Review: Rediscovering God in America

Since we moved back to Virginia last year, I've been interested in reading anything I can about the founding fathers, especially books about their faith and how that faith translated into the government we have now. 

Where did we go wrong?

The founding fathers wanted separation of Church and State NOT to get rid of religion but to protect each individual's WAY of practicing their religion.  So Catholics, Protestants, Jews and Deists could co-exist.  The fact is that our country was founded by men with a Judeo-Christian perspective.

Newt Gingrich clearly proves this point in his Rediscovering God in America: Reflections on the Role of Faith in Our Nation's History and Future.  [Note: The copy I reviewed is a reprint by Thomas Nelson Books with photographs by Callista Gingrich.]   This book is a walking tour of our Nation's Capitol ... stopping periodically to describe a monument and the man (or men and women) behind that monument ... their faith, philosophy and how these relate to the United States right now and in the future.

Sites that are described include the National Archives (housing the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution), the Washington Monuent, the Jefferson Memorial, Lincoln Memorial, Vietnam Veterans Memorial, FDR Memorial, the Capitol Building, the Supreme Court (site of some pretty radical misunderstandings about what the Constitution tells us), the Library of Congress, the Ronald Reagan Building, the White House, the WW2 Memorial and Arlington Cemetery.

This book is much more than a travelogue of must-sees in the Nation's capitol.  This book clearly and completely decimates the argument that freedom of religion means freedom FROM religion.  As Gingrich clearly argues in this book, the founding fathers and our nation were based on a Judeo-Christian perspective that cannot and should not be ignored or replaced.  Gingrich, in his meandering walk around Washington, chips away at the anti-religion edifice prevalent in American culture.  By the end of this short book -- only 118 pages -- the reader is left with the conviction that we must not ignore God in our quest to keep America and her people strong and safe.

I highly recommend this book for any American citizen (particularly policy makers) who need to remember how this country's beginnings created a government that has withstood the test of time!

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Disclosure of Material Connection: I received this book free from Thomas Nelson Publishers as part of their BookSneeze.com book review bloggers program. I was not required to write a positive review. The opinions I have expressed are my own. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255: “Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.”