TRINITY EVANGELICAL DIVINITY SCHOOL

JESUS MADE IN AMERICA

A BOOK REPORT SUBMITTED TO

DR. LISA SUNG

SCHOOL OF SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY

BY

JONATHAN PHILIP WILSON

CHICAGO, ILLINOIS

FEBRUARY 15, 2011

 Jesus Made In America

Nichols states his thesis clearly in the final pages, “Jesus has been made in America,

many times over” (227). Moreover, Jesus has been remade in America. However, for one to

claim that Jesus has been remade, one must have knowledge of the historical Jesus. For Nichols

Jesus is, and always has been, wholly Lord. Nichols derives this knowledge from the creeds

(120). Nichols argues that remaking Jesus in America required freeing him from creedal

bondage. Once liberated Jesus was malleable, free to take whatever form culture desired. After

the Puritans, each century has continued the tradition of shaping Jesus into their own image.

Americans have turned Jesus into a moral guide, a feminine infant, a hero, movie star, consumer

and politician. Finally, Nichols pessimistically concludes that “It is highly likely that he [Jesus]

will be remade in the generations to come” (227).

To support his thesis, Nichols leads us on a flight throughout history. He analyzes the

teachings, and thus theology, of influential, and often heretical, leaders such as Edward Taylor,

Benjamin Franklin, Alexander Campbell, and Harry Emerson Fosdick. “It might be truly

impossible to capture an entire century with merely a few icons,” Nichols says. “But, with all

apologies to my historian friends, perhaps we can come close if we pick the right two icons and

if we have the good fortune of considering the right century” (74). However, the book is not

directly structured around the analysis of specific individuals. Rather, the book is primarily

structured around the analysis of past movements. In an effort to analyze these movements,

Nichols operates from the assumption that their predominant thinkers' teachings accurately

represent the Christology held by the majority of the people in their respective cultures. Nichols

begins with the Puritans and ends with the Republicans, hitting everything from the Constitution

to Christian consumerism on the way. Jesus Made In America watches as Americans from each

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century shape Christ in their own image. In the closing of his introduction Nichols states strongly

that “Their [American evangelicals] devotion is commendable, but the lack of a rigorous

theology behind it means that a generation of contemporary evangelicals is living off of

borrowed capital” (18). Jesus Made In America is an analysis of how that inherited debt was

created.

Nichols begins with the Puritans. First, he mentions two modern views of their theology.

These two views come from American scholars of religious history, Prothero and Fox. Prothero,

according to Nichols, says that the Puritans had “limited space for Christ and almost none for

Jesus” (22). Nichols then goes on to say that Prothero is “wide of the mark”, further declaring his

view that the scholar “overplays his hand” (22). Next, Nichols introduces the reader to Fox's

view. In harmony with David Hall and Darren Staloff, Fox states that the Puritans were

motivated by “a world of superstition and spirits” (21). It was because of the “controversies and

heresies of the deists and the superstitions of the folk religions” that the Puritans were focused on

developing a strong orthodoxy, focusing only on Christ the Savior (21). However, Nichols goes

on to state that Fox has also failed. He does not “see the full picture of Puritan devotion to

Christ,” Nichols says (22). However, after dismissing the far-reaching conclusions of Prothero

and Fox, Nichols states that they were “on to something when it comes to the move from the

orthodox Christology of the Puritan era to more fast and loose Christologies of later American

theology” (22). His point? We find ourselves today the product of a “declension of creedal

confines” that occurred throughout American history (23). This declension began as a rebellion

towards the Puritan's dramatic emphasis on theology and has left us with a Jesus “more and more

known by direct personal experience” (22). Nichols begins his narrative, evangelical America's
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narrative, here. America's abandonment of creedal confines is his major point throughout the

entire book.

Nichols' first evidence for that point comes as an analysis of the theology held by

American leaders of the late 18 th century. Robust American icons such as Benjamin Franklin,

Thomas Paine, and Thomas Jefferson are all dealt with. These American founders were “deeply

religious but,” Nichols proceeds, “with an exception here or there, not Christian in any orthodox

sense – precisely because they answered the question of the identity of Jesus of Nazareth

wrongly” (71). Again, we see Nichols refer to the abandonment of a creed, particularly that of

Nicea. In the final pages of his chapter entitled Jesus for a New Republic Nichols states, echoing

Machen, whom he later quotes, “It's one thing to honor Jesus as a moral teacher, even the

supreme moral teacher of the supreme system of morality. It is quite another to kneel before him

as Lord and Savior.” Nichols continues, “With modest apologies to the opinion of Thomas

Jefferson, only the latter, according to the Bible, is what makes for 'a real Christian'” (73). The

Biblically minded reader might be reminded of Peter's exchange with Christ in Mark's record of

the Gospel. “Who do you say that I am?” Christ asks. “You are the Christ,” Peter answers

definitively (ESV, Mark 8:29).

On those who founded America Nichols states clearly, ”they did not establish a Christian

nation but a religious one imbued with a great deal of Christian principles, what scholars refer to

as America's 'civil religion'” (51). America's founding fathers identified Jesus as a man, not as

Lord. Leaving Christ's divinity behind and taking a mere moral teacher with them, they tore apart

the hypostatic union and departed from creedal Christianity. Some of Nichols strongest evidence

is found in The Jefferson Bible. Nichols' main point, that of Americas abandonment of creedal

confines, is greatly supported in Jefferson’s Scriptures. However, it must be said that there is a
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vast difference between the separation found in the 18 th century, and that found in the 19th

century. It doesn't seem that, through the evidence provided, Jefferson and Franklin knew what

they were doing. They did not know they were abandoning creeds. It seems as though they

thought they were making Christ more accessible. Doubtless they were. They were removing the

need for faith altogether. However, the Victorians were not so deceived. They knew that they

were abandoning the creeds, and did it purposefully. Nichols quotes Campbell, “Our opposition

to creeds arose from a conviction that whether the pinions in them were true or false, they were

hostile to the union” (80). This is the chief difference among them apart from the structure of the

final product, the Jesus, they built.

Before confronting Hollywood, Nashville, and Wall Street, Nichols first runs head first

into the 19th century. Here the reader is introduced to “Jackson and the frontier era, Victorian

culture, and the Civil War” (76). First, Nichols shows us that theologians of this century “began

seeking the freer environs of life outside of the 'theological canopy'” (76). However, one must

ask the question, does this not occur in the 18 th also? Did Jefferson not also explore, with great

zeal, life outside of “theological canopy” when he left his Christ in the tomb? “Finis”, Jefferson

states after the stone is rolled in front of the grave. Certainly the wandering began long before the

19th century.

Next, once “outside the canopy”, Jesus was more susceptible to the “cultural climate”

(76). America now begins shaping Jesus in it's own image. But what exactly does the 19 th century

produce? Nichols states that the Jesus found here is simple, raw, and masculine as a result of the

frontier. Later, the Victorians produce a Jesus who is feminine and child-like. What does this

have to do with American Christology? Nichols is clear, “everything” (78). If Christ was
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reshaped to appeal to those on the frontier, and to those in Victorian culture, what would stop

him from being reshaped to appeal to every culture to come? Nothing.

In the previous century we saw Jefferson introduce us to the moral Jesus who was merely

a man. Nichols calls this the “simpler Jesus” (78). This, he says, was the first step. Now, in the

19th century, we see Jesus become chiefly experiential. This is step two. If Jesus was merely free

before, he is now welcomed into the imagination. And oh, do we ever enjoy him here!

In the modern world, we see the freshly liberated Jesus begin venturing further into the

imagination of man. Now Jesus is a spiritual guide, a moral example, a flower, a cartoon

character, a politician, a record producer, and a movie star. Oh, and don’t forget the bobble-head.

And all of this because he is now a sort of divine channel, as Fosdick would say. He is not the

object of faith, but the example of faith in God. Again we see Nichols focus on the divinity of

our Lord. “The sticking point here is Christ's deity,” he says (109). While he comes down far to

strong in some areas, particularly in his analysis of children's cartoons, implying that Dylan in

Electric Christmas should have “unpacked” the hypostatic union, his reoccurring point is well

supported and well received (115).From this point forward we are shown one evidence after

another, covering a huge portion of modern culture, proving that, even today, we are still

removing Christ, even if in the smallest ways, from the creeds, and using our imagination to

reconstruct him.

In analyzing the Puritans we found a people who were geared towards mythology. As a

result, theologians like Edwards focused heavily on theology, too heavily in Nichols eyes. This

staunch theologizing and doctrinal push caused the people to rebel, freeing the traditional Christ

and finding a Jesus who would rather engage through experience, through imagination. The

Puritans set the stage that propelled us into the seemingly perpetual cycle of recreating Christ in
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our own image, in culture's own image. Americas founding father's gave us a moral teacher, a

man. The Victorian era built a much more imaginative Jesus, filling in the gaps of what Gospel

was left with their mind. Finally, the modern era produced Jesus the entrepreneur, Jesus the lover,

and Jesus the right-wing conservative, among many more.

One is reminded of Christ's warning. Speaking of false-messiahs, our Lord states, “For

many will come in my name, saying, ‘I am the Christ,’ and they will lead many astray” (ESV,

Matthew 24:5). Certainly Christ was speaking of actual individuals who would come claiming to

be him. To understand anything different would be an exegetical error. However, a parallel is

easily seen. Piecing various popular ideas together we have created new identities. We have

called these identities the Christ, and thus created false-messiahs. These false-messiahs of our

imagination have led many astray from the true Savior that walked the streets of Jerusalem some

time ago. These faulty depictions are deceptive because they are built by the predominant ideas

of culture, causing America to believe that Jesus is actually, and really, exactly what they want.

Speaking of those who build “obstacles”, or promote wrong teachings, Paul states, “For

such people are not serving our Lord Christ, but their own appetites” (ESV, Romans 16:18). How

selfish of an endeavor, creating a Jesus of our own. Standing with Nichols in his closing remark,

may we all “look to the God-man, asking him to safeguard us as we safeguard 'the faith that was

once for all delivered to the saints' (Jude 3)” (227). Amen.