The American Religion: The Emergence of the Post-Christian Nation [Hardcover]

Harold Bloom (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: May 1992

The best-selling author of the controversial The Book of J presents some eye-opening ideas about the state of Christianity in the United States. 50,000 first printing. National ad/promo. BOMC & QPB Alt.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Without knowing it, American worshipers have moved away from Christianity and now embrace pre-Christian Gnosticism, asserts Bloom ( The Book of J ). In his most controversial book to date, the Yale professor defines "the American Religion" as a Gnostic creed stressing knowledge of an inner self that leads to freedom from nature, time, history and other selves. Every American, he writes, assumes that God loves her or him in a personal, intimate way, and this trait is the bedrock of our national religion, a debased Gnosticism often tinged with selfishness. The core of this odd, ponderous book focuses on Pentecostals, Christian Scientists, Jehovah's Witnesses, Seventh-Day Adventists and especially Mormons and Southern Baptists--the two denominations Bloom believes will dominate future American religious life. He argues that mainline Protestants, Jews, Roman Catholics and secularists are also much more Gnostic than they realize. He identifies African-American religion, mystical and emotionally immediate, as a key element in the birth of our home-grown Gnosticism around 1800. Bloom is not likely to win many converts to his viewpoint. First serial to Yale Reviewok ; BOMC and QPB alternates.
Copyright 1992 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal

Claiming to have read everything of importance on American religion, Bloom engages in "religious criticism" in order to elucidate what is distinctive about our national faith. He concludes that the great revival at Cane Ridge, Kentucky in 1801 and the momentous writings of Ralph Waldo Emerson and William James are key moments in the creation of America's central religious doctrine. Bloom claims that American religion is more gnostic than Christian. He sees this American Gnosis expressed most powerfully in early Mormonism and in the moderate Southern Baptist tradition, though it thrives in virtually every denomination and cult. By turns brilliant and wrong-headed, provocative and repetitious, this work belongs in most libraries less for what it achieves than what it attempts.
- Steve Gowler, Wofford Coll. Lib., Spartanburg, S.C.
Copyright 1992 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 288 pages
• Publisher: Simon & Schuster; First Edition edition (May 1992)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 067167997X
• ISBN-13: 978-0671679972
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 6 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (20 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #485,941 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Harold Bloom is a Sterling Professor of Humanities at Yale University and a former Charles Eliot Norton Professor at Harvard. His more than thirty books include The Best Poems of the English Language, The Art of Reading Poetry, and The Book of J. He is a MacArthur Prize Fellow, a member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters, and the recipient of many awards and honorary degrees, including the Academy's Gold Medal for Belles Lettres and Criticism, the International Prize of Catalonia, and the Alfonso Reyes Prize of Mexico.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

65 of 71 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Right, but not a new discovery, March 13, 2003

By 

Careful Reader (USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The American Religion: The Emergence of the Post-Christian Nation (Hardcover)

Bloom's argument, that virtually all Americans, from Southern Baptist to New Ager, are "gnostics," no matter what their denominational label, is right on the mark -- even if the tag "gnostic" offends some. What is his definition of a gnostic? 1) there is no higher religious authority than the private individual 2) every individual has the "soul sufficiency" to reach religious truth by themselves 3) external objective expressions of religion like churches, worship, or creeds are at best unnecessary but mostly a block to true spirituality 4) true religion does not need any external forms 5) so, no one can tell me what to believe, and anyone who does is potential threat to religious freedom. THE PROBLEM with Bloom is that this profound analysis of the essential American religious attitude was already made in the 1840s by the great Calvinist theologian John Williamson Nevin in his books "Anxious Bench" and "Antichrist" (available, published by Wiph and Stock). Both Bloom and Nevin are right, American-style Christianity is not Christian at all because it denies the objective presence of Christ in the World through Church, Sacrament, and Creed. In short, it makes the Incarnation irrelevent. What's left is a subjective worship of the self in place of God. We are all popes (but only for ourselves).

33 of 38 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Inventive critique of indigenous faiths from an outsider, November 23, 2000

By 

Peter A. Kindle (Kansas City, Missouri) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The American Religion: The Emergence of The Post-Christian Nation (Paperback)

Bloom, nominally Jewish, has created a most imaginative assessment of indigenous American faiths. Mormons, Christian Scientists, Seventh Day Adventists, Jehovahs Witnesses, Pentacostals, New Agers, Southern Baptists, and Afro-American religion are each addressed.

Unlike cult critiques by evangelical authors, Bloom spends almost no time comparing the beliefs of these groups to a measure of orthodoxy. The genius of Bloom's thesis is that these groups represent different shades of a single American religion - one distinct from the Jewish roots of the Jesus movement and from the European roots of historical Christianity.

He identifies, in a rather rambling and unsystematic way, three fundamental principles of this American religion. (1) The best part of us is uncreated, that is, existing before creation and remains in some sense perfect and divine. (2) That which frees us is knowledge, not belief founded on assent. (3) Freedom exists only in solitude. "What holds these principles together is the American persuasion, however muted or obscure, that we are mortal gods, destined to find ourselves again in worlds as yet undiscovered." (p. 103).

I was frequently frustrated by Bloom's ability to dance around his main point. His historical interpretations are excellent. His thesis incredibly controversial. It is unfortunate, in my opinion, that he was unable to reduce his arguments to precise formulations. Personal fascination with the eccentricities of these faiths made it impossible for him to resist digressions.

I can recommend this book for those who enjoy dabbling in theological contemplation, despite Bloom's political digression in the closing chapter. There is much to fuel a weekend's thought in these pages. If you are so inclined - enjoy!

21 of 24 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Groundbreaking Look at Mormonism, July 26, 2000

By 

R. W. Rasband (Heber City, UT) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The American Religion: The Emergence of the Post-Christian Nation (Hardcover)

For years historical studies of the LDS church were locked into stalemate, with apologists for the church and its antagonists determined to prove or disprove the truth claims made by the founder, Joseph Smith. Bloom, the well-known literary critic, broke the stalemate in the long section on Mormonism in this book by setting aside questions of advocacy and looking at the Mormon gospel as a cultural artifact. There he found some amazing things. Somehow Smith had revived ancient doctrines of Jewish mysticism and Christian hermeticism that had been lost for years. Bloom also explains how Mormonism comes as close as possible to a religious distillation of the American ethos: *the* American religion, as Tolstoy once said. Bloom described Smith as "a religious genius." This is quite a compliment from a self-described Jewish atheist, of course. Bloom helped open a whole new interest in Mormons by the larger culture, as indicated by such things as Tony Kushner's play, "Angels in America."