In our own image

American Jesus

How the Son of God Became a National Icon

By Stephen Prothero

Farrar, Straus and Giroux. 376 p $25

ISBN 0374178909

Reading American Jesus, I longed to teach again a course I regularly used to offer on American culture and religion. This would definitely be a required text. It is a spritely, sometimes ironic, truly illuminating overview of Jesus as a national icon, within and outside the organized churches. Stephen Prothero, a professor of religion at Boston University, is on a quest less for the historical than for the cultural Jesus.

One American cultural paradox, with our separation ...