God's Choice: The Total World of a Fundamentalist Christian School is a 1986 book written by Alan Peshkin and published by the University of Chicago Press.

Peshkin describes the school as a "total institution": a place where many similar people live by their own formal rules apart from outside society, as based on Erving Goffman's 1961 essay.

[13] Peshkin notes that while students "largely identify with" and uphold the fundamentalist teachings, they permit themselves the option of having "individual interpretations" and minor beliefs.

[15] Students take classes to be effective Christian leaders, including "Bible study and 'soul-winning', English, speech, drama, and music", which are seen as important to "read and proclaim the Word".

Classes like science, social studies, and math are viewed as less important for the goal of making Christian professionals apart from their training to do "everything a sinner can do, better".

Teachers too pledge to prioritize "the pursuit of holiness" over all things in a "born again" activity where they "confess their sins and accept Jesus Christ as their personal savior".

[9] The last two chapters feature Peshkin's commentary on the school in society, its tradeoffs and comparison with other total institutions[5] and larger social movements, like the New Religious Right.

[4] In the last chapter, Peshkin contemplates how his Jewish identity is insulated within a pluralistic and secular society, and how he is fearful of absolutist "imperious, implacable logic" and "zeal for conversion and exclusivism".

[17] R. Scott Appleby (American Journal of Education) wrote that Peshkin succeeded at his attempt to be impartial, and that his presentation of fundamentalist culture is made both "understandable" and, in part, "admirable".

[12] Appleby added that fundamentalism blames public schools and its associated state apparatus as both a manufacturer enemy needed to feed its "sense of crisis" and for creating "unsafe" areas unregulated by "Christian truth".

[19] Sociologist Susan Rose "broadens the base" of God's Choice in her 1988 Keeping Them Out of the Hands of Satan, and Appleby writes that the two books complement each other's lacunae.

While God's Choice has an "engaging, sometimes riveting narrative" with vivid characters but little outside information apart from statistics, Keeping Them Out of the Hands of Satan includes extra detail on how fundamentalist groups interact and share a larger societal milieu.

[23] In her own review of Peshkin's book, Rose (Contemporary Sociology) praised its "clear and detailed"[4] contribution to the field but wished for more overview material on the Christian School Movement's rise, proponents, philosophical consistency, and "sociohistorical context".

[4] In commending Peshkin's even-handedness, she wrote that his forthrightness about declaring his own biases and effort to present participant voices through direct quotation were strong elements, though he described more than he analyzed.

[20] And while Julian McAllister Groves (Journal of Contemporary Ethnography) described the text as "beautifully written" and "poetic", he doubted whether the school's students were as converted as they said, and felt that Peshkin might have seen more "role distance" and examples of playing along simply for community acceptance had he stayed for lunch and other informal observations.