Jesus Made in America: A Cultural History from the Puritans to "The Passion of the Christ"

by Stephen J. Nichols

Book Overview

Stephen Nichols traces the changing face of Jesus throughout the successive cultural eras in American history. Beginning with the Puritans and ending with the Religious Right, he demonstrates the influence of popular culture upon American Christian views of Jesus at every stage along the way.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0830828494
• ISBN13: 9780830828494
• Release Date: April 2008
• Publisher: IVP Academic
• Length: 237 Pages
• Weight: 0.87 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.7" x 6.1" x 8.7"

Customer Reviews

Great Review and Analysis

I originally resisted picking up Jesus: Made In America, in large part because I wasn't interested in reading about how badly the American evangelical culture has treated Jesus. I was pretty sure I was already on the same page with the author. I then heard an interview with Nichols on Mars Hill Audio and was impressed to pick up the book. The bottom line is that we need to be acutely aware of where we have superimposed our cultural and situational biases on the scriptural Jesus and turned him into the kind of Jesus we feel comfortable with. The first few chapters were filled with great historical insight and analysis. As I read I was enlightened about where the images of Jesus I was accustomed to came from and the points of view to which they owed their form and shape. I especially enjoyed the Billy Sunday Jesus who was portrayed as the manliest man among the manliest of men. He would stand out in a lumberjack convention, and be able to take on any one of them. This portrayal recalled to mind some of the contemporary images of Jesus in books aimed at Christian men. I also thought the chapter on Contemporary Christian Music was well done and well cited. Recently, I have become wary of the triteness of CCM and what passes for lyrics. Nichols does a great job of uncovering the genesis of the music we get to listen to today, and how its current incarnation is a result of over-commercialization and the power of the dollar. Certainly there is a higher calling in music aimed at glorifying God than selling t-shirts at summer concert series. Though it was well cited, the footnotes were a little hard to follow. More often than not, instead of a footnote at the end of each reference, a paragraph would end with one footnote and contain a handful of references. That little issue aside, I thought this was a wonderful and enlightening read and useful to anyone concerned with accurately understanding and portraying the Jesus of Scripture.

How We Americans Remake Jesus in Our Image

Allow me to break standard book-reviewing protocol and simply sum up my thoughts on Jesus Made in America: A Cultural History from the Puritans to The Passion of the Christ (IVP, 2008) by Stephen Nichols: One of the most engaging, informative books I've read this year. In fact, I'll be surprised if this book doesn't make my annual Top Ten list of "favorite reads." Jesus Made in America is not a history of Jesus Christ. Looking at the cover, one might expect to find a novel that tells the story of Jesus in a contemporary setting. No, Jesus Made in America is mainly about America, specifically - how Americans tend to remake Jesus in our own image and to service whatever needs or promote whatever causes we believe are important. Listen to Nichols: "The history of the American evangelical Jesus reveals that such complexities as the two natures of Christ have often been brushed aside, either on purpose or out of expediency. Too often his deity has been eclipsed by his humanity, and occasionally the reverse is true. Too often American evangelicals have settled for a Christology that can be reduced to a bumper sticker. Too often devotion to Jesus has eclipsed theologizing about Jesus. Today's American evangelicals may be quick to speak of their love for Jesus, even wearing their devotion on their sleeve, literally in the case of WWJD bracelets. But they may not be so quick to articulate an orthodox view of the object of their devotion. Their devotion is commendable, but the lack of a rigorous theology behind it means that a generation of contemporary evangelicals is living off of borrowed capital. This quest for the historical Jesus of American evangelicalism is not just a story of the past; it perhaps will help us understand the present, and it might even be a parable for the future. This parable teaches us that Jesus is not actually made in America. He is made and remade and remade again. What will next year's model look like?" (18) Nichols sets the bar high by devoting his opening chapter to the Puritan view of Christ. By drawing on the theology of Jonathan Edwards adn the lesser known Edward Taylor, Nichols shows how the Puritans combined a fervent devotion to Christ with a fervent desire to know more about Christ. Overall, his picture of the Puritans helps put an end to some of the unfair generalizations made about the Puritan period. And yet, Nichols does not view the Puritans through rose-colored glasses. He criticizes their propensity to act in unChristlike ways. (41) Next, Nichols turns to the Jesus of the Founding Fathers. Here, he takes issue with the evangelicals who see their reflection in the beliefs of the founders. Nichols shows from their letters and writings how Jefferson, Franklin, and even Washington and Adams were all basically Deists (though some were more orthodox than others, of course). The Jesus of the founders was focused on virtue, not theology... on morals, not salvation. With the foundation of the American view of Jesu

Very well done...

I have become a huge fan of Stephen Nichols. He is very good at writing about history without making it terribly boring. I have read three of his books so far and every one of them was very well done. This is one that I didn't really know what to expect but was excited to read it. What Nichols does is spends the first half or so of the book walking the reader through how particular cultures and people in the past have really shaped our thinking and their thinking of Christ. He starts with the Puritans, then to our founding fathers, the Victorians and the modernists of the early 20th century. After Nichols goes through these with precision he then gives the reader insight on how we have specifically been affected, or infected, depends on how you see it, through Contemporary Christian Music, Hollywood, Consumerism and Politics. This part of the book was very informative as Nichols shows how the history of each one of these has led us to where we are currently with Jesus and culture and he doesn't leave any stone unturned. He questions things such as Thomas Kinkade, Precious Moments, The Passion of the Christ, CCM Music Festivals, WWJD bracelets, Christian T-Shirts, Dobson and the extreme politics pulling on Jesus from both sides. I believe that Nichols unpacks some things that are very worrisome in our day in age where Madonna actually has become a prophetess, even though she falls into the same trap: Christianity is becoming more of a currency than a belief Sadly, I think she is right. This book is extremely well done and I would recommend this to any reader to show what is happening in front of our own eyes and the danger of falling into consumerism Christianity. This might have been Nichols best book to date. Highly Recommended.

Missionary to Worshipers of the American Jesus

Excellent read! I highly recommend it. After having spent all my childhood years in foreign countries (I'm an American) as well as a good portion of my adult life, I often wondered why I felt like I was a missionary to American Evangelicals and Fundamentalists even though I felt so at home. I couldn't articulate the feeling of being a counter-cultural presence among devout people. Now I know why: I didn't recognize the American Jesus, particularly the Jesus of the Right Wing. This is book is a must-read for anyone who would serve Jesus in America because we are all, as Isaiah was, a product of our own people.

Jesus according to the Evangelicals

Stephen J. Nichols, Jesus Made in America: A Cultural History from the Puritans to The Passion of the Christ (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity, 2008). In Matthew 16:13-20, Jesus asked his disciples two provocative questions. First, "Who do people say the Son of Man is?" Two recent books by scholars of religion survey the answers of Americans generally. They are Stephen Prothero's American Jesus: How the Son of God Became a National Icon and Robert Wightman Fox's Jesus in America: Personal Savior, Cultural Hero, National Obsession. But Jesus went on to ask the disciples, "Who do you say I am?" In Jesus Made in America, historian Stephen J. Nichols surveys the answers of American evangelicals particularly. What he finds makes for disturbing reading. Nichols begins, as historians of American Christianity must begin, with the Puritans. He critiques the Puritans for failing to live out a Christlike ethic, with regard to native Americans, African slaves, and Salem witches. Otherwise, however, he sets up their two-nature Christology and Christ-centered spirituality as a standard from which their evangelical successors have fallen. Christianity is a religion of head, heart, and hands - of doctrine, devotion, and deeds. Nichols is right to critique the ethical lapses of the Puritans, but they were certainly correct in believing in and worshiping the God-man Jesus Christ. In a sense, the Revolutionary Era of American history reversed the error of the Puritans. They emphasized deeds over doctrine and devotion. Typical of this emphasis, a young Benjamin Franklin wrote: "My mother grieves that one of her Sons is an Arian, another an Arminian. What an Arminian or an Arian is, I cannot say that I very well know; the Truth is, I make such Distinctions very little my Study; I think vital Religion has always suffer'd, when Orthodoxy is more regarded than Virtue." It helps to know that Franklin's mother was a product of Boston Puritanism and that Franklin rebelled against his upbringing. Although there were a few orthodox Christians among the founders - Nichols mentions John Witherspoon, Benjamin Rush, and John Quincy Adams - the Founders were typically Unitarians. They thought highly of Jesus as the human teacher of moral virtue, but no higher than that. Thomas Jefferson went so far as to excise miracles, atonement, and declarations of Jesus' divinity from his copy of the Gospels. By emphasizing virtue and denying divinity, the Founders customized Jesus to meet the needs of their new republic. In the Democratic Era that followed on the heels of the Founders, Jesus was further customized into the ideal frontiersman. The early nineteenth century saw a sea change in American religious attitude, as the populace shifted from the elitism of the Episcopal, Congregational, and Presbyterian churches to the egalitarianism of the Baptists, Methodists, and Churches of Christ/Disciples of Christ. The frontier made no time for abstract theology. It focused on spirituality an