This Rebellious House - by Steven J Keillor (Paperback)

About the Book

Today Christianity is challenged on a historical basis as well as being debated on a philosophical and metaphysical level. Relying on essential Christian assumptions and on the best of contemporary historical scholarship, historian Steven J. Keillor refutes the challenges against Christianity with provocative, compelling, and ribustly pro-Christian readings of events in U.S. history.

Book Synopsis

Examining United States history from Columbus to Clinton, Steven J. Keillor disabuses us of the notion that our nation has ever been a genuinely "Christian" one. He focuses on various political, economic and cultural policies or events (the Civil War, westward expansion) that are now often cited to "disprove" or "debunk" Christianity.

From the Back Cover

There was a day when the plausibility of Christianity was debated on a philosophical and metaphysical basis: Does God exist? Can a good God create and sustain a world marred by evil? Can peoples in all times and places take seriously the very particular claims made by and for Jesus Christ? But in the college classrooms of today, Christianity is often considered disproved on the basis of history. Rather than attack and supposed proofs of God's existence, skeptics are more likely to point to slavery patriarchalism, mistreatment of Native Americans and other historical examples of Christian oppression. Limiting himself to the United States, a country he never supposes to have been a genuinely "Christian nation", historian Steven Keillor here meets the anti-Christian case head-on. He relies on basic Christian assumptions and the best contemporary historical scholarship to present a provocative, compelling and robustly pro-Christian reading of American history. A significant book for historians, students, Christians and other citizens caught in the crossfire of America's current-day culture wars.

Review Quotes

"This swashbuckling, learned, sometimes infuriating, often surprising, opinionated, pious, devastating and altogether useful book interprets the course of American history by linking the best historical scholarship with an explicitly Christian point of view . . . [It] keeps mind and soul awake . . . This is a very important work."

About the Author

Steven J. Keillor (Ph.D., University of Minnesota) is an independent historian and was previously an assistant professor at Iowa State University. He has published several scholarly books in American history and political biography including Grand Excursion: Antebellum America Discovers the Upper Mississippi, Erik Ramstad and the Empire Builder and This Rebellious House: American History the Truth of Christianity. He has edited a Civil War memoir No More Gallant a Deed and written a book of essays and poems, Prisoners of Hope: Sundry Sunday Essays (Regent College Press). He writes in a log cabin in Minnesota.