Was America Founded as a Christian Nation?

"Fea’s style, clean and simple, persuades by history, not histrionics."
—Publishers Weekly

"A useful text for anyone seeking a balanced historical overview of a thorny question."
—Library Journal

"Fea is rapidly making a name for himself as a public intellectual who brings the virtues of scholarly humility, patience and objectivity to highly controversial questions of religion and the founding era of American history. This book is a model of scholarly restraint, of patiently working one’s way through the sources and of historicizing the questions and terms with which one works."
—The Christian Century

“A scrupulous presentation of evidence that may surprise people on both sides of this hot topic.”
—Daniel Walker Howe, Pulitzer-Prize winning author of What Hath God Wrought: The Transformation of America

"Fea’s answers are searching, surprising, and profound.”
—John Murrin, Princeton University; coauthor, Liberty, Equality, Power: A History of the American People

“This book not only deserves to be widely read, it must be widely read if the misinformation surrounding the question of a Christian America is to be challenged.”
—Stanley Hauerwas, Duke Divinity School; author of The Peaceable Kingdom and coauthor of Resident Aliens

“Fea challenges his readers to think like historians and presents them with the facts they need to weigh the evidence for themselves.”
—Mary V. Thompson, Research Historian, Mount Vernon Estate & Gardens; author of In the Hands of a Good Providence: Religion in the Life of George Washington

“Was America Founded as a Christian Nation? explores this controversial question with remarkable objectivity and admirable scholarship. This is a book that all intelligent readers should have in their libraries.”
—Thomas Fleming, author of The Intimate Lives of the Founding Fathers

“Very few writers can take a complex subject—over two hundred years of history with bewildering, bemoaning, and belligerent claims by Americans about whether this nation is Christian or not—hold it up for inspection, and make its utter complexity clear; but Fea accomplishes this and more. Informed, judicious, insightful, and genuinely delightful.”
—Scot McKnight, North Park University; author of The Jesus Creed

“This is a wonderful book—fascinating, timely, carefully researched, clearly written, and deeply helpful.”
—Bob Abernethy, executive editor and host of PBS’s Religion & Ethics Newsweekly; coeditor of The Life of Meaning

“With careful research and judicious scholarship, John Fea has produced a remarkably useful guide for navigating the arguments about America’s ‘Christian’ origins. His reluctance to dictate conclusions is a measure of his evenhandedness.”
—Randall Balmer, Barnard College; author of God in the White House: How Faith Shaped the Presidency from John F. Kennedy to George W. Bush

“This is a book for readers who want a credible account of how religion affected the settlement and founding of the United States. It brings out the indisputable importance of religion without claiming more than sound historical scholarship can support.”
—Richard Bushman, emeritus, Columbia University; author of From Puritan to Yankee and The Refinement of America

“This book is required reading for everyone interested in the question of America’s Christian origins—especially for those who think they already have the answer. If I could recommend but one source on the Christian America thesis, this would be it.”
—Douglas A. Sweeney, Trinity Evangelical Divinity School; author of The American Evangelical Story

“Fea does more than simply point out the shortcomings of arguments on either side of the debate over Christian America. He offers a clear and balanced reinterpretation of how this debate has shaped American culture and society for more than two hundred years.”
—John Wigger, University of Missouri; author of American Saint and Taking Heaven by Storm

“Fea’s learned and accessible study documents the surprisingly diverse views of the founders on religion and tells the fascinating story of how Americans have remembered them in later generations.”
—Beth Barton Schweiger, University of Arkansas; coeditor of Religion in the American South

“A worthwhile read for scholars as well as the general public.”
—Brendan McConville, Boston University; author of The King’s Three Faces

“With clarity, wisdom, and precision, John Fea probes the question posed in the title of this book. It is a complex question, yielding complex responses that are not amenable to a sound-bite culture.”
—Dennis P. Hollinger, President, Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary

“John Fea has produced a carefully balanced and thought-provoking addition to the long-running debate about the role of religion in America’s founding.”
—Ira Stoll, author of Samuel Adams: A Life