Gospel According to America: A Meditation on a God-Blessed, Christ-Haunted Idea

After reading Dark's latest offering, I wanted to revisit this work from about a decade ago. It's amazing how directly applicable its content is today. Dark's observations about political discourse, though written in a different America, are as poignant as ever. Dark does a good job of writing in a very smart, wry way, yet always careful not to talk over the heads of the "Waffle House crowd," to whom, it would seem, this book is dedicated. As always, Dark offers voices from his attention collect [...]

The Gospel According to America is not America's gospel as seen through the eyes of politicians, the ruling administration, talk radio, or even the population in general, whom Dark would probably expect to parrot any of the above sources, at least for the most part.Rather, the "gospel" Dark refers to is the American vision as portrayed through its great authors, musicians, and filmmakers. Even beyond artists, anyone with a message which potentially subverts the louder, more popular messages may [...]

Profound, helpful, and full of cultural references, I really loved this book. Dark's exploration of faith, patriotism, and the ways we combine the two is deeply insightful.

Dark offers a series of essays that reflect on American culture, that seek a fuller Christian gospel, and call for civility in political discourse. This last call he ties to the image of his father chatting with friends down at the Waffle House (the civility call is leveled to both sides, but his examples seem mainly about the uncivil right). He reflects on culture from literature (making we want to reread Moby Dick and Huck Finn and to take Mason and Dixon down off my shelf), to music, movies [...]

This book is frustratingly difficult to understand. I tried to keep from criticizing Dark's first book, "Everyday Apocalypse," because of it's sometimes-difficult writing style. I liked the way he wrote it so much. But with this book of his, I really think that perhaps he had no intention of making it accessible to the general public. It's sad that many will miss his likely excellent insight in this book.

A fantastic book! I highly recommend it.

Good book written in 2005 but speaks to our life today in America