Thirty Years of Light & Glory
The Perils of Providential History
by John Fea
For most baby boomers, the name Peter Marshall triggers memories of the straight man who kept Paul Lynde and Charlie Weaver in line as the host of the 1970s game show Hollywood Squares. But a baby boomer raised in the Evangelical subculture might recall Catherine Marshall’s book A Man Called Peter, the biography of her husband, a Scottish-born Presbyterian minister who served two years as chaplain to the United States Senate before his death in 1949 at the age of forty-five. The story of Peter Marshall’s journey from Ellis Island to Washington, and the faith that sustained him along the way, has inspired Evangelical Christians for half a century.
Though his life as a local pastor contains none of the drama or tragedy of his father’s, the Marshalls’ son, also named Peter, may now be even more famous in the Evangelical world than his father. With his friend David Manuel, he is the author of The Light and the Glory, one of the most widely read nonfiction Christian books of all time, with sales close to one million since it was first published by Fleming H. Revel & Co. in 1977.
A Christian Nation
The fact that The Light and the Glory is a book about early American history makes its sales total even more impressive, but what makes the book worthy of reflection, more than thirty years after its publication, is its impact on hundreds of thousands of Christians, including students in home schools and private Christian academies, in promoting a “Christian view” of American history. It was not the first (or the last) book to declare that the United States was founded as a “Christian nation,” but it has certainly been the most influential.
It is easy to understand why The Light and the Glory has had such staying power in the Evangelical world. While mainstream texts treat American history as if God did not exist, Marshall and Manuel offer a narrative of early American history focused on the sovereignty of God. The authors also tell their story in compelling prose. They occasionally inject their own voices into the narrative to explain how they crafted their argument through research and prayer.
The idea of a book about God’s providential plan for the United States was conceived when Manuel, an editor at Doubleday Books, first heard Marshall speak on the topic at a Cape Cod church in the mid-1970s. Evangelicals were then beginning to awaken from a long political slumber. Jerry Falwell had formed the Moral Majority to win the country back for God, and his armies of pastors were preparing for a culture war.
History would be one of the primary theatres in this war. As America celebrated its bicentennial, conservative Christians seized on the nation’s newfound historical consciousness. The time had come for an alternative version of United States history, one that placed God at the center.
On this particular evening, Marshall was delivering an old-fashioned Puritan jeremiad. America had sinned. Abortion on demand, pornography, divorce, and unethical business practices offered indisputable evidence of moral decay.
These social problems, he argued, were the inevitable product of a faulty view of America’s historical identity. Citizens had failed to remember that the United States was one nation under God. If only Christians could recover God’s special destiny for this country, America could be saved from divine punishment.
John Fea teaches American history at Messiah College in Grantham, Pennsylvania. He is the author of The Way of Improvement Leads Home: Philip Vickers Fithian and the Rural Enlightenment in America (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2008) and writes for the weblog Religion and American History (www.usreligion.blogspot.com).
A Journal of Mere Christianity—Delivered to Your Door
- Essays on theology, culture, and the Church
- Contributors from across the Christian traditions
Six print issues (one year) of Touchstone, plus full online access and PDF downloads for only $39.95.
Get a one-year full-access subscription to the Touchstone online archives for only $19.95.
bulk subscriptions
Order Touchstone subscriptions in bulk and save $10 per sub! Each subscription includes 6 issues of Touchstone plus full online access to touchstonemag.com—including archives, videos, and pdf downloads of recent issues for only $29.95 each! Great for churches or study groups.
Transactions will be processed on a secure server.
more on history from the online archives
15.6—July/August 2002
Things Hidden Since the Beginning of the World
The Shape of Divine Providence & Human History by James Hitchcock
31.1—January/February 2018
on Ragnarök, an Extreme Weather Event & the Paths to Conversion by Timothy J. Burbery
28.3—May/June 2015
Whittaker Chambers's Lonely War Against Godless Collectivism by Hunter Baker
more from the online archives
36.4—Jul/Aug 2023
Our Political Void & the Disintegration of Truth by Michael Hanby
32.4—July/August 2019
Today's Culture Wars Are Both Ancient & Modern by Allan C. Carlson
25.4—July/August 2012
The Corrosive & Far-Reaching Fallout of the Sexual Revolution by Anthony Esolen
calling all readers
Please Donate
"There are magazines worth reading but few worth saving . . . Touchstone is just such a magazine."
—Alice von Hildebrand
"Here we do not concede one square millimeter of territory to falsehood, folly, contemporary sentimentality, or fashion. We speak the truth, and let God be our judge. . . . Touchstone is the one committedly Christian conservative journal."
—Anthony Esolen, Touchstone senior editor
