Religion and American Life Book Reviews

Each fall semester I teach "Religion in American Life." As part of the course, I require students to read a book from an approved list. There are over 200 books on that list, which is segregated into general reading on religion in the US, religion in colonial America, the 19th century, the 20th and 21st centuries, African American religious traditions, Asian American religious traditions, Catholicism in America, Islam in America, Judaism in America, Native American religion, Protestantism in America, and biographies.

As I do not promote any particular author, genre, or religion, I am always interested in seeing what books students choose to review. Here are the selections for this semester:

Kelly Baker's Gospel According to Klan: The KKK's Appeal to Protestant America, 1915-1930
Susan Wise Bauer's The Art of the Public Grovel: Sexual Sin and Public Confession in America
Edward Curtis's Black Muslim Religion in the Nation of Islam, 1960-1975
Larry Eskridge's God's Forever Family: The Jesus People Movement in America
John Fea's Was American Founded as a Christian Nation?: A Historical Introduction
Marie Griffith's Born Again Bodies: Flesh and Spirit in American Christianity
Allen Guelzo's Abraham Lincoln: Redeemer President
David Edwin Harrell's Oral Roberts: An American Life
Philip Jenkins's Dream Catchers: How Mainstream America Discovered Native Spirituality
Frank Lambert's Inventing the "Great Awakening"
Stephen Larson's Summer for the Gods: The Scopes Trial and America's Continuing Debate Over Science and Religion
Stephen Miller's Billy Graham and the Rise of the Republican South
Clifford Putney's, Muscular Christianity: Manhood and Sports in Protestant America, 1880-1920
Richard Wills's Martin Luther King, Jr., and the Image of God
Robert Wuthnow's After the Baby Boomers: How Twenty- and Thirty-Somethings Are Shaping the Future of American Religion