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About the Book

Spanning more than 400 years of spiritual transformation and imagination, A Nation Wrestles With God collects diverse writers—poets, novelists, theologians, scientists, musicians, politicians, comedians, artists, mavericks, naturalists, futurists, and more—whose daring texts incited change and continue to influence a growing nation. In this anthology, you will find the stories, poems, letters, speeches, sermons, essays, song lyrics, comic strips, newspaper columns, and commentaries that awoke new generations to free religious thought, from the pre-colonial to the present day.

Praise for A Nation Wrestles With God

“Whether we like it or not, as Americans, we must grapple with God. The struggle is part of our lineage and our legacy, and this extraordinary anthology shows us how.”

—Ruth Ozeki, author of A Tale for the Time Being and The Book of Form and Emptiness

“OMG, by which I mean “Oh my gods!” The one or many gods we praise or struggle with, the one or many gods we reject. They are all here in A Nation Wrestles with God, an anthology that offers us an opportunity to read excerpts from the work of a wide range of Americans who engage with concepts of the divine. If ever there were a time when it would be useful to consider the presence or absence of God in American life, this is it. Now, thanks to the brilliant work of Ilan Stavans, we can immerse ourselves in an anthology that just may help us see clearly how diverse, thoughtful, serious, and playful we are and have always been as a people, as a nation.”

–Richard Chess, Professor Emeritus, UNC Asheville, and author, most recently, of The Loneliest Monk

“Faith makes its own forms,” said Emerson, and this fascinating anthology shows just how many different forms it has brought forth in America. Christian and Jew, President and slave, witch-hunter and evolutionary biologist—all have their own ideas about God, and only in America could they speak to each other as freely as they do in these pages.”

—Adam Kirsch, author of The Blessing and the Curse: The Jewish People and Their Books in the 20th Century

“While many are turning away from religious faith, Ilan Stavans brings us a collection that renews the inspiring prophetic spirit of America. His collection lifts our hearts and brings us hope.”

—Susanna Heschel, Eli M. Black Distinguished Professor at Dartmouth College

“A Nation Wrestles with God, the new anthology edited by Ilan Stavans, is a truly remarkable achievement. What Stavans has managed to accomplish is to find and put together texts written about God from an extraordinarily wide range of American voices across time and place. There are presidents and poets, theologians and novelists, famous men and women writing surprising things about God and people you might never have heard of, sharing their deepest convictions and doubts. The operative word here is “wrestles,” as we encounter statements of belief and unbelief, confidence and confusion. The American experience, the American experiment, is intertwined from the beginning with religion, and in this anthology—so appropriate to appear as we begin the celebration of 250 years since the founding of the nation—we get to see the great multiplicity of views about religion that is an abiding part of this country’s diversity and strength."

—Barry W. Holtz, Theodore and Florence Baumritter Professor of Education at the Jewish Theological Seminary of America

About the Contributors

Ilan Stavans is the publisher of Restless Books and the Lewis-Sebring Professor of Humanities and Latin American and Latino Culture at Amherst College. His books include On Borrowed Words, Spanglish, Dictionary Days, The Disappearance, and A Critic’s Journey. He has edited The Norton Anthology of Latino Literature, the three-volume set Isaac Bashevis Singer: Collected Stories, The Poetry of Pablo Neruda, among dozens of other volumes. He is the recipient of numerous awards and honors, including a Guggenheim Fellowship, Chile’s Presidential Medal, the International Latino Book Award, and the Jewish Book Award. Stavans’s work, translated into twenty languages, has been adapted to the stage and screen. A cofounder of the Great Books Summer Program at Amherst, Stanford, Chicago, Oxford, and Dublin, he is the host of the NPR podcast “In Contrast.”

Book details

Paperback • $26
ISBN: 9781632064196
eBook ISBN: 9781632064202
Publication date: June 30, 2026
6" x 9" • 528 pages
Anthology: History / Religion / Philosophy
Rights: North America