Fox, Richard Wrightman. Jesus in America: Personal Savior, Cultural Hero, National Obsession. San Francisco:  HarperCollins, 2004. 488 pp., $27.95 (USD). ISBN: 0-06-062873.

Prothero, Stephen. American Jesus: How the Son of God became a National Hero. New York:  Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2003. 364 pp., $25.00 (USD). ISBN: 0-374-17890-9.

[1]  Americans sure love their Jesus. Regardless of the level of belief in Jesus as the risen son of God, most faith traditions in America have adopted and adapted this historical figure. This has changed the face of the religions themselves and the American culture. To be American is to see through a Jesus-centric filter. Even when a person’s belief system does not stop at Jesus, it must adapt to him to be accepted into mainstream society.

[2]  This is the premise of two well-written general market books released on the heels of each other at the end of 2003 and the beginning 2004. Both books chronicle how the man from Nazareth became a national icon; however, as they do this from different perspectives, they give the reader of both volumes a fuller perspective on the phenomena.

[3]  Fox, who teaches in the history department at the University of Southern California, approaches the material chronologically, starting at the beginning of religious and commercial explorations into the New World and tracing it to the present.  He begins before America was America, with the missionary journeys of Spanish and French Catholics and English Protestants. These early journeys offer a glimpse into how Christ was shaped into motifs still present today. There were three basic presentations of Christ: as healer, as martyr, and as civilizer. The Catholic missionaries came with pictures and statues and stories of an experiential Christ, one intimately involved in daily life. Protestants frowned upon the iconography of the Catholics. The Calvinists preferred reason to experience, head knowledge over heart knowledge. Many mainline denominations have a Jesus who is a great teacher and prophet, but not necessarily the holy risen son of God. The more Catholic, experiential Jesus has filtered over to Protestants, and found a home in many evangelical denominations.

[4]  Fox traces Christ’s journey by breaking the book into historical time periods. He looks at the founding Fathers, notably Jefferson and Franklin, who helped take Jesus out of the Bible and place him into culture. He traces the rift between the Calvinists and the Wesleyans and how that shaped perspectives on Jesus. He notes how Jesus was shaped by those who spoke of him, from evangelists to writers to politicians to social activists. To them, Jesus was sweet saviour or strong conqueror or friend. And while each time period is unique, the same themes continue: Jesus has been adapted and co-opted for the times; he has been the rallying point for history, for business, for war and peace; and has shaped the United States as much as America has shaped him.  Although Fox has a personal investment in the project, he writes the book for believers and nonbelievers alike, and concludes that the staying power of Jesus has come through people who “have known holy people who loved Christ so fully that they seemed to spend their days, in action as much as in speech ‘just telling the love of Jesus’” (406).

[5]  Like historian Fox, Stephen Prothero approaches the topic from his own perspective, as the chair of the department of religion at Boston University. While Fox’s argument develops chronologically, Prothero approaches the subject topically, dividing the book into two sections: “resurrections” and “reincarnations.” “Resurrections” explores Jesus among “Christian insiders, especially white Protestants” (15), while “Reincarnations” covers Jesus’ impact on “outsider communities” (15).

[6]  In the first section (“Resurrections”), Prothero examines four historical perspectives on Jesus. Jesus is an “enlightened sage,” adored by Thomas Jefferson, who devoted two volumes to the sayings of Jesus while trying to separate the miracle man from the wise teacher. Prothero traces this effort to separate fact from lore directly to contemporary groups like the “Jesus Seminar” who are devoted to the quest for the historical Jesus. Other chapters are devoted to a “feminized” Jesus, the backlash movement towards a manly Redeemer, and finally a Jesus enjoying full superstar status.

[7]  After providing the reader with this “traditional” view of Jesus, Prothero launches into a provocative second section (“Reincarnations”) to show how the traditional view of Jesus has been co-opted, identified with, and reshaped by other religious communities in an attempt to seem more mainstream, and thus more entrenched in American society.  The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints have aligned themselves with Jesus and downplayed their founder Joseph Smith; congregations within the Black Church have transformed Jesus into a black Moses, leading the chosen people to the promised land; the Jewish community has made Jesus a rabbi and thus one of their own; and congregations representing Asian religions have placed Jesus and his teachings in the context of their more traditional gods.  In Prothero’s view, so using Jesus proves how Jesus-centric American culture has become.

[8]  While much of the same material is covered in both books, the organization of the Prothero book makes it easier for the reader. For example, both books discuss Jefferson’s efforts to wrench Jesus from religion. However, in Prothero’s book, the author takes Jefferson’s premise and follows its influence all through American culture, into the present day. Fox, by sticking to his chronology, leaves the reader to make the connections. However, both books have strengths, and there is value in reading both instead of choosing one or the other. While the Prothero book is a quicker read, and over 100 pages shorter, the Fox book provides better historical contextualization.

Tim Craig
Warner Southern College
Lake Wales, Florida
craigt@warner.edu