In this book, Matthew S. Holland traces the concept of Christian charity through the political thought of three American political figures/thinkers: John Winthrop, Thomas Jefferson, and Abraham Lincoln. Holland sees the Christian concept of “charity” (alternately known in Latin as caritas and in Greek as agapē) as central to the shaping of American political culture. More specifically, he wants to argue that we can see moments where each of these thinkers highlights the notion of Christian charity, or “‘bonds of affection’ which they argued were essential to a stable, flourishing polity” (p. 5). But their aim was not, according to Holland, to put forth a strictly religious concept of charity but rather a civic one that would provide social cohesion and a mutual care between members of the political community. What this concept requires is not simply a vague brotherly love between members of the polity. Rather, “[c]harity is a single principle with a dual dimension: a clear vertical axis—humans in loving relationship to God—and a clear horizontal axis—humans in loving relationship to other humans” (p. 7, Holland's emphasis). Each of the three figures studied in the book transforms the concept of charity in different ways, but it is Holland's contention that what remains constant is a concept of charity that is thoroughly Christian in origin and nature and that is also a foundational concept in American political history and culture.

The author's method is a close reading of texts, usually speeches, and generally with minimal historical and social context. Winthrop's use of Christian charity is analyzed in his speech “A Model of Christian Charity.” Winthrop develops Christian charity as a model for political life: one that emphasizes an ethic enabling social cohesion, as well as attempting to provide a foundation for a form of civic life that is democratic in nature. But Holland shows how there exists an inherent tension in Winthrop's puritanical understanding of charity. Although it is necessary to maintain affection among individuals for a stable community, this leads to the idea that deviations from this moral code will lead to the ultimate destruction of the community itself—hence the political confrontation between the ethic of Christian love and the politics of the Massachusetts Bay Colony.

Jefferson effects a change in the concept of charity by splitting the ethical, humanististic impulses of caritas from the strictures of traditional religion. He sees that “the pursuit of happiness will largely be abortive in a society—even a liberal republic—where love is lacking” (p. 143). The bonds of affection among citizens become a necessary moral prerequisite for a democratic society. But Holland makes the odd argument that by separating the ethical dimension of caritas from Christian traditions, “Jefferson's enterprise is based on a concept of charity that does great violence to charity's traditional roots, stripping it of those things that would allow biblical charity to do what perhaps it alone can do for democratic politics” (p. 151).

Enter Lincoln. Although he begins his career with a “modest degree of appreciation for Christian ideals of love and affection” (p. 170), one more akin to Jefferson's civic conception of charity as a moral bond among citizens, Lincoln develops a deeper sense of charity over time—one that is necessary, Holland speculates, to heal the great divisions created by the Civil War. Lincoln begins his career with a Jeffersonian take on civic caritas but moves toward an understanding of a “political cosmos where God actively intervenes in the affairs of men, punishing them collectively for their sins” (p. 243). For Holland, Lincoln steers a middle course between the puritan absolutism of Winthrop and the “watered-down form of Christianity” of Jefferson (p. 244).

Where this analysis leads us is another matter. The biggest problem is that it makes the assumption that caritas requires belief in a mystical god or transcendent power for it to be effective politically. Holland's analysis of Winthrop seems quite accurate in seeing the contradiction between the moral cohesiveness of caritas but also the fall into absolutism that the mixture of religion and politics makes inevitable. But in Jefferson—an avowed Deist who saw traditional religion as no more than “hocus pocus”—the concept of caritas is misinterpreted by Holland. What is distinctive about the complexity of Jefferson's thought is the way he was able to blend secularized ethical concepts from Protestant Christianity with those of classical antiquity. What Jefferson saw was the overlap that existed between classical republican ideas derived from thinkers such as Cicero and Machiavelli, and secularized ethical concepts from Christianity. Jefferson saw that a republic does indeed require a stock of shared moral values, but it is equally important that they be based on reason rather than faith for a democratic society to flourish. What marked the medieval and feudal worlds for thinkers such as Jefferson was that faith in a supernatural power capable of shaping the lives of human beings was an enemy of democratic life, rather than the reverse. Indeed, there is no reason to assume that any polity is in need of “an openness to the mystery of a living god of mercy and justice” in order to maintain social and civic bonds (p. 244). In fact, the opposite is most likely the case.

Holland sees Lincoln as the one who blends a reverence for the biblical with concepts of liberal democracy. But what this entire discussion consistently lacks is what such biblical reverence contributes to democratic theory. As a historical point, one must concede that even though the founding generation—at least the most influential among them—were overwhelmingly secular, they worked within a moral discourse partly based on secularized Protestant ideas, the separation of church and state being one of them with its origins in Luther himself. One could also accept the historical argument that Lincoln and others were more deeply influenced by concepts of Christian providence and the like. But ultimately, this does nothing to convince us at the level of normative political theory of the argument that there exists a moral or political need for a mystical, transcendental power to command concepts of justice, care, democracy, and peace.