Christianity in America

The Wall Street Journal published a positive review of my book today. Here are a few of the highlights:

“In “The Wars of the Lord,” a judicious and balanced account of the relations between English settlers and the region’s indigenous peoples during the 17th century, Matthew J. Tuininga argues that the Puritans’ spiritual struggles were indeed inseparable from their military actions, the two being regulated by the primacy of their Christian faith.”

“The contradiction between the peaceful initiatives to proselytize and the military campaigns that verged on genocide has led some modern historians to accuse the Puritans of hypocrisy. Mr. Tuininga, a professor at Calvin Theological Seminary in Michigan, absolves them of that charge, arguing that their actions—benevolent and hostile alike—were governed by the same religious belief: Just as Puritan Christianity was used to justify efforts to evangelize, so it was invoked to enslave or kill the enemies of God’s chosen people. “Christianity was the framework,” Mr. Tuininga writes, that the Puritans used “to guide, interpret, and defend everything they did.””

“The author exploits rich primary sources, including the eyewitness testimonies of English and Algonquian participants.”

Read the whole review here!

I’m excited to see the energy surrounding the release of my new book The Wars of the Lord: The Puritan Conquest of America’s First People. On Wednesday Calvin Theological Seminary held a book launch in which I was interviewed by my colleague Danny Daley, followed by a book signing. The event was filled to max capacity. You can watch the event here.

I also did a podcast on the book with Leah Jolly, which you can watch here.

Finally, I wrote an article for The Gospel Coalition exploring the question of whether or not the Puritans were hypocrites, which you can read here.

Order the book on Amazon, and if you are interested in having me speak about it, please reach out to me via the Contact link on this website.

I am grateful to John Fea of Messiah University for interviewing me about my book at Current:

John Fea: Why do we need to read The Wars of the Lord?

Matthew Tuininga: Americans continue to argue about the meaning of America and the role Christianity has played in it. Yet all too often we oversimplify the story by either valorizing or demonizing the various players. We like our history like a Marvel movie – with heroes and villains. Were the early colonists heroic, pious Christians pursuing liberty and prosperity in a new world? Or were they greedy, bigoted opportunists seeking to exploit Native Americans and seize their land? The answer is neither, and both. The Wars of the Lord tells this story honestly in all its complexity, without reducing its characters to heroes or villains. If readers want to understand how colonization actually happened, this book is an excellent place to start.

See the rest of the interview at Current.

My new book, The Wars of the Lord: The Puritan Conquest of America’s First People (Oxford University Press) is out, and it has received positive reviews from the prestigious Kirkus Reviews and from Christianity Today.

Kirkus Reviews concludes, “Tuininga’s book does a good job of sorting out the complexities of one of America’s bloodiest, if little-known, conflicts. A capable study of cultures and ideologies in collision.” Read the full review here.

John Turner, at Christianity Today, writes, “The Wars of the Lord is a landmark history of 17th-century New England… Tuininga combines sharp analysis with a readable and even entertaining narrative… The Wars of the Lord is an antidote to contemporary political debates about the American past, which are not so much about the facts of history as about the relative importance placed on them… Tuininga demonstrates that the best response to these and related questions is simply to write good history.” Read Turner’s full review here.

I also did a podcast with Leah Jolly at Calvin Theological Seminary about some of the background to the book, which you can watch here.

And if you have not already purchased the book, which you can do as a Kindle or as a hard copy, order it at Amazon today!