Resistance to Tyrants, Obedience to God: Reason, Religion, and Republicanism at the American Founding ed. by Dustin Gish and Daniel Klingboard

Abstract

Resistance to Tyrants, Obedience to God: Reason, Religion, and Republicanism at the American Founding represents a substantial effort to present and explain the importance of “Bible religion” in the United States from the founding of the nation through the antebellum years. It is an interdisciplinary work that showcases the talents of thirteen scholars from at least eight different disciplines. The editors and authors did not undertake this project to discuss the various religious beliefs of the Founders or plumb the depths of their faith, however. The essayists indicate that, regardless of what they may have professed individually, the Founders used the Bible as a guide and reference to shape both their rhetoric and their vision of the nation. In fact, they paired this ancient source with the modern influences of the moderate English Enlightenment. In short, the resulting “creative tension” involved in this balancing act produced remarkable things: a uniquely American political idiom and thought—and the republic itself.