The Gospel According to America: A Meditation on a God-blessed, Christ-haunted Idea

Under a broad pop-culture umbrella, using icons from music, literature, film, the media, and politics, David Dark hopes to provide fodder for lively conversation about what it means to be Christian and American in this "weird moment" in which we live. It is a moment when we are increasingly polarized along political and religious lines, a moment when we are too busy forming our response to listen to the one who is speaking. And yet we claim more than ever to be one nation, under God. What does this mean? The end result, he 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.

"This well-read interpreter of popular culture probes the spiritual resonances of American culture from Hawthorne and Melville to Bob Dylan and David Lynch. Nearly every page has something to make readers pause, laugh, think, or pray,"---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.) Copyright 2005 Reed Business Information.

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Reviewed by Robert Mccollough (Union, MO), May 04, 2009

If you are a Christian who loves the arts and is well-read in secular literature and enjoys an eclectic mix of secular music, you will identify with this book. The author uses the mediums of secular literature and secular music to intelligently address issues that are in dire need of being dealt with in the church that is residing in this land we call America. The author sees the reality of the kingdom of God and realizes that many in America have confused the kingdom of God with this particular version of the kingdom of the world. This book contains an intelligent, but plain spoken, call to discernment and repentance--and a return to following in Jesus' footsteps and living as citizens of the kingdom of God. A good read!

Reviewed by freedbyJc (JAx, Florida), June 20, 2006

From time to time, not as frequently as one would like but not as rarely as one might fear, a busy editor's day is disrupted by the arrival of a book with an inimitable and irresistible voice. We only intended to skim it when we took it out of its shipping envelope, with a quick glance at the table of contents, the first few pages, and the index—taking the literary vital signs that allow readers, like emergency room nurses, to perform rapid triage. But we find ourselves increasingly absorbed in its pages, neglecting the rest of the mail on our desk, the bouncing icon on our screen, and the blinking light on our phone. A book like this is like treasure hidden in a field. The one who finds it goes away rejoicing, and also misses the 4:35 train. David Dark's book The Gospel According to America packs that kind of punch. Dark has several things going for him. He is from the South, the region that has provided some of America's most vivid and idiosyncratic voices—the region where being American is most deeply and continually both a point of pride and a problem. He is a high school English teacher, which means that he has had to become adept at stirring sleepy students into awareness of a grand conversation that both transcends and includes the popular culture they absorb every day. But perhaps most important, he is dangerously and delightfully intoxicated by the gospel of Jesus Christ. All of which makes him an ideal person to answer our question, How can followers of Christ be a counterculture for the common good? What you believe is what you see is what you are is what you do. —Stanley Fish Christianity Today International/Books & Culture magazine.

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