American Jesus: How the Son of God Became a National Icon » (Reprint)

Stephen Prothero is the chair of the religion department at Boston University. His book American Jesus was named one of the best religion books of 2003 by Publishers Weekly and one of the year's best nonfiction books by the Chicago Tribune. He writes and reviews for the New York Times Magazine, Wall Street Journal, Boston Globe, Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, Salon, and other publications. He holds degrees from Harvard and Yale.

Jesus the Black Messiah; Jesus the Jew; Jesus the Hindu sage; Jesus the Haight-Asbury hippie: these Jesuses join the traditional figure of Jesus Christ in American Jesus, which was acclaimed upon publication in hardcover as an altogether fresh exploration of American history—and as the liveliest book about Jesus to appear in English in years.

Our nation's changing images of Jesus, Stephen Prothero contends, are a kind of looking class into the national character. Even as most Christian believers cleave to a traditional faith, other people give Jesus a leading role as folk hero, pitchman, and countercultural icon. And so it has been since the nation's founding—from Thomas Jefferson, who took scissors to his New Testament to sort out true from false Jesus material; to the Jews, Buddhists and Muslims who fit Jesus into their own traditions; to the people who adapt Jesus for stage and screen and the Holy Land theme park. American Jesus is "a lively, illuminating and accessible survey that takes us into unexpected corners of our shared religious heritage" (Dan Cryer, Newsday).