A City Upon a Hill: How the Sermon Made America shows the United States at its best - and sometimes at its worst. The sermon can serve as a national conscience, and can also be viewed as the first form of mass media. Not only can the nation's history be traced in the landmark sermons preached from its pulpits and in front of its memorials, but in fact it was often the sermon that inspired and helped define America.

Larry Witham presents the first serious examination of religious rhetoric and how it both reflected and inspired public opinion and policy throughout American history. Witham analyses the influence of religion on the Founding Fathers, Abraham Lincoln, John Brown, Martin Luther King, Jr., and many other eminent figures. A City Upon a Hill also features a timeline connecting famous sermons and inspirational speeches to important events in American history.

Larry Witham is the author of The Measure of God, Where Darwin Meets the Bible and By Design: Science and the Search for God. As a journalist, he has won the Religion Communicators Council's Wilbur Award three times, several prizes from the Religion Newswriters Association, and a Templeton Foundation award for his articles on science and religion. He has appeared on C SPAN, the CBN "700 Club" and Fox News. He lives in Burtonsville, Maryland.

"The sermon is America's characteristic form of speech, and this book is a brilliant exposition of that form. From Winthrop to King and beyond, we speak and hear of our destiny as a nation in the voice of the sermon. This is an invaluable guide." -- Peter Gomes, author of The Good Book: Reading the Bible with Heart and Mind--Preaching Magazine

Binding Type: Paperback
Publisher: HarperOne
Published: 07/01/2008
ISBN: 9780061338120
Pages: 318
Weight: 0.92lbs
Size: 9.06h x 6.34w x 0.87d