On June 27, 2015, activist Bree Newsome climbed the 30-foot flagpole outside the South Carolina State House to remove the Confederate flag, a symbolic act of protest following the fatal shooting of nine Black churchgoers at Charleston’s Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church a little over a week earlier. As she took down the flag, Newsome invoked Psalm 27 and the Lord’s Prayer, framing her action as a stand against hatred and oppression in the name of faith.

Newsome’s story is among many chronicled in Brook Wilensky-Lanford’s book, *A God-Shaped Nation*, which offers a broad survey of religion in America by profiling both well-known and lesser-known figures. The work examines how faith has intersected with social and political movements across the country’s history, highlighting individuals from a wide range of traditions and eras. Some figures spotlighted include Anne Hutchinson, civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr., and the 12-year-old Jehovah’s Witness Lillian Gobitas, who was expelled from her school in 1935 for refusing to pledge allegiance to the American flag. Wilensky-Lanford also tells the story of Toyogusu Uyenoyama, a Japanese-born Buddhist priest interned during World War II, and Stephen Pieters, a gay Christian activist who ministered to AIDS patients for decades.

While the book aims to present a diverse range of religious experiences, it has been criticized for certain historical inaccuracies and uneven treatment of topics. For example, Wilensky-Lanford’s claim that the Mayflower separatists called themselves Pilgrims—a term that arose later—is disputed by historians. The author also misattributes the divine messenger who appeared to Joseph Smith, founder of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, when Smith reported receiving instructions directly from Jesus Christ, and had already published the Book of Mormon by the age of 26.

Wilensky-Lanford’s narrative often frames conservative Protestant groups as political antagonists. She traces opposition from these communities to the New Deal, civil rights legislation, feminism, and LGBTQ rights, focusing on figures such as Abraham Vereide, founder of the National Prayer Breakfast; Jerry Falwell, who established the Moral Majority; and David Green, founder of Hobby Lobby, which secured a Supreme Court exemption from covering certain contraceptives in employee healthcare plans. Critics argue that the book lacks the empathy afforded to other religious subjects and reduces contemporary evangelicalism primarily to a tradition marked by bigotry and hypocrisy, overlooking the insights and community roles evangelical churches provide for millions in the United States.

A key theme in *A God-Shaped Nation* revolves around competing visions of religious freedom, especially as embodied in the Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA) of 1993. Originally passed with broad bipartisan support, RFRA was designed to prevent laws from substantially burdening religious exercise, protecting rights ranging from Muslim women’s wearing of hijabs to Sikh men’s turban-wearing in military programs. However, the law’s interpretation became contentious when used by religious conservatives to justify exemptions that critics say infringe on others’ rights, exemplified by the Hobby Lobby case.

Wilensky-Lanford argues that religion is inherently a public matter, creating tensions between individual conscience and pluralistic society. Historical examples given include mainline Protestants who once sought to limit evangelical broadcasts and current disputes involving adoption agencies and LGBTQ parents. The book ultimately calls for Americans to embrace a multifaceted and sometimes messy public religiosity, recalling alliances between Baptist activists and Deist skeptics at the nation’s founding as a model for cooperation amid religious difference.