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This lively survey ranges across several centuries of change in the ways historians have thought and written about religion in America. In particular, John F. Wilson is concerned with how historians have perceived religion's relationship to the political organization of our country. He begins by establishing the genesis of religion as a specialized area of American history in the nineteenth century, and then discusses religious history's development through the early 1970s. Along the way he considers topics ranging from the "long shadow" the Puritans have cast over our comprehension of religion in American history to the ascendancy of such institutions as the University of Chicago as systema...
Few issues besides evolution have so strained Americans' professed tradition of tolerance. Few historians besides Pulitzer Prize winner Edward J. Larson have so perceptively chronicled evolution's divisive presence on the American scene. This slim volume reviews the key aspects, current and historical, of the creation-evolution debate in the United States. Larson discusses such topics as the transatlantic response to Darwinism, the American controversy over teaching evolution in public schools, and the religious views of American scientists. He recalls the theological qualms about evolution held by some leading scientists of Darwin's time. He looks at the 2006 Dover, Pennsylvania, court deci...
“Impressively balanced accounts of such matters as Nixon’s betrayal of Billy Graham’s trust and Obama’s connection to Jeremiah Wright…[An] interesting take.”—Booklist From the author of The Faiths of the Founding Fathers, an acclaimed account of the spiritual beliefs of such iconic Americans as Franklin, Washington, and Jefferson, this is a measured look at the role of faith in the lives of twelve presidents who have served since the end of World War II. David Holmes examines not only the beliefs professed by each president but also the variety of possible influences on their religious faith, such as their upbringing, their education, and the faith of their spouse. In each prof...
Religious studies—also known as comparative religion or history of religions—emerged as a field of study in colleges and universities on both sides of the Atlantic during the late nineteenth century. In Europe, as previous historians have demonstrated, the discipline grew from long-established traditions of university-based philological scholarship. But in the United States, James Turner argues, religious studies developed outside the academy. Until about 1820, Turner contends, even learned Americans showed little interest in non-European religions—a subject that had fascinated their counterparts in Europe since the end of the seventeenth century. Growing concerns about the status of C...
With An Uncommon Faith Eddie S. Glaude Jr. makes explicit his pragmatic approach to the study of African American religion. He insists that scholars take seriously what he calls black religious attitudes, that is, enduring and deep-seated dispositions tied to a transformative ideal that compel individuals to be otherwise--no matter the risk. This claim emerges as Glaude puts forward a rather idiosyncratic view of what the phrase ?African American religion? offers within the context of a critically pragmatic approach to writing African American religious history. Ultimately, An Uncommon Faith reveals how pragmatism has shaped Glaude's scholarship over the years, as well as his interpretation of black life in the United States. In the end, his analysis turns our attention to those ?black souls? who engage in the arduous task of self-creation in a world that clings to the idea that white people matter more than others. It is a task, he argues, that requires an uncommon faith and deserves the close attention of scholars of African American religion.
Few issues besides evolution have so strained Americans' professed tradition of tolerance. Few historians besides Pulitzer Prize winner Edward J. Larson have so perceptively chronicled evolution's divisive presence on the American scene. This slim volume reviews the key aspects, current and historical, of the creation-evolution debate in the United States. Larson discusses such topics as the transatlantic response to Darwinism, the American controversy over teaching evolution in public schools, and the religious views of American scientists. He recalls the theological qualms about evolution held by some leading scientists of Darwin's time. He looks at the 2006 Dover, Pennsylvania, court deci...
Philip Schaff, the founder of church history in America, was widely celebrated in his later career. Soon after his arrival from Germany, however, his Principle of Protestantism (1845) was stiffly denounced for its favorable attitude toward Roman Catholicism, harsh critique of denominationalism, and theory of historical progress leading to a church that would be both Evangelical and Catholic. Charles Hodge's review of the book provided the most cogent analysis of its implications for American Christianity. Schaff further clarified his understanding of progress in What Is Church History? (1846) and "German Theology and the Church Question" (1853). Together, these early writings of the Mercersb...
Philip Schaff is considered the founder of the discipline of church history in America, and he was the foremost practitioner of that discipline in nineteenth-century America. In this book Stephen R. Graham provides the first in-depth treatment of Schaff's analysis of religion in American and, by means of that study, examines not only Schaff's thought but also the development of religion in the United States in the nineteenth century. Topics covered include the three "threats" to American Christianity as conceived by Schaff -- sectarianism, romanism, and rationalism; Schaff's understanding of the American experiment of separation of church and state; Schaff's conception of America as playing a unique role in world and Christian history; and Schaff's contributions to ecumenism.
Historians have tended to create a dualistic paradigm, which excludes a mediating biblical criticism in America. For polemical reasons, it has been easier for both conservatives and liberals to polarize moderates as the opposition or to ignore them altogether. Rather than the common modernist/fundamentalist paradigm, which is dualistic, a more accurate way to interpret the biblical criticism of late nineteenth century America is to construe a theological spectrum extending from right to left.
The first of its kind, this volume presents fifty formal and informal trials of individuals and institutions that have been labeled as heretical. These are challenging stories of ministers, professors, and laypersons who literally risked their careers and lives for their understanding of religious truths. From Roger Williams and Anne Hutchinson in the colonial period to the latest 1990s casualties in the Southern Baptist Convention, trials from all major periods in American History and from all the major denominations are presented by leading scholars in the study of religious history. Of interest to scholars, students, and the general religious public. In this moving work, Catholic heretics...