The Kingdom of God in America

Book excerpt: The classic reflection of the Protestant roots and ethos behind pluralistic American and its religions today. Martin Marty, in his new introduction for the Wesleyan reissue of H. Richard Niebuhr's The Kingdom of God in America, calls it "a classic." First published in 1938, "It remains the classic reflection of the Protestant roots and ethos behind pluralistic America and its religions today." Marty notes that the new "raw and rich pluralism" that challenges the Protestant hegemony in American life has left many Protestants longing to "get back to their roots." Niebuhr's book , perhaps more than any other, identifies and describes those roots for Protestants, especially Congregationalists, Episcopalians, Presbyterians, Methodists, Quakers, Baptists, and Lutherans. Introduction by Martin E. Marty.