United States History

What should we say about the United States of America? So much has already been said, adding our two cents is a bit redundant or presumptuous, depending on your perspective. Certainly, no one needs us to outline the facts, the major events and figures, or to describe our unique written Constitution and democratic-republican system.

We can offer a bit of perspective. It's nothing new, nothing we came up with on our own, but it is different from a lot of the prevailing notions about both history in general and our nation in particular.

For starters, there's no specific reference to the U.S. in the Bible. The principles found in God's Word that apply to all nations certainly apply to the United States as well, but we aren't a Christian nation, we don't hold a special place in biblical prophecy, and Manifest Destiny is the result of Enlightenment rationalist views about the Progress of Mankind rather than being rooted in any kind of Christian attitude.

That said, many of the first settlers of the New World were dedicated Christians seeking the right to worship God without the constraints of political entanglement or government-imposed strictures and doctrine. The Pilgrims came in 1620, just 13 years after the first successful English settlement at Jamestown, and the Puritan settlers followed soon after.

Their arrivals and colonization didn't make America Christian, of course. It was a broad continent, largely unknown, and the initial colonies weren't strictly bound together at first, as they were later to become. By that time, things had become substantially more secular, so that by the 18th century many Americans were just as degenerate as their European counterparts. Fortunately, men like Jonathan Edwards and George Whitefield were around to preach the true Gospel, and to initiate a revival known as the Great Awakening.

Secular forces were still at work, though. While there were definitely many Christians involved, the American Revolution was largely the result of Enlightenment philosophizing, and men were convinced that America could produce a virtuous and stable population if education and participatory government were enforced. So they rebelled against England, and the United States republic was formed.

Ever since, groups and individuals have tried to call Americans back to their Christian roots. That's the wrong strategy: we don't need to call anyone back to anything, we need to point the way forward to the pursuit of Christ and the bringing of His Gospel and glory to every corner of the earth no matter what our country of origin. That America has been so materially blessed simply means we have more options at our disposal for proclaiming and bringing the Word to the rest of the world.

Our study of United States history is consequently Christ-centered. Not because we think America is more Christian than other countries, but because it (like all other nations) is under Christ's control as King of Heaven and Lord of Time. Of course, you shouldn't abandon study of the facts, people and events, but they only attain true meaning when viewed through the lens of Christ's ultimate plan of redemption and self-glorification.

Review by C. Hollis Crossman
C. Hollis Crossman used to be a child. Now he is a husband and father, teaches adult Sunday school in his Presbyterian congregation, and likes weird stuff. He might be a mythical creature, but he's definitely not a centaur.Read more of his reviews here.

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186 Items found Print
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1776
by David McCullough
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20th Century Wars
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Abraham Lincoln: The Man & His Faith
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Alexander Hamilton
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America's Christian History
by Gary DeMar
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America's Longest War
by George C. Herring
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American Civil War
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American Covenant
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American History in Verse
by Burton Stevenson
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Poetry for 3rd-Adult
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American Revolutionaries
by Milton Meltzer
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American Waterways: Canal Days
by Jeanne Munn Bracken, ed.
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And There Was Light
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Anne Bradstreet
Christian Renegades Series
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Atlas of the North American Indian
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Band of Brothers
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Basic History of the United States - Complete Set with Teacher's Guide
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Battle Cry of Freedom
Oxford History of the United States
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Beginning of the Republic
A Basic History of the United States Volume 2
by Clarence B. Carson
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Betty Before X
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Bitter Woods: The Battle of the Bulge
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Black Odyssey
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Bonhoeffer
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Bridge to the Sun
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Caine Mutiny
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1952 Pulitzer Prize Winner
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Call to Conscience
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Catch-22
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Charis in the World of Wonders
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Churchill
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Citizen Soldiers
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Civil War Songbook
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Civil War: A History
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Civil War: A Narrative - 3 Volume Set
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Co. Aytch
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Code Name Verity
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Colonial Experience
A Basic History of the United States Volume 1
by Clarence B. Carson
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Colonial Period: 1607-1750
American History by Era Volume 2
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Colonial Triangular Trade: An Economy Based on Human Misery
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Debunking Howard Zinn
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Democracy in America
Penguin Classics
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Democracy in America
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Devil in Massachusetts
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Diary of a Young Girl
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Discoverers
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Emancipating Slaves, Enslaving Free Men
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Evidence Not Seen
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Eyewitnesses at the Battle of Franklin
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Faith of Our Fathers: Scenes from American Church History
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Faithful Spy
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First Voyage to America
by Christopher Columbus
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Forever Free
by Eric Foner, illustrations edited with commentary by Joshua Brown
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Fortune of War
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by Patrick O'Brian
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Four Voyages
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Free Indeed
by Mark Sidwell
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From Sea to Shining Sea
by Peter Marshall & David Manuel
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George Whitefield
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Girl in the Picture
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God and Ronald Reagan
by Paul Kengor
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God's Samurai
by Gordon Prange, with Donald Goldstein & Katherine Dillon
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Grand Canyon and the Southwest
by Ansel Adams
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Great Battles of the Civil War
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Great Bridge
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Great Crash: 1929
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Great Escape
by Paul Brickhill
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Great Gatsby
by F. Scott Fitzgerald
Reissue from Charles Scribner's Sons
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Growth of America
A Basic History of the United States Volume 4
by Clarence B. Carson
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$19.00
Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society
by Mary Ann Shaffer
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Guide to America's Greatest Historic Places
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Guns of August
by Barbara W. Tuchman
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Heyday
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History of the American People
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Hitch
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If The South Had Won The Civil War
by MacKinlay Kantor
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In the Land of the Head-Hunters
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Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl
by Harriet Jacobs
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Invisible Man
by Ralph Ellison
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Invisible Man
by Ralph Ellison
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Jamestown and the Founding of the Nation
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Jonathan and Sarah
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Jonathan Edwards
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Biography for 9th-Adult
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Journal of a Trapper
by Osborne Russell, edited by Aubrey L. Haines
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Journey and Ordeal of Cabeza de Vaca
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Labor's Untold Story
by Herbert M. Morais, Richard O. Boyer
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Land of Hope
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Last Battle
by Cornelius Ryan
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Last Bookshop in London
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Last of the Mohicans
Leatherstocking Tales #2
by James Fenimore Cooper
Reprint from Penguin Classics
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Lee's New School History of the United States
by Susan Lee
1995 reprint from Grapevine Publications
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Lies My Teacher Told Me
by James W. Loewen
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Lies My Teacher Told Me
by James W. Loewen
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Life and Diary of David Brainerd
by David Brainerd
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Biography for 10th-Adult
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Little House Coloring Book
Clr Csm from HarperCollins
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Little Women
by Lousia May Alcott
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Lives of the Presidents
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Long Valley
by John Steinbeck, Introduction and Notes by John H. Timmerman
from Penguin Books
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Longest Day
by Cornelius Ryan
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Lovely War
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Marriage to a Difficult Man
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Biography for 9th-Adult
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