A history of Washington National Cathedral and the theory of an American civil religion. In 1792, Pierre Charles L'Enfant, the first city planner of Washington, DC, introduced the idea of a "great church for national purposes." Unlike L'Enfant's plans for the White House, the US Capitol, and the National Mall, this grand temple to the republic never materialized. But in 1890, the Episcopal Church began planning what is known today as Washington National Cathedral. In American Kairos, Richard Benjamin Crosby chronicles the history of not only the building but also the idea that animates it, arguing that the cathedral is a touchstone site for the American civil religion-the idea that the United States functions much like a religion, with its own rituals, sacred texts, holy days, and so on. He shows that the National Cathedral can never be the church L'Enfant envisioned, but it can be a starting point for studying the conflicts of belonging, ideology, and America's place in the world that define the American civil religion. By examining correspondence between L'Enfant, George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, and others, and by diving into Washington National Cathedral's archives, Crosby uncovers a crucial gap in the formation of the nation's soul. While L'Enfant's original vision was never realized, Washington National Cathedral reminds us that perhaps it can be. The cathedral is one of the great rhetorical and architectural triumphs in the history of American religion. Without government mandate or public vote, it has claimed its role as America's de facto house of worship, a civil religious temple wherein Americans conduct some of their highest, holiest rituals, including state funerals and National Day of Prayer services.

In 1839 a group of Hindu elite gathered in Calcutta to share and propagate their faith in a non-idolatrous form of worship. The group, known as the Tattvabodhinl Sabha, met weekly to worship and hear discourses from members on ways to promote a rational and morally responsible mode of worship. They called upon ancient sources of Hindu spirituality to guide them in developing a modern form of theism they referred to as "Vedanta." In this book, Brian Hatcher situates the theology and moral vision set forth in these hitherto unknown discourses against the backdrop of religious and social change in early colonial Calcutta. In doing so, he demonstrates how the theology of the Tattvabodhinl Sabha legitimated the worldly interests of Calcutta's emergent bourgeoisie. This 'bourgeois Vedanta' sanctioned material prosperity while providing members with a means of spiritual fulfillment.
Hatcher's important study includes the first ever complete, annotated translation of Sabhyadiger vaktrta, the earliest extant record of the Tattvabodhinl Sabha. The translation is supplemented with a detailed analysis of the text demonstrating that its twenty-one unsigned discourses were composed by such major figures in nineteenth-century Bengal as Debendranath Tagore, Isvaracandra Vidyasagara, Isvaracandra Gupta, and Aksayakumara Datta. In many cases, these are the earliest known writings we have for such individuals.
This rare set of discourses provides Hatcher with an opportunity to explore a decisive moment in the construction of modern Vedanta, and to comment on the concerns this Vedantic movement raised for contemporary Christian observers. Hatcher is able to demonstrate the decisive role played bythe Tattvabodhinl Sabha in both reviving and reformulating the teachings of Rammohan Roy, the founder of Vedantic reform in colonial India. At the same time, Hatcher suggests that the earliest members of the Sabha are best viewed as 'Brhamos without Rammohan.' Only later would they look to Rammohan as their founding father.
Apart from bringing to light the guiding ideals of an association that was to have a profound influence on religious and intellectual life in nineteenth-century Bengal, Hatcher's analysis will promote reflection on a variety of topics central to understanding the development of modern forms of Hindu belief and practice.