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 11th 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 11th 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):
4.
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
---------------------------------------------------------------
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The University of Chicago Press,
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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
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