David A. Hollinger is the Preston Hotchkis Professor of History Emeritus at the University of California, Berkeley. His many books include Protestants Abroad: How Missionaries Tried to Change the World but Changed America and After Cloven Tongues of Fire: Protestant Liberalism in Modern American History (both Princeton).
[A] nuanced account. . . . [Christianity's American Fate] offers a path to greater understanding of how a transformation occurring in full view over decades escaped the notice of many who watched in bafflement and horror as the events of January 6 unfolded. Rather than another January 6, the greater threat that Christian nationalism poses to American society may be, as [the book] warn[s] us, its normalization. ---Linda Greenhouse, New York Review of Books Christianity's American Fate is at once accessible and erudite, weighing in at a lean 199 pages and yet packing a formidable analytical punch. Hollinger touches on a wide range of issues. . . . [A]nyone who cares about the past, present, and future of American Christianity will be challenged by this book, which like the entirety of Hollinger's corpus is provocative in the best of ways. ---Heath W. Carter, Christianity Today This is superlative religious history. * Publishers Weekly, starred review * A superbly concise examination of how American Christianity's division into a Protestant two-party system parallel to the existing political one came to deeply alter the nation's recent politics. . . . A critically important, authoritative history of great, immediate relevance. * Kirkus, starred review * Written for a general audience, the volume accomplishes the rare feat of a scholar translating deep expertise into accessible arguments that challenge easy consensus. ---Beau Underwood, Word & Way The delight of Hollinger's book is. . . the vigor, sparkle, and take-no-prisoners prose style. Christianity's American Fate is a short but scintillating book. ---Paul Harvey, Reviews in American History