Nationalism and Religion in America: Concepts of Identity and Mission

by Winthrop Hudson

First published by Harper Row in 1970, this important volume is one of the series of Harper Forum books addressing the study and discussion of religion and its impact on society, the religious roots of culture, the impact of religious beliefs on the various disciplines, etc. "NO ONE can understand American national self-consciousness without taking into account the religious heritage of the American people. At least until World War I, theological language, religious metaphors, and biblical allusions were as characteristic of political discourse and historical writing as they were of sermonic literature. The ringing challenge of Theodore Roosevelt, “We stand at Armageddon and battle for the Lord,” was typical of language used by McKinley, Bryan, Wilson, and their predecessors in the political arena. And the massive volumes of George Bancroft, the great exemplar of the historian’s craft in America, read like theological treatises, reflecting both the idiom and the assumptions of New England election sermons. Wherever one turns one becomes aware of the pervasiveness of religious language and imagery. The present volume is designed to aid the reader to grasp the basic themes that have given content to the American sense of identity, mission, and destiny. Selections are provided to illustrate a fundamental rootage in English traditions and their subsequent development when transplanted in American soil. The selections also exhibit a robust faith in a living God (judging, correcting, disciplining, guiding, and directing the American people) being slowly eroded and reduced to the pale affirmations of twentieth-century “civil religion.” …" This 1970 first edition also includes an informative notes section and a lengthy appendix concerning the English religious heritage impacting the colonies and so the country of the United States.

256 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1990