num_pages: 424
description: With an introduction by J. Gordon Melton (Distinguished Professor of American Religious History Baylor University) God &amp; Apple Pie: Religious Myths and Visions of America (revised edition) by Christopher Buck is about an unusual religious topic: the United States of 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 worlds superpower. America is not in the Bible nor in the Quran. 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 Bahai 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.In his Introduction Professor Melton writes:Far from being an interesting additional topic for the religious dilettante the discussion around the theological reality that is America periodically bursts forth as an important item on the nations agenda from the place of prayer services in the White House to the issuance of an annual government report on religious persecution to the rise of contemporary terrorism. . . .I can as a scholar reflect on the contribution that this book God &amp; Apple Pie: Religious Myths and Visions of America is making to our understanding of the American mosaic and how various segments of the religious community have found their way to being American. I welcome its information that allows me to empathize with and make informed decisions relative to those with whom I might align (or oppose) as I sally forth in the public square. And on a personal level I welcome the authors invitation for me to meet anew the residents of my neighborhood those who shop in the same stores I do send their children to the same schools my grandchildren attend and diligently work toward their own appropriation of the American dream.God &amp; Apple Pie invites serious reflection on what it means to be an American particularly from a religious perspective.
language: English
title: God & Apple Pie: Religious Myths and Visions of America
publisher: Educator's International Press