Book Reviews
“Some books are to be tasted, others to be swallowed.” Francis Bacon (d. 1826)
On Two Wings
Michael Novak, San Francisco: Encounter Books, 2002, $24.
Reviewed by Darold Morgan
The strength of this book is in the massive number of quotations, documentary evidence, anecdotal references from the era of America’s founding, confirming the importance of religion in these vital years. The potential weakness of the book comes as modern exponents of the concept that America was a Christian nation in these founding years will singularly use this evidence to trumpet the call to return to these roots. No one will challenge the need for a return to religion values in our beloved land, but one does need to have a true historical perspective in this effort.
That said, we are grateful for the author’s research of multiple sources of statesmen, preachers, educators, and author’s whose insights about America’s beginnings are genuinely helpful. His bibliography and appendixes are worth the price of the book. The key value comes from the numerous quotations from these sources in this historical timeframe. There are familiar and unfamiliar quotes from many: John Adams, Alexander Hamilton, George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, George Mason, the Federalist Papers, James Madison, John Leland, Benjamin Franklin, William Blackstone, John Witherspoon, etc. His multiple references to Alexis de Toqueville are very helpful.
It is at this point that Novak’s book dovetails with Pinson’s Baptists and Religious Liberty because of his use of many of same sources. Taken together as primary references, they constitute a solid basis for the historic position of Church/State truths. Whatever it takes, not only in local churches, but in collegiate and graduate studies, the time has come for a refreshing restatement and study of this massively important theme in both American history and life—Religious Liberty!
