| Book Review | The Journal of American History, 94.3

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| Book Review | The Journal of American History, 94.3 | The History Cooperative

Book Review

Faith and the Presidency: From George Washington to George W. Bush. By Gary Scott Smith. (New York: Oxford University Press, 2006. xii, 665 pp. $35.00, ISBN 978-0-19-530060-4.)
The subject of religion in American life has always loomed large, particularly in recent years, as conservative Christians have become a powerful political voice, and the Congress and U.S. Supreme Court have considered issues with strong religious overtones, including school prayer, abortion, and faith-based initiatives.	1
Faith and the Presidency, by Gary Scott Smith, a professor of history at Grove City College in Pennsylvania, is a particularly valuable contribution to this historiography. This ably researched, evenhanded, and clearly written account describes and analyzes how religion shaped the lives and leadership of eleven American presidents, from George Washington (the American Cincinnatus) to Abraham Lincoln (America's Christ) to George W. Bush, whose presidency is "'the most resolutely "faith-based" in modern times'" (p. 365). The other chapters look at Thomas Jefferson, both Roosevelts, Woodrow Wilson, Dwight D. Eisenhower, John F. Kennedy, Jimmy Carter, and Ronald Reagan, giving the book a decided twentieth-century emphasis. A different list is conceivable, including John Adams, James A. Garfield, William McKinley, and Richard M. Nixon, among others, but Smith excludes these other presidents because they tried to keep their private faith separate from their public duties or because their beliefs and policies seemed similar to the presidents he already selected.	. . .

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