| Book Review | The Journal of American History, 91.2

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| Book Review | The Journal of American History, 91.2 | The History Cooperative

Book Review

Forgotten Features of the Founding: The Recovery of Religious Themes in the Early American Republic. By James Hutson. (Lanham: Lexington, 2003. xii, 197 pp. Cloth, $60.00, ISBN 0-7391-0570-1. Paper, $22.00, ISBN 0-7391-0571-X.)

James Hutson's purpose in publishing this volume of essays is to remind readers that Americans in the early republic deemed religion to be the foundation of good governors and good citizens. Disturbed by recent scholarship that he thinks diminishes or ignores the role of religion in political culture, the author seeks to rectify the omission by exploring major themes linking church and state. First, he notes the prevalent view of government leaders as nursing fathers, a biblical appellation suggesting that elected officials have a sacred calling to foster a moral, virtuous nation. Second, he sees in the late eighteenth century a resurgence of the doctrine of future rewards and punishments, a belief that many founders thought essential to good citizenship. Third, he points out that most Americans considered their rights to be grounded in religion. Those beliefs flourished in the founding era because, Hutson insists, the United States was a "solidly Christian nation" (p. ix).

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