Religion in America

by Corrigan, John; Hudson, Winthrop S.

• ISBN13: 9780130923899
• ISBN10: 0130923893
• Edition: 7th
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2004-01-01
• Publisher: Taylor & Francis

Summary

This comprehensive narrative account of religion in America from 1607 through the present depicts the religious life of the American people within the context of American society. It addresses topics ranging from the European/Puritan origins of American religious thought, encompassing the ramifications of the "Great Awakening" and the effect of nationhood on religious practice, and extending through to the shifting religious configuration of the late 20th century. For anyone interested in the history of religion in America.

Table of Contents

Preface	xi
Introduction: Land, People, and Nation	1	(8)
Part One Religion in a Colonial Context, 1492--1789	9	(120)
Backgrounds and Beginnings	11	(30)
Native Peoples	11	(11)
A Distinctive Worldview
Belief and Performance
A Myth of Purity and Decay
Catholic Missionaries	22	(3)
The Protestant Reformation and the Council of Trent
The Spanish Religious Interest	25	(9)
Old Spain and New Spain
``The Friars Were Watching''
French Missions and Institutions	34	(7)
Religious Disagreements and the Problem of Organization
Catholicism in the St. Lawrence Valley
Institutional Support
England and America	41	(43)
England as the ``Bridge'' from the Old World to the New	42	(6)
Protestant Predominance
The Puritan Heritage
Religious Diversity
A New Beginning in a New Land	48	(8)
The Importance of the Laity
The Breakdown of the Parish System
The Possibility of Thoroughgoing Reform
The Sense of Expectancy
The Outsiders
Religious Characteristics of the Different Colonies	56	(7)
The Southern Colonies
The New England Colonies
The Middle Colonies
The English-speaking Denominations	63	(12)
The Anglicans
The Congregationalists
The Presbyterians
The Baptists
The Quakers
The Roman Catholics
Denominations of Continental Origin	75	(6)
The Dutch and the French Reformed
Mennonites, Dunkers, and Moravians
The German Lutherans and the German Reformed
The Jews
Popular Religious Beliefs	81	(3)
The Great Awakening	84	(21)
Transatlantic Influences	86	(3)
The Transmission of Ritual Forms
Theological Change and Public Piety in New England
The First Stirrings of Revival	89	(4)
Theodore J. Frelinghuysen
The Tennents
Jonathan Edwards
The Great Awakening	93	(7)
``The Grand Itinerant''
The Mounting Opposition
The Southern Phase of the Awakening
The Impact of the Awakening	100	(5)
Institutional Consequences
The Theological Temper Generated by the Awakening
The Denominational Concept
The Birth of the Republic	105	(24)
Religion and Politics	105	(10)
The Puritan Political Heritage
Fears Generated by Anglican Aggressiveness
Deism
The Winning of Independence	115	(9)
The Attitude of the Various Denominations
The Role of the Clergy
Religious Freedom
Separation of Church and State
African Traditions and Christianization	124	(5)
Part Two The New Nation, 1789--1865	129	(95)
The Republic and the Churches	131	(16)
The Mission of America	132	(4)
The Religion of the Republic
Church Religion
The Reordering of Denominational Life	136	(10)
Anglicans
Congregationalists, Presbyterians, and Baptists
Methodists and ``Christians''
Roman Catholics
Estimating the Influence of the Churches	146	(1)
Protestant Expansion and Consolidation	147	(22)
The Second Awakening	150	(9)
Camp Meetings
New Measures
Role of Women
Missionary and Educational Activity	159	(10)
Early Missionary Societies
Voluntary Societies and a National Strategy
Contributions to Education
The Mood of the South
Overseas Missions
The Broadening of Denominational Life	169	(31)
Unitarians and Universalists	170	(2)
The Resurgence of Old School ``Confessionalism''	172	(4)
The Emergence of African American Denominations	176	(7)
The Female Majority	183	(5)
Antebellum Roman Catholicism	188	(4)
Jewish Communities	192	(2)
Rationalists, Scientists, and Transcendentalists	194	(3)
The Union Revival	197	(3)
Visions of Religious Community	200	(24)
The Utopian Vision	201	(7)
The Shakers
The Oneida Community
Transcendentalism's ``Wild Oats''
New Visions	208	(6)
The Mormons
The Millerites
The Spiritualists
The Humanitarian Impulse	214	(6)
The Expanding Concern
The Slavery Controversy
The Disruption of the Churches
Continuity and Mediation	220	(4)
The Continuing Importance of Preaching
The Mediating Theology of Horace Bushnell
Part Three Years of Midpassage, 1865--1918	224	(113)
Post--Civil War America	231	(24)
Reconstituting the Nation	233	(8)
The Bond of Religion
The Failure of Reconstruction
The Southern Churches
The Churches and the Freedmen	241	(5)
The Growth of African American Churches
Renewal of Home Missionary Concern	246	(9)
Church Extension in the West
Urban Revivalism
The Sunday School Movement
The New Americans	255	(23)
The Response of the Older Americans	256	(7)
Nativist Concerns
Protestant-Catholic Tensions
Protestant Ministries to the Immigrants
Adjustments and Tensions Within Roman Catholicism	263	(12)
Institutional Development
``Americanism''
Other Immigrant Faiths and Accessions	275	(3)
Lutheran Accessions
Other Protestant Accessions
Judaism and Eastern Orthodox Christianity
The New Intellectual Climate	278	(20)
Protestant Liberalism	280	(10)
The Fundamental Issue of Biblical Authority
Evangelical Liberalism
Scientific Modernism
Protestant Conservatism
New Departures	290	(8)
The Religion of Humanity
Esoteric Wisdom from the East
Science, Religion, Health
New Frontiers for the Churches	298	(39)
The Roles of Women and Men	299	(13)
Churchgoing Women
The Segregated Clergy
Social Reform
Religious Innovation
Masculinizing Religion
The Challenge of the Cities	312	(7)
New Techniques for City Churches
The Institutional Church
The Churches and the Economic Order	319	(12)
The Gospel of Wealth
The Rise of Social Discontent
The Social Gospel
The ``Progressive'' Movement
Imperialism and World Missions	331	(6)
Dollar Diplomacy and Religion
The Evangelization of the World
Part Four Modern America, 1918--	337	(120)
The Shifting Religious Configuration	339	(30)
Judaism	339	(10)
Reform Judaism
The Great Immigration
Reconstructionism and Zionism
Jewish Religious Revivals at Midcentury
Eastern Orthodox Christianity	349	(3)
The Orthodox Churches
Orthodoxy in America
``Disaffected'' Protestants	352	(10)
The Holiness Movement
Pentecostalism
Millennialism
The Black Churches	362	(4)
Mid-Twentieth-Century Religious Profile	366	(3)
Protestantism's Uneasy Journey to the Comfortable Fifties	369	(25)
The Transitional Years	370	(11)
The Postwar Generation
The Fundamentalist Controversy
Merchandising Religion
Protestant ``Revivals''	381	(8)
Theological Reassessment
The Religious Revival of the Fifties
Other Manifestations of Religious Vitality	389	(5)
The Maturing of Roman Catholicism	394	(19)
The External Marks of Maturity	394	(5)
The Effect of World War I
Increase in Numbers and Wealth
Changing Status of Catholics in American Life
Expressions of New Vitality	399	(6)
The Social Program of the Church
Intellectual Life
The Religious Revival
Hispanic Catholicism	405	(5)
Interfaith Relationships	410	(3)
``Old and New Centers''	413	(44)
The Fracturing of Protestantism	414	(6)
Protestant Disarray
Roman Catholic Euphoria, Vacillation, Dissidence, and Retrenchment	420	(6)
Euphoria and Vacillation
Dissidence
Retrenchment
New Centers	426	(8)
The Jesus Cult
The Authoritarian Strain
Religion and Identity
World Religions in America	434	(17)
Islam
Islam in America Post-9/11
Buddhism
Hinduism
The Marketplace of Religion and the American Mission	451	(2)
Religion, Nature, and Health	453	(4)
Nature Religion and Holistic Living
Development of a Health Ministry
Epilogue	457	(5)
Suggestions for Further Reading	462	(3)
Index	465

Excerpts

This is a story about religion in America. But it is not the only story about religion in America. At certain points in the telling, it corresponds with other stories about people, places, and religious things. Sometimes, on the other hand, this story takes turns that distance it from these other stories. Like all other stories of a nation's past, it is an intertwining of many threads of narrative. Here and there those threads are woven into a relatively sturdy, even fabric. In other places, the warp and woof are uneven, ragged, or fragile. History is complex, to some extent indeterminate, and is subject to constant revision. This history of the development of American religious life is, accordingly, a work in progress. A story changes with each telling, and this story is no different. In preparingReligion in Americafor a seventh edition, I have added several new sections, and have enlarged and detailed others. In this edition I note the important Reformation and Catholic Reformation backgrounds to Christian missionizing in North America, and especially the way in which the struggles between Protestants and Catholics in Europe translated in certain ways to the vigorous Jesuit and Franciscan and Sulpician ventures on this side of the Atlantic. The legacy of the Spanish presence in colonial North America--in the form of a distinctive Hispanic Catholicism--is also the subject of a more detailed discussion. This treatment is particularly appropriate in view of the recent dramatic growth of that part of the population whose background is Hispanic. The careful work undertaken by historians in recent years to enlarge our understanding of African American religious history has made possible a broader and deeper picture of that aspect of the story. Drawing on this ongoing research, I have added material on the emergence of the African American denominations, on the role of religion in African American social movements (from mutual aid societies to the Convention Movement), on the formation of black women's religious societies, and on the growing popularity of Islam and Islamic movements among African Americans. Historical scholarship continues to confirm the primary roles of women in sustaining religious institutions in America. In a new section on the "female majority," I describe some of the roles played by women, as well as the resistance that they encountered, as they sought to expand the scope of their religious activities in antebellum America. In discussing this period, I also address in greater detail the ways in which Catholics and Jews organized their religious life and the ways in which that life changed as those communities grew and diversified. There likewise is a fuller discussion of the most important of nineteenth-century national revivals, the Businessmen's Revival (or, Union Revival) of 1858, which served at one level to accentuate ethnic, gender, class, and age differences in religious groups at the same time that it fostered unity on another level. Pentecostalism has proven to be one of the most vital and fast-growing branches of Christianity, both in America and in many other parts of the world. The story in this edition takes more time with the beginnings of Pentecostalism in America, noting the ways in which Pentecostalism, over the course of the twentieth century, has moved from the periphery of American religious life into the mainstream of popular culture. By the same token, Islam has developed from its status as a religion practiced solely by first- and second-generation immigrants to a faith embraced by a broad base of Americans, and especially as a religion that appeals to African Americans. I address this development in greater detail, noting the differences in styles of Islam in America and the ways in which it has been connected or disconnected with Islam as it is practiced elsewhere. I likewise note how the events of September 11, 2001, have affected the