Set against the backdrop of the fictitious Begotten War, An American Gospel opens with a young historian, Joseph Nagel, struggling to find the root causes of America's tragic demise.  Befriending an eccentric, southern matriarch, whose religious devotion to her late husband is more fanaticism than love, Joseph must decide if Maria's hospitality is an invitation to real truth or an obscene conceit.  Borrowing from southern myth-making after the Civil War, An American Gospel questions whether a country can survive on ideologies that become dangerous weapons instead of noble words.