The Gospel according to America: A Meditation on a God-blessed, Christ-haunted Idea [Paperback]

David Dark (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: February 19, 2005

Using icons from music, literature, film, and politics, David Dark hopes to provide fodder for lively conversation about what it means to be Christian and American in this day and age. The end result of this conversation, Dark hopes, will be a better understanding that "there is a reality more important, more lasting, and more infinite than the cultures to which we belong," the reality of the kingdom of God.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Readers of Dark's book Everyday Apocalypse know that this high school English teacher is a passionate, articulate, absurdly well-read interpreter of popular culture. But even the forewarned may be astonished by this latest effort. Dark's skill at probing the spiritual resonances of American culture - in forms high and low, from Nathaniel Hawthorne and Herman Melville to Bob Dylan and David Lynch - is matched by his uncanny ability to select telling moments from America's common story. Whether it's Elvis taking a shotgun to his television sets, Dylan confessing a sense of common humanity with Lee Harvey Oswald or George Washington treating British prisoners of war with unprecedented civility, Dark excavates a series of witnesses who speak prophetically to what he sees as our media-saturated overconfidence in our own righteousness. Moreover, he offers a convincing and unsettling account of the gospel itself - the "Jewish Christian" story of forgiveness and human dignity that, Dark argues, has animated America's ideals even as it has continually critiqued America's practices. Dark's Southern heritage is evident in his literary allusions (the subtitle echoes Flannery O'Connor) and in his affection for egalitarian conversation. Nearly every page has something to make readers pause, laugh, think or pray; perhaps most amazing is Dark's skill at burying layers of meaning for the reader to discover. It's hard to imagine a better tonic for our age than this unblinkingly honest exercise in faithful patriotism. (Mar.)
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About the Author

David Dark is a teacher at Christ Presbyterian Academy in Nashville, TN, and the author of "Everyday Apocalypse: The Sacred Revealed in Radiohead, The Simpsons, and Other Pop Culture Icons."

Product Details

• Paperback: 200 pages
• Publisher: Westminster John Knox Press; First Edition, Ex-Library edition (February 19, 2005)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0664227694
• ISBN-13: 978-0664227692
• Product Dimensions: 8.3 x 5.5 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 9.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #494,030 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

David Dark is the critically acclaimed author of Everyday Apocalypse and The Gospel According to America and is an educator who is currently pursuing his PhD in Religious Studies at Vanderbilt University. He has had articles published in Paste, Oxford American, Books and Culture, Christian Century, among others. A frequent speaker, Dark has also appeared on C-SPAN's Book-TV and in an award-winning documentary, Marketing the Message. He lives with his singer-songwriter wife, Sarah Masen, and their three children in Nashville.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

36 of 41 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Much needed, March 25, 2005

By 

James Stewart (Grand Rapids, MI, USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Gospel according to America: A Meditation on a God-blessed, Christ-haunted Idea (Paperback)

The level of debate about faith, politics and cultural life in the United States (and beyond) is woefully lacking. Too often, being a person of faith means either hiding in a ghetto, or compartmentalising critical engagement and faithful living. David Dark, who laid out his credentials in Everyday Apocalypse, offers this tour de force looking at the intersection of faithful life and rich cultural engagement.

Living faithfully means engaging with all that is around us, lifting up that which is worthwhile and working to transform that which is dehumanising. Dark looks for that which is distinctive about the american experience and casts a critical yet loving look at that broad cross-section. Scattered with analogy, reflection and a deep appreciation of music, film and literature, this is the sort of engagement that should be making headlines and has the power to change lives.

5 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars You will underline the whole book, October 25, 2007

By 

Andrew Kukla (Jacksonville, Florida) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Gospel according to America: A Meditation on a God-blessed, Christ-haunted Idea (Paperback)

I have found this book an excellent read. Dark begins a conversation about conversation. In a day when we pay others to think for us Dark asks the questions we ought to ask every day of all the varying authorities that shape the cultural, social and political landscape of our county. I've given this book to numerous people in lots of settings and told them its a must read.

As a pastor in a church that recognizes our struggle to understand the need for corporate confession on a nation-state and church institutional level I have been using this as a Sunday school curriculum that proved very fruitful and sparked an engaging and faithful conversation.

While the vast scope of Dark's material from Moby Dick and the Scarlet Letter to Radiohead, folk music and Bob Dylan will at times seem overwhelming - there is always a good bit of wisdom and more questions offered for stimulating a healthy communal awareness.

14 of 32 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Just another opion from the Waffle House, October 27, 2005

By 

Matthew Gunia (Justice, Illinois) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Gospel according to America: A Meditation on a God-blessed, Christ-haunted Idea (Paperback)

David Dark is a teacher at Christ Presbyterian Academy and author of "The Gospel According to America"--a critique of Christian-American culture and vision of how this subculture should positively influence both Christianity and the United States.

The best aspect of this book is Dark's social critique. He correctly shows the reader that he is unknowingly caught in a vitriolic American subculture: people are increasingly gathering into likeminded groups and develop an "Us versus Them" mentality. Whether the "Thems" are people of different political bents, races, denominations, or what-have-you, we are guilty of erecting and maintaining barriers in both nation and chruch.

To counter this trend, Dark recalls us to our Biblical mandate to tear down barriers, live our Christian calling (one of love and understanding) in all areas--don't compartmentalize the faith. Through this, we gain a fuller understanding of the truth (nobody has a corner on it(ix, 60).

While Dark's social critique is accurate and while we "end up at the same place" in the end, I find that Dark and I actually have very little in common as far as foundational theology goes. Dark suggests that the truth (sometimes called the Gospel by Dark) is subjective and that everybody has some of it; I believe the truth is objective and revealed to us through Scripture. Dark treats Jesus as the ultimate role-model for radical barrier breaking and understanding; I believe that Jesus is the Son of God who died to take away our sins, He is the objective Truth (as well as the Way and the Life).

Furthermore, Dark appears to believe that righteousness before God is so connected to righteousness in the world, that they cannot be seperated. I believe that because of my righteousness before God through faith in Christ, I cannot help but joyously go into the world, seek to understand others, break down barriers, and give as many people the objective truth of Christ as I can (as opposed to gleaning truth from them).

A final note in this long review: Dark's writing style is a unique one. He supports his arguments almost exclusively with anecdotal evidence ("authorial authority") from pop culture--movies, novels, song lyrics, artists, etc. While it does make the book unique, it doesn't seem to me to be the best way to present a "radical new vision for the church." His prose is similarly filled with Biblical and pop culture allusions, purposefully vague phrases and stinging statements. It took this reader quite a while to "get a rhythm going."

In sum Dark is refreshingly accurate when he examines modern American culture, but his theology is far too off-base to be helpful to this reader. Recommended for those who are too entrenched in their "Us versus Them" position, but not recommended for many other Waffle House folks.