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James W. Fitfield, Jr. was a mid century Congregationalist minister who "set about convincing America’s Protestant clergy that America was a Christian nation in which government must be kept from interfering with the expression of God’s will in market economics" Stewart (2017). Fitfield's legacy is central to Kevin M. Kruse's "One Nation under God: How Corporate America Invented Christian America" (2015). Kruse, a historian of the American South at Princeton University, argues that the idea of the United States as a christian nation grew out of opposition to the New Deal 'when Corporate leaders allied with conservative clergyman [like Fitfield] to promote 'Christian libertarianism' (Kerstetter 2016). Kruse has previously written a prizewinning history of desegregation in Atlanta.
One Nation under God has been positively reviewed, although reviewers are not convinced that corporations played a significant role in promoting Christian libertarianism. The positive reviews included here include one Hart (2015), written by a professor at Hillsdale College, published in the Wall Street Journal.
Toy (1970) is a history of Fitfield's spiritual mobilization movement. Harvey (1971) discusses the tensions between Fitfield's congregation and its parent denomination. Haddington (2010) and Harvey (1970) in this subsection are from publications Rice does not subscribe to.
