“I think ironically American evangelicals often seem to be more followers of Benjamin Franklin that they are of Jonathan Edwards. They [evangelicals] admire practicality, friendliness, moralisms, easy formulas, and quantifiable results. And while these Franklin-esque traits aren’t all bad they sometimes contribute to evangelical superficiality.”[1]

George Marsden

[1] George Marsden, “The Legacy of Jonathan Edwards,” Beeson Divinity School, Nov. 12, 2004. Emphasis added. The two major feeder streams coming early into American culture are the Enlightenment and Puritanism. See David A. Hollinger, “The Accommodation of Protestant Christianity with the Enlightenment: the Old Drama Still Being Enacted,” Daedalus, the Journal of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences, 141 (1) Winter 2012 and Marshall Shelley and David Goetz, “The Weapons of War: an Interview with James Davison Hunter, Leadership Journal, Spring 1993: 14-15.