To both those who believed in the Civil Rights movement and those who opposed the movement, God was frequently invoked. The Civil Rights movement had strong roots in religion, with its leaders and followers often meeting in churches. The movement's most prominent leader, Martin Luther King, was an ordained minister. Meacham describes the famous confrontation at the bridge leading into Selma, Alabama, where Civil Rights marchers were faced with a small army of Alabama State Troopers, who insisted that the marchers had two minutes to "return to their church" (p. 193). The marchers could not move forward, and they could not retreat, so they knelt and began to pray. The police moved in and viciously beat the praying demonstrators. It was a visual image flashed around the world, and eight days later, President Lyndon Johnson took his Civil Rights Act to Congress (p.195) Many of those who opposed the Civil Rights movement, including those who attacked the marchers on that day in Selma, were undoubtedly religious people who believed that God agreed with them and not Martin Luther King. It is remarkable that even in such a divisive event, religion played an important part in changing major laws and policy of the country. Throughout the book, Meacham argues for moderation. He points out that President George Washington promised religious freedom for all to a synagogue in Rhode Island in 1790 (p. 101). The Founding Fathers were largely religious men, but men who saw no superior virtues in one religion over another. They would not have agreed with the religious leaders of the later 20th century, such as Jerry Falwell, who viewed the United States as an inherently "Christian" country (p. 235).

By the end of the book, Meacham has separated out extremists from both the religious and the no-religion arguments. He decries the death...

242). He focuses his comments on the more moderate people who are either religious or non-religious, and notes that each side tolerates the other quite well. He argues against viewing the United States as a Christian country, but not against calling it a religious country, since many people in America are in fact religious. He notes that "the founding fathers got some things wrong, particularly slavery," (p. 245), but that the founding fathers were ready to accept anyone from any nation or religion (p. 245). Meacham's book argues passionately for individual freedom of religion while maintaining that religion is an important part of today's life, just as it was for the Founding Fathers, and that completely ignoring religion would be to deny an important part of society as well as of our heritage. However, he argues tolerance for all religions and for the right to not practice any religion at all. This, he says, is the "American Gospel" -- that a country can accept all religions without letting any religious philosophy take a stranglehold on it.
While this book has no footnotes, nearly one-third of the book -- 137 pages -- is appendices showing the primary sources Meacham used when researching his book. Appendix a includes entire documents while Appendix B is made up of selected quotations. He also included a long bibliography. Because of this, any reader of the book can check his sources to see if any kind of personal bias has distorted his views. This makes American Gospel a significantly honest look at religion and politics in the United States.

Meacham, Jon. American Gospel: God, the Founding Fathers, and the Making of an American…