New book ‘A Nation Wrestles With God’ traces religious dialogue through our history

(RNS) — The following is an excerpt from the book ‘ A Nation Wrestles with God: American Prophets, Philosophers, and Firebrands’, a 528-page anthology edited by Ilan Stavans and published by Restless Books on June 30, 2026. The collection of essays spans over 400 years of American spiritual thought — from pre-colonial texts to the present day, from Anne Bradstreet and Joseph Smith to James Baldwin, Christopher Hitchens and more — about the country’s unique relationship to religion. The text below is adapted from its introduction.

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“I was a-trembling, because I’d got to decide, forever, betwixt

two things, and I knowed it. I studied a minute, sort of holding

my breath, and then says to myself:

‘All right, then, I’ll go to hell.’”

- Mark Twain,

“Adventures of Huckleberry Finn” (1884)

Huck Finn, the rambunctious, free-spirited, 13- or 14-year-old boy sailing down the Mississippi River in the pre-Civil War South, son of a drunkard, with a rough upbringing and without a formal education, is arguably the most famous fictional character in the United States.

“All modern American literature comes from one book,” Ernest Hemingway said — Mark Twain’s novel “Huckleberry…