false 6378825 1 <B>From the award-winning author of <I>Lost Mountain</I>, a stirring, inspiring work of memoir, spiritual journey, and historical inquiry—a dazzling chronicle of a personal and national identity reclaimed.</B><BR><BR> Erik Reece’s grandfather was a Bible-thumping, fire-and-brimstone Baptist preacher. He loved to hunt and fish and explore the Kentucky woods, but for him, existence on this earth was about denying the pleasures of this life in preparation for the next. Erik’s father was a Baptist minister, too. But at the age of thirty-three—not coincidentally, Jesus’ age when he was crucified— Erik’s father violently took his own life, and Erik ended up spending much of his childhood in the care of his grandparents.<BR><BR> So, while Erik grew up with a conflicted relationship with Christianity, he also grew up with an acute awareness of a part of the country suffering ongoing economic, environmental, and even spiritual collapse. When he himself neared age thirty-three, he found unexpected comfort and guidance in his intellectual hero Thomas Jefferson’s famous <I>Jefferson Bible</I>, especially when he began to track similarities between it and the Zen-like message of the Gospel of Thomas. Inspired, he undertook what would become a spiritual and literary quest—to identify an “American gospel” coursing through the work of both great and forgotten American geniuses, from William Byrd to Walt Whitman to William James to Lynn Margulis. In synthesizing that gospel—one that prizes the pleasures and glories of this earth—Reece began to find a way to a spiritual and intellectual peace with his own American soul.<BR><BR> The result of Reece’s journey is a deeply personal but also deeply thought out, inspiring, and stirring book, delivered almost like a secular sermon, about personal, political, and historical demons—and the geniuses we can and must call on to combat them. 6566622 2 4 2009 An American Gospel: On Family, History, and the Kingdom of God total:18|5:5|4:6|3:6|2:1|1:0| 18 69 70 4 0 0 false false Sun May 24 00:00:00 -0700 2009 Mon May 25 15:13:55 -0700 2009 Fri May 29 11:57:42 -0700 2009 more...]]> 4 1 false false Tue Jun 09 00:00:00 -0700 2009 Wed May 27 18:43:55 -0700 2009 Wed Jun 10 16:41:39 -0700 2009 more...]]> 4 0 false false Mon Oct 05 10:42:36 -0700 2009 Tue Jun 09 13:58:08 -0700 2009 Mon Oct 05 10:42:36 -0700 2009
My only complaint was that I wasn't always sure what Reece was trying to get at. The book began an autobiograph...more...]]> 3 0 false false Wed Jul 01 00:00:00 -0700 2009 Wed May 13 18:35:26 -0700 2009 Tue Jul 28 14:34:51 -0700 2009 0 0 false false Sat Nov 07 16:31:33 -0800 2009 Sat Nov 07 16:31:33 -0800 2009 4 0 false false Fri Oct 30 16:08:40 -0700 2009 Fri Oct 30 16:08:40 -0700 2009 0 0 false false Thu Oct 29 10:00:05 -0700 2009 Thu Oct 29 10:00:05 -0700 2009 5 0 false false Thu Sep 17 06:18:18 -0700 2009 Thu Sep 17 06:18:18 -0700 2009 0 0 false false Sun Sep 13 19:43:43 -0700 2009 Sun Sep 13 19:43:43 -0700 2009 0 0 false false Sun Sep 13 18:02:58 -0700 2009 Sun Sep 13 18:02:58 -0700 2009 3 0 false false Sat Sep 12 07:12:35 -0700 2009 Sat Sep 12 07:12:35 -0700 2009 0 0 false false Fri Sep 04 08:13:51 -0700 2009 Fri Sep 04 08:13:51 -0700 2009 5 0 false false Mon Sep 07 13:23:46 -0700 2009 Sat Aug 29 05:19:34 -0700 2009 Mon Sep 07 13:23:46 -0700 2009 4 0 false false Thu Aug 20 07:04:37 -0700 2009 Thu Aug 20 07:04:37 -0700 2009 0 0 false false Tue Aug 18 12:05:31 -0700 2009 Tue Aug 18 12:05:31 -0700 2009 0 0 false false Mon Aug 17 21:34:00 -0700 2009 Mon Aug 17 21:34:00 -0700 2009 0 0 false false Sun Aug 16 10:36:49 -0700 2009 Sun Aug 16 10:36:52 -0700 2009 2 0 false false Mon Aug 10 15:03:11 -0700 2009 Wed Sep 02 06:57:00 -0700 2009 0 0 false false Thu Jul 30 18:31:53 -0700 2009 Thu Jul 30 18:39:31 -0700 2009 3 0 false false Thu Jul 30 20:30:27 -0700 2009 Thu Jul 30 08:26:48 -0700 2009 Thu Jul 30 20:30:27 -0700 2009