Mygration: March 2014

Note: The following paper was presented in April, 2012 as a part of my continuing work toward completion of the Master of Arts in American History at American Public University. I have taken graduate-level course-work at three different accredited institutions in history, and currently have more than 39 hours, most in the subject of American History, but also with research and study in the fields of Western Civilizations and Christian History. The purpose of the paper published below was to examine how historians throughout our nation's history have understood, recorded, prioritized and viewed the place of Christianity in American History as they have written our historical textbooks, our historical journals, and our various books, monographs, biographies and articles, and how that has evolved and changed over time. It is a fascinating and revealing study. - JDW

Christianity in American Cultural History: A Topical Historiography

By: J. Dale Weaver, M. Div.

Public prayer and religious expression became decidedly more accepted in the wake of the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks on the United States. Such blatant displays of a religious and particularly of a Christian nature would have been frowned upon or legally suppressed just months before the September 11^th attacks by a myriad of special interests and government officials. For decades, religious expression seemed to have taken a back seat to greater social involvement, expansionist statism, and a desire for greater moral "freedoms." Yet, just under the surface, the majority of Americans still hold firmly to a religious and identifiably Christian understanding of their personal lives and the world. Christianity has been a constant in American life throughout history, and at this moment in the American experience, its interaction with and impact upon the nation, as it is understood by the recent generation of cultural historians deserves closer investigation.

Historians in the latter quarter of the twentieth century had no shortage of theories regarding the impact of Christianity on the formation and progress of American culture. During the period, American religious historians began to examine a number of recurring issues that to one degree or another appeared in works of scholarship. The issues included the individualization of Christianity, the theological movement toward Arminianism and away from Calvinism, regionalism within the church and culture, religious authority, racialization, and the restructuring of American Christianity as it confronted new cultural and religious realities. Of course, this list is not exhaustive, but it represents a general grouping of themes and it indicates how scholars have examined them. A sampling of scholarly works about each of four periods in the nation's history demonstrates a rich historiography of American Christianity that explores how Christians have influenced or confronted culture. Scholars seem to emphasize one or two of these recurring themes depending on the period of history they studied. The debate concerning the place of Christianity within American culture continues unabated today, informed by the work of these historians.

Nathan Hatch, in his 1989 work The Democratization of American Christianity focused his research primarily on the ways in which Christianity began to emphasize the place of the individual in religion during the formative years of the young republic, 1780-1830. Hatch's research examined five "mass movements" that emerged during that era. According to Hatch, "They all offered common people, especially the poor, compelling visions of individual self-respect and collective self-confidence."1 Each of these five groups, Methodists, Baptists, The Christian movement, black churches and the Mormons, gained an audience because many "common folks" of the day felt left out of religion as expressed by the elite Anglican Episcopal church, and distant from the puritanical Congregationalists and old school Presbyterians. Hatch noted that the political climate of Jeffersonian democracy and republican sentiment, when coupled with the distrust of leaders among "ordinary folks," created a "religious populism" that gave rise to a greater interest in the role of the individual in religious life and influence.2

Hatch also examined the emergence of Arminian theology in America particularly through the explosion of Methodism from 1780-1830. Arminian theology emphasizes the "free-will" of every individual to accept or reject salvation in Christ. This theology was in stark contrast to the prevalent Calvinist theology of the day, championing the sovereignty of God and predestination of man. Calvinism is essentially spiritual determinism, teaching that God has already decided the eternal destiny of every man, without any input from the individual. However, the main rifts that appeared between Calvinists and Arminians were not primarily doctrinal, Hatch contended. They stemmed from a different concept of Christian ministry, and a faith that was preoccupied with theology rather than practical matters.3 Arminian theology allowed for a clergy made up of "common folks," not scholars, and it also emphasized common experience and Christian living in a more practical sense than Calvinism did. Thus, in many ways, the theological debate, which opened the door to the Arminian flavored Second Great Awakening in the 1830s, was actually an adjunct and subordinate to the larger democratization of American Christianity, and the resulting emphasis of individualism in religious faith in the early years of the republic.4

Donald Mathews, professor of history at the University of North Carolina, was a pioneer when his examination of American religion approached the subject on a broadly evangelical scope rather than denominationally. Until this point, most works regarding American Christianity were denominational in nature. In his 1977 work Religion in the Old South, Mathews examined much of the same religious populism, individualism, and Arminian tendencies that Hatch addressed, but he also introduces regionalism. During the Colonial period, the South was distinct in its development from other regions of the country, particularly New England. In keeping with the theory of historian Jack Greene, the experience of the South was quite different from New England. Greene contends that New England is best understood as a model of declension, drifting from the principles and purposes for which it was originally founded, much to the chagrin of the clergy of the Colonial era. On the other hand, the South follows a developmental model, having been founded for purely economic reasons. As the South became more populated and settled, the people began to search for community and spiritual fulfillment.5 Mathews' theory of religious development in the South reflected Greene's larger theory. Mathews noted that "the church" in the pre-Revolutionary South commonly referred to Anglicanism. Due to the rural character of the South, Anglicanism was weak, never supplying enough clerics to meet the need of the people in the countryside, nor to exert influence or control over them. According to Mathews, three distinct groups soon filled this void; New Light Presbyterians, Baptists, and Methodists. This "evangelical" movement appealed to the common people of the South because it sought to meet their needs, rather than to perpetuate the "hierarchical social system" supported by Anglicanism.6 The emphasis of evangelicalism in the South was a personal "conversion" experience, in which an individual faces a crisis moment, realizing their sinfulness and need for a Savior.7 This same emphasis on a personal salvation experience was present in the First Great Awakening under the preaching of George Whitefield and others primarily in New England, which Nathan Hatch also recounts and emphasizes.8 In many ways, conversion was the great equalizer, because no one was exempt from its necessity, all were sinners. This included every person regardless of sex, race, economic, or social status.9 Furthermore, Southern evangelicalism, with its emphasis on a personal conversion experience, also lent itself to a more Arminian flavored theological context.10 Mathews traces the development of southern evangelicalism from several local denominational efforts in the middle and late 1700s, through the revivals that dotted the Southern landscape beginning at Cane Creek, Kentucky in 1799, to its emergence in the early 1800's as the mainstay of Southern culture, becoming popular and influential at all levels.11 The evangelical acceptance of education and hegemony over Southern culture did not rid the movement of its anti-intellectualism and wariness of "formal" religion, and continued to rely heavily on what Mathews characterized as "a thoughtless bibliolatry," and a dedication to the orthodox proposition that the Bible was an "infallible guide" to Christians.12 Furthermore, Southern evangelicals tended to be less activist socially and politically than their northern counterparts, mostly due to the issue of slavery. Southern evangelicals, due to their wish to avoid dealing with slavery, or because they had failed to rid Southern culture of the institution a generation before, regarded it as a "civil institution," in which the church should not interfere.13 Evangelicals in New England, a hotbed for abolitionist activism by the 1820s, saw this as a cop-out on the part of Southern Christians, and the seeds were sown for regional division within American Christianity.

Mathews, through these conclusions, clearly demonstrated the themes of individualism, the resulting practical and experiential theology of Arminianism, and the development of regionalism in American Christianity that would have devastating effects far beyond the churches in the nation over the next century. Mathews also introduced two other themes that would be more fully developed by historians studying the periods just prior to and particularly following the American Civil War: the Protestant Christian concept of authority and the issue of race in the churches and cultures of a divided nation.

Mitchell Snay in his 1993 work The Gospel of Disunion: Religion and Separatism in the Antebellum South attempted to explore the relationship between religion and the origins of Southern separatism.14 According to Snays' thesis, the church most clearly exemplified the developing "sectionalism" in the generation immediately preceding the Civil War. During the 1820s and 1830s, Snay contended that northern clergy began attacking Southern clergy for their lack of opposition to slavery. Snay also contended that though Southern clergy had a long-standing aversion to involvement in civic affairs, they were drawn into a political conflict that exploded into acute sectionalism with the 1835 Abolitionist Crisis.15 Mathews illustrated Snays' argument, pointing out that two of the major evangelical denominations in the South separated over regional interests, the most explosive of which was slavery; the Methodists in 1844, and the Baptists in 1845.16 Charles Reagan Wilson in his 1980 work Baptized in Blood: The Religion of the Lost Cause, 1865-1920, also notes that New Light Presbyterians in the South broke with their northern counterparts over slavery and other sectional interests in 1857.17 The schism among America's churches foreshadowed the political division that was to come.

Snay's argument goes beyond the cultural and political fissures that were developing in antebellum America and deals with the theological division that characterized that era. The key theological fracture during this time, says Snay, was a different understanding of the issue of authority. In other words, Snay contended that Christians in the different regions understood differently how the Scriptures were to be interpreted and who had the authority and ability to interpret them. Snay summarized the northern view by quoting prominent theologian Adin Ballou, who said that Scripture was to be interpreted by the individual "according to the evident spirit of its text, rather than the mere letter." Southern clerics on the other hand insisted on "placing the written law of God over individual judgment."18 Snay concluded, therefore, that the Southern rejection of the theological view that individuals have the authority to interpret the "spirit" of the Scriptures and insisting that the Bible itself was the final authority, contributed strongly to their strict constructionist view of not only sacred matters, but of the Constitution as well.19 The "higher view" of northern Christians was in direct conflict with the "doctrinaire insistence" of southern Christians that the Bible was the final authority on all matters, including slavery. In reaction to northern objections, concluded Snay, southern believers developed a concept of "sanctified slavery," and in so doing created a southern nationalism that employed a rhetoric of honor which further emphasized regional differences and fortified the church in both the north and the south for the conflict that was to come.20

This was not to say that all the churches or ministers in the antebellum era were in solid agreement in the north or the south. Mark Hanley examined the quarrels that developed between 1830 and 1860 in his 1994 work Beyond a Christian Commonwealth: The Protestant Quarrel with the American Republic. As the new nation developed, said Hanley, "Protestant praise for the Republic in the decades before the Civil War was accompanied by a countervailing 'critical republican vision' that turned its focus to the secular potential of American liberty."21 Hanley noted that theologians predominately from northern Christian institutions of higher learning such as Princeton were most concerned with the "material expression of the new liberalism," with emphasis on materialism, individualism, and diversity.22 Hanleys' assessment of this Protestant quarrel indicates that it was one primarily among northern Christians. An apparent contradiction is evident within northern Christian circles over the issue of individual liberty. On the one hand Snay argued that northern Christians advocate that the individual has authority to interpret the "spirit" of Scripture on issues such as slavery.23 On the other hand, Hanley argued that these same theologians feared their parishioners might also "be hoodwinked by the alluring countenance of individual freedom."24

Historians of the antebellum era reflect in their works the division and uneasiness that American Christians felt with the growth of the young republic. The "Protestant quarrel" Mark Hanley addressed arose from the changing concept of individualism among American Protestants. Individualism as an issue appeared to be a two-edged sword for the church, particularly in the North, encouraging its anti-slavery message while at the same time reacting against what that kind of liberty could potentially produce. In the South, the reaction against the idea of personal liberty at least as related to slaves brought division with their northern counterparts and set a precedent of Southern Nationalism which, after the Civil War, would continue into the early twentieth century.

The emphasis of late twentieth century historians studying American cultural history before the Civil War centered upon the issue of individualism as well as issues of theology and regional aspirations. However, in most of the works addressing the colonial and antebellum era, the issue of race is also addressed. Nathan Hatch includes the significant development of the black churches immediately following the American Revolution. In the three decades from 1780-1810, thousands of blacks, 90 percent of which were slaves, turned to Christianity. Hatch noted that these conversions were almost exclusively due to the work of the "insurgent religious movements" of the early republic, and their ability to wed the gospel to popular culture."25 According to Hatch, black Christians became a driving force in evangelicalism and American Christianity even before the Civil War. This, of course, was due in large part to the evangelical doctrine of "conversion," which Mathews described as "the great equalizer."26 Unfortunately, while the evangelical message of equality applied to spiritual matters, it did not apply to civic matters of individual liberty, particularly though not exclusively in the South.

Christians in the South, after initial attempts to end slavery in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth century, turned away from active campaigning on "civic" issues and turned exclusively to an evangelistic, spiritual mission to slaves. The goal of such a mission, contended Mathews, was to reach out to slaves that God had placed in their care. This allowed the Southern church to fulfill the biblical mandate to preach the Gospel to every creature while at the same time justifying the institution of slavery.27

Donald Mathews and Nathan Hatch among other late twentieth century historians of antebellum America were innovative in their approach, but were more generalized in examining racial relations prior to the Civil War. Late twentieth century historians who examined the decades following the Civil War brought racial issues into sharper focus. "Race, of course, was of fundamental importance to Southern culture," said Charles Reagan Wilson in his 1980 work, Baptized in Blood: The Religion of the Lost Cause, 1865-1920.28 Wilson argued that in the aftermath of the Civil War, defeated Southerners who were denied a political nation built a cultural identity by blending Christian rhetoric with symbols of Confederate tradition.29 A key component, Wilson argued, was the racial tradition and practice that had served as a cement for Southern cultural cohesion.30 Wilson demonstrated that white supremacy played a key role in the Southern way of life. After the Civil War, said Wilson, Southern preachers used racial stereotypes and the assumption of white superiority to reinforce Lost Cause religion. Wilson also noted, however, that race itself was not the main issue in Lost Cause religion, but the virtues of the Confederates. These virtues, said Wilson, included a paternalistic view of blacks, and brought about the development of segregation in the years after reconstruction.31 The Southern position of segregation, Wilson noted, reflected a nationwide growth of Anglo-Saxon racism during the modernist era.32 Interestingly, historians examining racial issues in the post-bellum era give almost exclusive attention to developments in the South. Scholars such as George Marsden, in his 1980 work Fundamentalism and American Culture: The Shaping of Twentieth Century Evangelicalism 1870-1925, mentioned black evangelicals in only one footnote, noting that the fledgling fundamentalist movement developing in the North was never a dominant force among black Christians.33 The apparent lack of research on black Christianity and racial relations in the North during the post-bellum era represents a significant weakness in the literature of the period.

The issues of regionalism and racial relations that so preoccupied late-twentieth century historians examining the post-bellum era began to be subsumed by developments on two fronts as the nineteenth century ended. First, Southern nationalism gave way to Americanism largely due to the Spanish-American War in 1898 and World War I in 1917. Wilson contended that these wars allowed the South to again identify itself with the values of the American nation.34 The Spanish-American War allowed the South to again participate "in the saving work of a redeemer nation," in part, said Wilson, because America had brought liberty to the captives of Cuba.35 Wilson also argued that World War I allowed the South to believe that her honorable Confederate past prepared the entire nation for her "manifest destiny" as the "champion of the moral forces of the universe." 36 While these were milestones in reconciliation, posited Wilson, the religion of the Lost Cause in the South didn't just disappear. Confederate symbols were still honored, virtues were still celebrated, and unfortunately, some errors were still practiced.37

The development of fundamentalism also became pivotal in the reuniting of a country that had been so divided for decades. George Marsden argued that in the post-Civil War era, two elements of American evangelicalism diverged. The Beecher family, represented the progressive wing of northern evangelicalism, while the Blanchard family, represented the traditional wing of evangelicalism. Prior to the Civil War, these families were friends, crusaders together against slavery and other sins and fleshly vices.38 After the war, asserted Marsden, the moral crusades championed by traditionalists were crushed by the changes in the modern world. Thus, traditionalists became increasingly disillusioned with the idea of building the "perfect society." Though the crusade against slavery was successful, Marsden asserted that traditionalists came to see their role to restrain evil until the Lord returned.39 In this way, Marsden claimed that traditionalists came to see themselves as puritans in an American Babylon.40 The progressive wing of northern evangelicalism, Marsden continues, began to accept scientific theories such as evolution and to develop "social gospel" ministries. In addition, Marsden notes that progressives began to advocate a style of preaching which would "understand men" as opposed to creeds and traditions. Thus, according to Marsden, progressives no longer viewed theology as a fixed body of eternally valid truths but as an evolutionary development that needed to adjust to the standards of the modern culture.41 Marsden asserts that evolutionary naturalism, higher criticism of the Bible, and idealistic philosophy and theology converged to create what became known as "modernism."42 The development of modernism after the Civil War appeared to be a natural result of many northern theologians in the pre-war period who advocated the individual believer's authority to interpret the "spirit" of the Scriptures, making the believer the final authority for determining truth, rather than the Scriptures themselves, as was asserted by Mitchell Snay previously.43 This growing ideological conflict among Christians, contended Marsden, gave birth to the fundamentalist/modernist conflict of the late nineteenth and early twentieth century.

Though fundamentalism began within the northern Presbyterian churches, it quickly spread to other denominations and regions of the country, according to Marsden . Marsden asserted that through the revivalism of evangelist Dwight L. Moody, the growth of holiness teachings, and dispensationalism, fundamentalism had a broad appeal to large constituencies in America.44 Marsden noted that nowhere was this appeal more powerful than in the South. According to Marsden, southern theology was already strongly conservative and resistant to change and that tendency was intensified by the Civil War. Therefore, Marsden posited an anti-modernist impulse was already present among Southern Christians. Although revivalist conservatism in the South and fundamentalism in the North developed independently, Marsden pointed out that when twentieth century fundamentalism became a distinct entity, Southerner evangelicals flocked to it.45

Historians studying American religion and culture in the modernist period from the end of the Civil War to the 1920s noted the division that developed within both the church and culture as the progressive spirit of modernism began to hold sway over the American public of the time. Fundamentalism developed as a reaction of traditionalists to the modernist impulse and quickly spread into many denominations and schools across the nation. By 1925, Marsden concluded, such divisions existed in major denominations that many fundamentalist churches left their traditional denominations and became independent or formed their own denominations and schools. Marsden also noted that 1925 was a watershed year in the political realm as the Scopes "monkey trial" in Tennessee received national attention. Though the fundamentalist Christian lawyer William Jennings Bryan won the trial legally, Clarence Darrow managed to publicly portray the fundamentalist view of science in a poor light, embarrassing the movement, and precipitating its retreat from involvement in public policy issues.46 Though fundamentalists continued to lobby on particular issues, public perception turned decidedly against their philosophy from 1925 until the beginning of World War II, during which time Marsden stated that fundamentalists busied themselves with building a viable sub-culture, apart from the modernist consensus.47 Thus, by 1925, the schism that existed was no longer primarily regional in nature but had become philosophical. The question of authority in religious life had blossomed to the point that the schism of the American church was between modernist or liberals and fundamentalists. Historians of this period such as Marsden focus strongly on this fracture and how it impacted both the church and the culture between the Civil War and World War II.

In the years following the 1925 Scopes trial, science and technological progress was the focus of the culture, and late twentieth-century historians reflect that interest. Historians studying this period concentrated their investigations upon the interaction of Christianity with science and the resulting restructuring of religion in American life. This was the purpose of Redeeming Culture: American Religion In and Age of Science, written by James Gilbert in 1997. Gilbert began his examination of the subject where George Marsden left off, the Scopes Trial in 1925. Gilbert concluded that the Scopes trial set the stage for a struggle that would last two generations. Gilbert accurately noted that World War II, the Cold War, and the nuclear scare punctuated the period from the 1930s to the 1950s. This caused many people of the era to distrust scientists as elitists and to buy into the rhetoric of conservative Christians that science could be viewed as subversive, asserted Gilbert. Gilbert further asserted that scientists, once perceived by others and perhaps themselves as promoting a superior ethic, began to temper their rhetoric, speaking more modestly about modern science and more favorably of religion.48 By 1962, Gilbert noted, the era of scientific triumphalism had passed. Gilbert concluded that science had failed to become the sole arbiter or architect and American culture, and religion had maintained its central place in society. Each had been reshaped drastically, said Gilbert, and both had found places of respect and acceptance in American culture. Yet, Gilbert asserted, nothing had really been settled, and many of the questions that had begun to be addressed in 1925 were still being asked in 1962.49

In his 1988 work The Restructuring of American Religion: Society and Faith since World War II, Robert Wuthnow attempted to identify the changes in the place of religion in society following World War II. Wuthnow's work provided a broad study of the evolving mood of American Christianity from the end of World War II into the 1980s. In the wake of the war, religious leaders and organizations were optimistic about returning to the business of the church, but they were also pessimistic as a result of the horror and devastation the war had produced and the potential future tribulations the nation might face.50 Wuthnow said that during the 1940s and 1950s religious leaders could assume particular social influences by the manner in which they understood their own message, the culture at large, and the connections of values and behavior. These assumptions, Whutnow noted, began to fade as society changed during the middle and later 1950s.51 American society was changed by several factors, which according to Wuthnow, began in the 1960s and 1970s, and included the involvement of government in issues and arenas once considered sacred matters, the rise of "special interest" groups, and internal changes in many Christian denominations with the expansion and complexity of their organizational structures. These factors produced a polarization between groups of constituents within both American society and the church. Wuthnow asserted that issues once considered personal or sacred such as abortion, pornography, homosexuality, and school prayer became matters of public policy, compelling conservative religious groups to react and leading to the rise of the "religious right." Wuthnow noted that the most significant organizations within this movement, the Moral Majority founded in 1979, and the Coalition for Religious Freedom, founded in 1984, led the charge on issues that caused tension between Christian conservatives and religious liberals and society at large.52 It is noteworthy that Wuthnow spent far more time dealing with the religious right than with the religious left. This is true of most historians of the post-World War II period and it forms another area that deserves more scholarly attention.

Wuthnow concluded that, at the time he was writing in 1988, two distinct civil religions had emerged, one belonging to religious liberals, and another to conservatives. Both groups in previous decades built "legitimating myths" to perpetuate their versions of civil religion, yet Wuthnow suggested that both are grounded in certain principles that at least vaguely drew upon Jewish and Christian theology.53

Thorough research of historical documents and the works of late-twentieth century historians have answered many questions about Christianity and how it shaped and interacted with American culture. In the colonial and young republic era, individualism was the key issue affecting religious life in both the church and the nation's culture. This affected the theological concepts of salvation among American Christians, producing a spiritual egalitarianism championed by early evangelicals based on a conversion experience. This spiritual equality and the parallel emphasis on politcal democracy also introduced the issue of race into the consciousness of the American church and culture. Historians dealing with the antebellum period concentrated on the sectionalism that developed and detailed how Christians participated sometimes even championing it. The regionalism that originated during this period brought greater attention to the race issue particularly in the South, and also produced circumstances that facilitated a later schism on the basis of authority. The modernist saw man as the authority in matters of faith, while the fundamentalist saw Scripture as the final authority. The modernist church largely accepted the new scientific ethic and technological advancement uncritically, while fundamentalists viewed scientific theory skeptically and fearfully.

The struggle between the conservative church and the scientific ideal championed by modernism produced a restructuring of American religion that opened issues for public consideration once considered personal and spiritual in nature. Even in the postmodern era, this theme of struggle and restructuring within the church and culture has dominated the historiographic record. The investigation of historical documents and events has allowed historians to more clearly explain the role Christianity played in American culture. Many questions remain, however, and the debate continues unresolved.

As the debate over the place of Christianity in American culture continues, two issues deserve more scholarly attention than they have received. One concerns the contribution of black Christians in the north prior to and following the Civil War. The race issue is covered widely in the work of historians interested in the South; however, little attention is paid to the rich history of black Christians in the North during the period. Most historians dealing with race in the North during that era approach the subject from a secular perspective and deal with the civil rights movement and political history. An examination of the black church in the North from the 1830s to the 1920s would provide many answers not available now and would certainly be a significant addition to the historiographic record.

A second area that deserves more attention is the social and political activism of the liberal church particularly since World War II. Most of the historical works of that period focus on the conservative church or the theological contributions of religious liberals, but a cohesive examination of political and social activism from the perspective of a religious or cultural historian has yet to be written. Such a volume would likely be a seminal work and a welcome addition to the historiographic record.

Late-twentieth century literature on the subject of Christianity in American cultural history has expanded our knowledge of the subject while at the same time raising important questions that must still be addressed. Christianity in its numerous American teachings and expressions has every area that shapes and defines the nation. Christianity has impacted how the nation understands the place and importance of the individual, the values Americans hold sacred, and the way in which different groups and races interact with one another. American history and culture cannot be properly understood apart from Christianity, its principles, and its adherents. Events such as the attacks of September 11^th only magnify this truth. The religious history of America is so intertwined with the political, social, and cultural development on the nation that it seems certain to remain an essential field of study and a perpetual arena of debate well into the future.

1 Nathan Hatch, The Democratization of American Christianity (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1989):

2 Ibid., 5,14

3 Ibid., 44,174

4 Ibid., 212

5 Jack Greene, Pursuits of Happiness (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1988): 81.

6 Donald Mathews, Religion in the Old South (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1977): 9.

7 Ibid., 19

8 Hatch, 11,21

9 Mathews, 67

10 Ibid., 60

11 Ibid., 87

12 Ibid., 157, 176

13 Ibid., 157

14 Mitchell Snay, The Gospel of Disunion: Religion and Separatism in the Antebellum South (New York:

Cambridge University Press, 1993): 5.

15 Ibid., 20,53

16 Mathews, 160

17 Charles Reagan Wilson, Baptized in Blood: The Religion of the Lost Cause, 1865-1920 (Athens, Georgia:

The University of Georgia Press, 1980): 4.

18 Snay, 64

19 Ibid., 65

20 Ibid., 150, 214

21 Mark Y. Hanley, Beyond A Christian Commonwealth: The Protestant Quarrel with the American

Republic (Chapel Hill, North Carolina: The University of North Carolina Press, 1994): 56.

22 Ibid., 6, 56

23 Snay, 64

24 Hanley, 57

25 Hatch, 102

26 Mathews, 67

27 Ibid., 173

28 Wilson, 11

29 Ibid., 1

30 Ibid., 11

31 Ibid., 100

32 Ibid., 101

33 George M. Marsden, Fundamentalism and American Culture: The Shaping of Twentieth Century

Evangelicalism 1870-1925 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1980): 291.

34 Wilson, 161

35 Ibid., 163

36 Ibid., 169

37 Ibid., 163, 167

38 Marsden, 22

39 Ibid., 31

40 Ibid., 32

41 Ibid., 25

42 Ibid., 26

43 Snay, 64

44 Marsden, 32,47

45 Ibid., 103

46 Ibid., 185-187

47 Ibid., 195

48 James Gilbert, Redeeming Culture: American Religion In an Age of Science (Chicago: The University of

Chicago Press, 1997): 61.

49 Ibid., 298

50 Robert Wuthnow, The Restructuring of American Religion: Society and Faith since World War II

(Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 1988): 14.

51 Ibid., 54

52 Ibid., 100

53 Ibid., 266

---------------------------------------------------------------

WORKS CITED

Gilbert, James. Redeeming Culture: American Religion In an Age of Science. Chicago:

The University of Chicago Press, 1997.

Greene, Jack P. Pursuits of Happiness: The Social Development of Early Modern British

Colonies and the Formation of American Culture. Chapel Hill: The University of

North Carolina Press, 1988.

Hanley, Mark Y. Beyond A Christian Commonwealth: The Protestant Quarrel with the

American Republic. Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press, 1994.

Hatch, Nathan O. The Democratization of American Christianity. New Haven: Yale

Univeristy Press, 1989.

Marsden, George M. Fundamentalism and American Culture: The Shaping of Twentieth-

Century Evangelicalism 1870-1925. New York: Oxford University Press, 1980.

Mathews, Donald G. Religion in the Old South. Chicago: University of Chicago Press,

1977.

Snay, Mitchell. Gospel of Disunion: Religion and Separatism in the Antebellum South.

New York: Cambridge University Press, 1993.

Wilson, Charles Reagan. Baptized in Blood: The Religion of the Lost Cause, 1865-1920.

Athens, Georgia: The University of Georgia Press, 1980.

Wuthnow, Robert. The Restructuring of American Religion: Society and Faith since

World War II. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1988.

Mygration

Monday, March 24, 2014

BLOGS & PAGES I RECOMMEND -- CHRISTIAN THEOLOGY & MINISTRY:

Saturday, March 22, 2014

Christianity in American Cultural History: A Topical Historiography