Reviewed in the United States on March 25, 2009
I first learned about this book from a Townhall (Salem [Christian] Broadcasting) email offer. Usually, these missives tout opportunities to get rich quick via such methods as investing in abandoned mine claims in Nevada, but this time, they offered something just as precious, "The Christian Life and Character of the Civil Institutions of the United States."
In the email, the publisher declared that the book terrified the ACLU. "Be afraid, ACLU," the publisher warned, "be very afraid." Simply showing it to an ACLU lawyer, he claimed, sent them into a full-blown panic.
I decided to test this claim at the local ACLU office, and I'm happy to report that it is true. Holding the book as arm's length, I entered the office. The screaming began immediately. Emboldened, I thrust the book at the receptionist, and as it grazed her face, I noticed that it seared her soft, secular cheek. My visit quickly became an orgy burning flesh after that. I went from office to office, cackling loudly, as I punished the godless law-mongers by incinerating their faces with the words of our forefathers. Gosh, it felt good.
That, alone, makes this book worthy of a five star rating, but it has so much more to offer. The author, Bejamin F. Morris, painstakingly researched the book, sorting through thousands upon thousands of founders' statements, winnowing the wheat from the chaf, plucking only the most desirable cherry from each tree, to find the quotes needed to support his arguments.
Gone are the heresies of the nominally-Christian, or to be more accurate, "achristian." deists who comprised the largest faction in the Continental Congress. Instead, Morris provides us a kind of minority report written by the only founders who count, the believers.
That said, I must admit that, unfortunately, I have yet to come upon a justification for slavery (I'm only partially through the book; it has bigger words than Joe the Plumber's, and I had to let it air out for a week before beginning--the stench of smoking law-monger face was strong). I'm sure there must be a slavery justification in there, somewhere. Many of the same founding fathers Morris quotes were just as strongly pro-slavery as they were pro-Christian. Certainly, biblically-based arguments supporting the peculiar institution were common in those days. My guess is Morris, having served as a Confederate soldier only a couple of years before writing the book, shared those views, so a justification may be there after all. I just have to have faith that I will find it.