who are trying to take away their freedom of speech. It lets them somehow be both the heroes and the underdogs depending on which gives them the advantage. Once I read Kerby on this, I started seeing it all over the place, as it's clearly an effective strategy.

https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/4704532950

I felt this was a thoroughly researched book and I enjoyed reading it very much. The author following the communities that she featured was so enthralling.

I really enjoyed the approach Lauren R. Kerby to in researching her book Saving History: How White Evangelicals Tour the Nation's Capital and Redeem a Christian America. She tagged along on several "Christian Heritage tours," where tour guides take Christian groups around Washington, D.C., regaling them with stories of our nation's Christian heritage, highlighting historical and architectural tidbits that other tours overlook altogether. In doing so, she aims to gain insight into the Christian Right and the political views of white evangelicals. (Yes, she focusses obsessively on race, which is annoying.)

As a participant and observer, she reports the content of the tours from the tour guides, many of whom have written extensively on American history from a Christian perspective. She also includes interviews with her fellow tourists, who come from around the U.S. but who are primarily white, middle-class Protestants. In short, her assessment of the tour guides is that they are charlatans distorting the historical record, and that the tourists are gullible rubes.

Besides the tour guides themselves, Kerby gives some background on the Christian heritage movement, mentioning influential books by evangelical authors. In terms of the history of the movement itself, this is helpful, except that she is dismissive of the whole genre, without really engaging their arguments. Perhaps she saw this as outside the scope of her book, but it's unfair to the scholars who have written these books to dismiss them out of hand because she doesn't agree with their points of view.

She captures the dilemma of these books and the tours: conservative Christians view themselves as outsiders and insiders, founders and victims. They identify with the founding generation, maintaining that the faith of the Founding Fathers is in line with contemporary conservative evangelicalism. Yet in recent decades, their faith has been sidelined in favor of secularism and liberalism. This perspective is easy to caricature, and is more nuanced than many popular presentations allow, but Kerby is content to dismiss it rather than to engage it.

This is not a central theme of the book, but, to me, she lost credibility in her analysis of the 2016 presidential election. She repeats the widely-discussed figure that 81% of white evangelicals voted for Trump. She favorably quotes those who say white evangelicals voted for him out of "fear, lust for power, and nostalgia for an imagined past" or "fear and resentment" or "racism, class anxiety, or misogyny." She doesn't bother to mention what I believe to be the primary reason most evangelicals voted for Trump: he was running against Hillary. Full stop.

Kerby's book is an interesting project but ends up being tainted by a strong bias against her subject matter.

Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for the complimentary electronic review copy!

An eye opening look at Christian evangelists through their active tourism,I had no idea about this and found thebook extremely interesting.From the opening pages I was very interested in the people involved I the movement traveling through Washington DC I acaravan asareligiousgroup#Savinghistory.#netgalley

This was equal parts enlightening and frightening, as someone who grew up in the white American evangelical Christian subculture that is highlighted here. I really appreciated Kerby's insights on the reasons behind so much of that subculture, as it helped me understand both my heritage and my future as a progressive Christian.

What a great, thought provoking book.

To be fair, I know a Christian Tour Guide. However, as I was reading this book, I was NOT hearing her voice. I was hearing the voices of my white Evangelical friends.

The author laid out her argument that white Christians take these tours to be spoon fed history that shows that America was purportedly governed and founded by an elite group of Christians.
I loved that the author points out the 4 narratives of white evangelical christians make and how the tour guide promoted each one.

I also liked that the author talked about the 2016 election, the Museum of the Bible, and the history of the rise of the righteous right.

I think every person should read this book. Christians should read it to understand that there is NO WAR on them and that they are not saviors.
Secularists should read it to understand why White EVangelical Christians believe what they believe in.