A Trustworthy, Comprehensible Historical Narrative
A Feature Review of
Chosen Land: How Christianity Made America and Americans Remade Christianity
Matthew Avery Sutton
Hardcover: Basic Books, 2026
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Reviewed by Joel Wentz
I vividly remember completing my first Genogram exercise under the guidance of a counselor, in which I extensively mapped my extended family tree and noted significant events, repeated behaviors, and relational patterns. As a result, a “family story” emerged, which equipped me to begin to understand how the culture of my family of origin shaped me during my most formative years. More importantly, it helped me see that my family had a specific culture, that all my assumptions regarding how to handle conflict, or finances, or career ambitions, were not unformed, neutral, or default. I came out of a family, which formed me in particular ways, out of a specific context.
Religious History can give the religious practitioner the same sense of orientation that my Genogram did for my family background. Which dogma and practices are considered “traditional” and therefore defended by the “conservative” expressions of that religion? Were these ideas always treated as such, or did their “traditional” status emerge in a specific time and place? Conversely, which beliefs have been vigorously challenged, even overturned, and did these innovations ever themselves become “traditional?” Who were the key leaders or key detractors, and what were the pivotal events that impacted the general direction of religious adherence? Historically informed answers to these questions can provide building blocks for a narrative, which then creates a deeper understanding for how and why a religious expression looks the way it does, much like my own deeper grasp of the way my family acted and behaved. Especially for those immersed in religious practice, or even for those questioning such practice, informed and sensitive historical storytelling can be revelatory. The fish finally learns about the water in which it has been swimming.
Matthew Avery Sutton, in his sweeping new book Chosen Land, aims to provide this sort of historical accounting of American Christianity, focusing on the dynamic nature of American culture itself, the way Christian expressions have evolved and iterated within that culture, and how Christianity has been an indelible force in the story of the American people from the pre-colonial era through the present day. In fact, it is Sutton’s focus on this dialectical dynamism that separates Chosen Land from many otherwise similar one-volume works on American history. If Sutton set out to demonstrate that the story of America cannot be recounted without sensitivity to Christianity, then he succeeded, and this is largely due to the impressive scope of his research and synthesis.
The scope of Sutton’s work is both wide, beginning in the start of the colonial era and capturing the chronology of the American story, and deep, representing a full array of Christian leaders, expressions, and institutions from each era. While no historical work can be truly exhaustive (and I will comment below on some of the gaps), this book must first be commended for the sheer breadth of material it uses, including primary sources throughout. As a reader with an interest in research, I was particularly delighted by Sutton’s annotated bibliographies for every chapter, pointing the reader to a treasure trove of important material relating to every stage of American recorded history.
Sutton differentiates four streams of American Christianity, the “revivalist stream to promote an individualist focus and emphasis on heartfelt faith and a specific set of Christian morals . . . a reconfigured conservative stream to uphold decorum, tradition, and order . . . the liberal stream, integrating European thought and the North American context to advocate for Jesus’s ideals independent of what they saw as anti-intellectual, medieval superstitions. Meanwhile, those who sought to upend the status quo began working to redirect part of the main river of American Christianity into a new liberationist stream” (75-76).
These four streams provide a helpful handle for absorbing Sutton’s massive historical synthesis. Leaders and institutions can be clearly identified in these four categories over swaths of Christian and American history. As a reading and learning tool, then, they are successful. As a matter of historical methodology, differentiating the “revivalist” and “conservative” streams supplies a critical nuance that other historians elide. “Although revivalist leaders later claimed to have restored traditional Protestantism, in reality they created something attuned to the time and place” (63, emphasis added). If Sutton is correct, “revivalism” is more innovative than truly conservative, which affords the student of history a way to contextualize and revise many familiar accounts of what would be loosely called “evangelicalism” in the second half of the 1900s.
Sutton’s account of the progress and development of this “revivalist” stream is sharp and insightful, tracing its adoption of communication technologies, business and marketing strategies, and generally wielding an outsized influence on American culture, always differentiating it from the self-consciously “conservative” stream that resisted adoption of revivalist tactics. On the other hand, the treatment of the “liberationist” and “conservative” streams (while giving due attention to figures like Richard Allen and the emergence of institutions like the AME church, and how “conservatives” were actually anti-revolutionary Loyalists in the colonial era), feels thinner and less pointed by the end of the book, which perhaps reveals the limits of such historical methodology.
The imposition of any broad categories upon historical material is necessary, for the sake of comprehension and readability, especially in a work of such ambitious scope, but I could not help but wonder at the inevitable limits of the approach. For example, it was not clear to me, as an admirer of the work of the late Donald Dayton, how someone like Jonathan Blanchard or Charles Finney would fit into Sutton’s streams. These figures demonstrate clear revivalist methods (especially Finney), but also deep liberationist impulses, and it is telling that neither figures too prominently in Chosen Land. (See Dayton’s updated work in Rediscovering an Evangelical Heritage.)
It is not my intent to level a criticism, but rather to raise the (obvious?) point that any comprehensible historical narrative necessarily demands interpretive judgments. The question is not whether such judgments were made, but whether those judgments are the product of wise study and provide genuine insight. Sutton’s four streams provide an extraordinarily helpful lens for viewing continuing patterns in American Christian practice. His account of the birth of revivalism, its innovative power and sustained influence in American life, is alone worth the price of the book. He has also synthesized, and is a trustworthy guide through, an amount of material that most people will simply never be able to absorb in a lifetime. His work is genuinely impressive, enjoyable to read, and illuminating, despite some limitations.
To return to my opening analogy, my own religious “Genogram” is full of both “revivalist” and “conservative” Christian streams, and Sutton’s engaging, sweeping work helped me more deeply grasp the origin and trajectory of these influences, both problematic and commendable, as well as develop an increased appreciation for the indelible role Christianity itself has played in the bigger story of the American people. Perhaps it is a story that can never be adequately rendered in a single book, but Sutton’s attempt is admirable, thoughtful, and a joy to experience.
Joel Wentz
Joel Wentz is currently the Executive Pastor at Missio Dei Church in Portland, Maine. He previously served in college campus ministry with InterVarsity Christian Fellowship. In addition to reading and writing, his passions include tabletop gaming, music, and coffee. His favorite book genres are epic fantasy and epic theology. He lives in Portland, Maine with his wife and son, and his personal writing and podcast are at: joelwentz.com
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