GOD & Apple Pie
Religious Myths and Visions of America
Two sample chapters (by publisher's permission):
1. Native American Myths and Visions of America (Chapter 2)
2. Black Muslim Myths and Visions of America (Chapter 9)
Amazon:
https://www.amazon.com/God-Apple-Pie-Religious-Visions/dp/1891928155/
From the Inside Flap;
GOD & Apple Pie
Religious Myths and Visions of America
Christopher Buck
Introduction by J. Gordon Melton,
Distinguished Professor of American Religious History, Baylor University
This book is about an unusual religious topic: the United States of America ("America").
"America" is, at once, nation and notion, country and creed, republic and rhetoric. This book is about Providence and principle--the relationship of the supernatural world to the world's superpower. "America" is not in the Bible, nor in the Qur'an. Yet "America" today pulsates with religious significance. "America" is a word that has taken on mythic proportions.
Eleven religions have been selected for their distinctive perspectives on America: (1) Native American religion (Iroquois); (2) Protestant Christianity (the Puritans); (3) the Christian Right; (4) Roman Catholicism; (5) Judaism (Orthodox, Conservative, Reform, and Reconstructionist); (6) The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (the Mormons); (7) Christian Identity (White nationalists); (8) Nation of Islam (Black nationalists); (9) Islam (especially Radical Islamists and Progressive Muslims); (10) Buddhism (Tibetan and Soka Gakkai); and (11) the Baha'i Faith.
Over the course of American history, religious myths and visions of America tend to reflect an ever-changing American civil society, whether as a function of its social evolution or as a catalyst of it. The result is: Religions re-mythologize America. And: Religions re-envision America.
God & Apple Pie invites serious reflection on what it means to be an American, particularly from a religious perspective.
