Prothero, Stephen R. American Jesus: How the Son of God Became a National Icon. New York: Farrar, Straus, and Giroux, 2003.

In the context of the present de-centered conception of American Studies, one might logically ask how a scholar might still use a myth-and-symbol approach responsibly to analyze insightfully certain iconic and persistent American themes.  Stephen Prothero, professor of religion at Boston University, in tackling no less a subject than Americans’ conception of Jesus, goes a long way toward answering this question in his American Jesus, which sparkles with wit, insight, and humor. Continue reading A Quest for the Cultural Jesus →