(3) American Christianity - Garry Wills

Garry Wills is known for the extraordinary quality of his observations and the mastery of primary sources that has defined all of his work. But it is his encyclopedic knowledge of the history of religion in this country that informs this particular work and makes it so compelling.

In Head and Heart , he examines Christianity's place in American life, from our Puritan roots, marked by extreme passion, but also reason, through the Great Awakening, a period of evangelical revival committed to religious tolerance. Professor Wills believes that this latter period of enlightenment, when tolerance for other faiths and a belief that religion was a matter best divorced from political institutions, made possible the proverbial separation of church and state later enshrined in our Constitution.

He concludes with a discussion of the present-day administration of George Bush, where the lines of separation of church and state have become blurred. For Professor Wills, religion, in this administration, has come to play too large a role in government, a danger he ascribes to unchecked evangelicalism.

As he looks back to the enlightenment and its core value of separation of church and state, Professor Wills insists that separation was meant as a great protector of religion, not its enemy. But that, according to Professor Wills, hasn't stopped fervent believers from continually challenging the concept of separation of church and state as a danger to their beliefs.

Professor Wills is a prolific writer and frequent contributor to The New York Review of Books . His previous books include Lincoln at Gettysburg, Cincinnatus: George Washington and the Enlightenment, What Jesus Meant, and What Paul Meant. His works have received many awards, including the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Critics Circle Award. He has received the National Medal for the Humanities.

Although he studied for the priesthood, he took his doctorate in the classics. Currently he is professor of history emeritus at Northwestern University.

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