Household Gods

Household Gods: The Religious Lives of the Adams Family by Sara Georgini, 204 pages

Gore Vidal memorably remarked, "As far as we know, it never occurred to any Adams of the Four Generations that there might be no such thing as eternal justice."  As Vidal went on to note, "eternal justice" took many forms in their imaginations.  Sara Georgini prefers to refer to it as "Providence", and the changes it underwent through the successive generations of America's first First Family, from the Puritan Henry Adams who first settled in Massachusetts to the historian Henry Adams who died mere blocks from the White House that had been occupied by his grandfather and great-grandfather, is the subject of her short book.

This tale obviously particularizes, and thus highlights, much larger movements within American religiosity and New England Protestantism.  For Georgini, who seems to equate Unitarianism with reason and progress, this may be viewed as a positive development.  For those who regard the transition from dogmatic principle to moral sentiment as rather a dissipation than an evolution, it will appear very different, but no less important.