Description
Book SynopsisIn Faith in Freedom, Andrew R. Polk argues that the American civil religion so many have identified as indigenous to the founding ideology was, in fact, the result of a strategic campaign of religious propaganda. Far from being the natural result of the nation''s religious underpinning or the later spiritual machinations of conservative Protestants, American civil religion and the resultant Christian nationalism of today were crafted by secular elites in the middle of the twentieth century. Polk''s genealogy of the national motto, In God We Trust, revises the very meaning of the contemporary American nation.
Polk shows how Presidents Franklin D. Roosevelt, Harry S Truman, and Dwight D. Eisenhower, working with politicians, advertising executives, and military public relations experts, exploited denominational religious affiliations and beliefs in order to unite Americans during the Second World War and, then, the early Cold War. Armed opposition to
Trade Review
Faith and Freedom is a thoughtful and absorbing study of an important and timely subject. Polk's writing is clear and accessible.
* Church History *
[A] well-researched, cogently argued book[.]
* Choice *
Drawing together the big themes of identity and religion in the Cold War period and exploring the complexity of institutional interactions, race and societal change, Polk's work may serve as a partial contextual foundation for both a non-academic and undergraduate audience in providing a framework tracing the production of current political divisions in America that are more often than not cast as expressions of national religious heritage.
* Journal for the Academic Study of Religion *
Table of ContentsIntroduction: Religion, War, and Unity
Part One: Roosevelt
1. Removing Unnecessary and Artificial Divisions
2. Uniting against a Common Foe
Part Two: Truman
3. Building a Better World
4. Filling the Void
Part Three: Eisenhower
5. Creating the Space between Church and State
6. Being Religious in America
Conclusion: Lasting Legacies of an American Faith
