"God Bless America" is a song most Americans know well. It is taught in American schools and regularly performed at sporting events. After the attacks on September 11th, it was sung on the steps of the Capitol, at spontaneous memorial sites, and during the seventh inning stretch at baseball games, becoming even more deeply embedded in America's collective consciousness. In God Bless America, Sheryl Kaskowitz tells the fascinating story behind America's other national anthem. It begins with the song's composition by Irving Berlin in 1918 and first performance by Kate Smith in 1938, revealing an early struggle for control between composer and performer as well as the hidden economics behind the song's royalties. Kaskowitz shows how the early popularity of "God Bless America" reflected the anxiety of the pre-war period and sparked a surprising anti-Semitic and xenophobic backlash. She follows the song's rightward ideological trajectory from early associations with religious and ethnic tolerance to increasing uses as an anthem for the Christian Right, and considers the song's popularity directly after the September 11th attacks. The book concludes with a portrait of the song's post-9/11 function within professional baseball, illuminating the power of the song - and of communal singing itself - as a vehicle for both commemoration and coercion. A companion website offers streaming audio of recordings referenced in the book, links to videos of relevant performances, appendices of information, and an opportunity for readers to participate in the author's survey. Based on extensive archival research and fieldwork, God Bless America sheds new light on cultural tensions within the U.S., past and present, and offers a historical chronicle that is full of surprises and that will both edify and delight readers from all walks of life.

After Pearl Harbor, Tin Pan Alley songwriters rushed to write the Great American War Song—an "Over There" for World War II. The most popular songs, however, continued to be romantic ballads, escapist tunes, or novelty songs. To remedy the situation, the federal government created the National Wartime Music Committee, an advisory group of the Office of War Information (OWI), which outlined "proper" war songs, along with tips on how and what to write. The music business also formed its own Music War Committee to promote war songs. Neither group succeeded. The OWI hoped that Tin Pan Alley could be converted from manufacturing love songs to manufacturing war songs just as automobile plants had retooled to assemble planes and tanks. But the OWI failed to comprehend the large extent by which the war effort would be defined by advertisers and merchandisers. Selling merchandise was the first priority of Tin Pan Alley, and the OWI never swayed them from this course. Kathleen E.R. Smith concludes the government's fears of faltering morale did not materialize. Americans did not need such war songs as "Goodbye, Mama, I'm Off To Yokohama", "There Are No Wings On a Foxhole", or even "The Sun Will Soon Be Setting On The Land Of The Rising Sun" to convince them to support the war. The crusade for a "proper" war song was misguided from the beginning, and the music business, then and now, continues to make huge profits selling love—not war—songs.

After sitting in a drawer unused and unnamed for twenty years, Irving Berlin's "God Bless America" became the unofficial national anthem of the United States. From World War II battlefronts to professional baseball stadiums, and even the steps of the United States Capitol after the 9/11 attacks, "God Bless America" invokes a feeling of peace and unity in the hearts of many Americans. This captivating book takes its readers on a journey through time on the back of an immigrant's song that has comforted a nation during some of its most challenging times. Complete with easy-to-read sheet music kids can use to play the song, modern uses of the song, and information about the song's journey to fame, this book is sure to engage young readers.

Recently, and seemingly overnight, the once cliche slogan "God Bless America" became almost a national mantra. John MacArthur gets to the heart of the matter by asking the questions most Americans choose to ignore: "Should God bless America?" and "Is America deserving of blessing?" Turning to the Old Testament, he presents the simple truth of God's word, his blessing has always had conditions. MacArthur calls the Nation to turn back to God by showing us how we can become a nation that is once again blessed by God.

A collection of stories, poems, and quotations celebrating the U.S.A.

Quotations, from scripture, history, and literature, that reference religion and patriotism, or similar virtues.

Everyone knows where they were when the first case of Coronavirus in the country was announced but not everyone knows how a virus like Coronavirus reveals so much about the historical, socio-economic and political sacred cows humanity has been breeding for more than a 1000 years and how these have created a free range for the pandemic to graze and unleash mayhem on an unprepared world. This book shatters the easy arrogance of countries with long held beliefs of how their power and economic prowess insulate them from the plagues often associated with the least developed countries in the world. In the run up to the 2020 elections, Americans are waking up to the reality that Democracy is very fragile and held together not by its gleaming skyscrapers but a philosophical framework that can easily be destroyed if the citizens do not protect it. For poor countries perennially unable to shrug off the shackles of corruption and ineptitude holding them back, it lays bare the brutal fact that the knee on their neck today is their own. An open mind is a very rare item but that is what this book asks of its reader. It brings historical facts carefully hidden through centuries of prejudice and misinformation with the intent to force us to confront ourselves, to ask questions we had not dared to imagine and perhaps set us on a path to collective healing, redemption and progress

What happens to the Gospel when you put other loyalties into positions of power in Christian life and practice? You get deformations, distortions, and caricatures of Christianity - killing in the name of love, defense of worldwide systems of domination, idolization of the nation instead of the membership in the global body of Christ, and baptism of exploitative and destructive economic ideologies. You get much of what world sees as contemporary Christianity, in other words. Too often, however, the inadequacies of contemporary Christian life, especially in the United States, are seen as separate issues in need of 'improvement' or 'reform.' Foolishness to Gentiles invites readers to see the pathologies of the churches not as a series of disconnected problems, but predictable outcomes of deep defects of Christian formation, commitments and theology. Having mortgaged so much of the integrity of the Gospel in the pursuit of imperial and national citizenship, and having allowed the powers of race and capital to divide the unity of the church, Foolishness to Gentiles calls Christians into deeper reflection, repentance and redirection. In a series of essays (new and previously unpublished, previously unpublished in English, and published previously in specialized venues), Foolishness to Gentiles opens doors to deeper theological and socio-political reflection, and some guideposts for more adequate practices of Christian discipleship in a variety of contexts and circumstances.