What do God's judgments have to do with history? Steven J. Keillor presents the bold thesis that divine judgment can be a fruitful category for historical investigation. In fact, he makes the case that Christianity is rightly grasped as an interpretation of history more than a worldview or philosophy. Grounding his thesis first on a study of God's judgments in the teaching of both the Old and New Testaments, Keillor then revisits two prominent events in U.S. history, the burning of Washington in 1814 and the Civil War, to further explore and test his interpretive principle of divine judgment. He concludes by suggesting the relevance of his thesis to some pressing contemporary concerns.

There was a day when the plausibility of Christianity was debated on a philosophical and metaphysical basis: Does God exist? Can a good God create and sustain a world marred by evil? Can peoples in all times and places take seriously the very particular claims made by and for Jesus Christ? Today Christianity is often challenged not from philosophy or metaphysics but from history. Rather than attack the supposed proofs of God's existence, skeptics of all sorts (college professors, journalists, members of ethnic minority groups, women, and especially Generation Xers) are more likely to point to slavery, patriarchalism, mistreatment of Native Americans and other historical examples of Christian oppression as evidence that Christianity is either misguided or untrustworthy. These revisionist views of U.S. history, most prominently developed in the proposed National Standards for United States History, have recently captured the attention of the wider American public via reports on Nightline and in the pages of Time and several national newspapers. In This Rebellious House historian Steven Keillor meets the new challenges head-on. Examining events in the United States from Columbus to Clinton, he first disabuses us of the notion that our nation has ever been a genuinely "Christian" one. Then he focuses in turn on various political, economic and cultural policies or events (the Civil War, westward expansion) that are now often cited to "disprove" or "debunk" Christianity. Relying on essential Christian assumptions and on the best of contemporary historical scholarship, he refutes each of these challenges with a provocative, compelling and robustly pro-Christian reading of U.S. history. Here is a significant new resource for historians, students, Christians and all citizens of conscience caught in the crossfire of our nation's current culture wars.

This collection of travel essays, arguments, poems and devotional reflections is a call to a return to the fortress - Jesus Christ. He is the only true source of hope, as many who have been captivated by His love can testify. Yet our culture is increasingly captivated (in an ominous sense) by false hopes marketed at increasing profit by the "athletes, actors, self-proclaimed kings," who are increasingly our chosen heroes. In these essays, the person of the Christ is presented as the Hero - freely given, divinely chosen, faithful and true. To be His "prisoner" is to be free indeed.
Steven J. Keillor (Ph.D., University of Minnesota) is an independent scholar engaged in research and writing on rural history for the Minnesota Historical Society and other organizations. He has taught at Iowa State University, Minnesota State University, Bethel College and Northwestern College. He has published several academic texts in the field of American history, politics and government including This Rebellious House: American History & the Truth of Christianity (IVP), and his work has appeared in national publications like Books & Culture and in professional journals like "Minnesota History, Agricultural History" and "Norwegian-American Studies." Keillor is based in Askov, Minnesota.