Head and Heart

New York Timesbestselling author Garry Wills presents a landmark examination of Christianitys place in American life across the broad sweep of this countrys history, from the Puritans to the presidential administration of George W. Bush. The struggle within American Christianity, now and throughout our countrys history, is between the head and the heart: between reason and emotion, Enlightenment and Evangelicalism. Why has this been so? How has the tension between the two poles played out, and with what consequences, over the past 400 years? Wills brings a lifetimes worth of thought about these questions to bear on a magnificent historical reckoning that offers vitally needed perspective on some of the most contentious issues of our time. As Wills examines the key movements and personalities that have transformed Americas religious landscape, the same pattern emerges again and again: a cooling of popular religious fervor followed by a grassroots explosion in Evangelical activity. But such forces inevitably go too far, interfering too much in American public life, causing a backlash, and the cycle begins again. In the end, Willss abiding message is to be vigilant against the triumph of emotions over reason but to know that the tension between the two is in fact necessary, inevitable, and unending.