Religion in American Life A Short History

by Butler, Jon; Wacker, Grant; Balmer, Randall

• ISBN13: 9780199832699
• ISBN10: 0199832692
• Edition: 2nd
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2011-10-07
• Publisher: Oxford University Press

Summary

This new edition ofReligion in American Life, written by three of the country's most eminent historians of religion, offers a superb overview that spans four centuries, illuminating the rich spiritual heritage central to nearly every event in our nation's history. Revised and updated, the book includes expanded treatment of religion during the Great Depression, of the religious influences on the civil rights movement, and of utopian groups in the 19th century, and it now covers the role of religion during the 2008 presidential election. The volume remarks on the generational divide among evangelicals that manifested itself during the 2008 election and notes how completely the discourse of religion has entered American politics. (When George Romney ran for the Republican presidential nomination in 1968, his Mormon faith elicited nary a comment. When Romney's son Mitt ran in 2008, his Mormon faith arguably cost him the nomination.) Finally, the book touches on the Ground Zero mosque controversy and uses it as an occasion to underscore the religious pluralism that was characteristic of lower Manhattan in the seventeenth century.

Author Biography

Jon Butler is Howard R. Lamar Professor of American Studies, History, and Religious Studies at Yale University. He is the author of Awash in a Sea of Faith: Christianizing the American People, among other books. Grant Wacker is Professor of Christian History at Duke Divinity School. His books include Heaven Below: Early Pentecostals and American Culture. Randall Balmer is Professor of American Religious History at Barnard College, Columbia University. He is the author of a dozen books, including Mine Eyes Have Seen the Glory: A Journey into the Evangelical Subculture in America.

Table of Contents

Preface	p. xi
Religion In Colonial America
Worlds Old and New	p. 1
Religion and Missions in New Spain and New France	p. 21
Religion in England's First Colonies	p. 47
The Flowering of Religious Diversity	p. 72
African and American Indian Religion	p. 92
Reviving Colonial Religion	p. 111
Religion and the American Revolution	p. 133
Religion In Nineteenth-Century America
Prophets for a New Nation	p. 155
Awakeners of the Heart	p. 171
Reformers and Visionaries	p. 186
Restorers of Ancient Ways	p. 201
Sojourners at Home	p. 213
Warriors for God and Religion	p. 232
Fashioners of Immigrant Faiths	p. 247
Innovators in a World of New Ideas	p. 262
Conservers of Tradition	p. 274
Adventurers of the Spirit	p. 292
Religion In Twentieth- and Twenty-First-Century America
A New Century	p. 311
The Age of Militancy	p. 325
In God We Trust	p. 343
Religion in the New Frontier	p. 363
Religion in an Age of Upheaval	p. 382
Preachers, Politicians, and Prodigals	p. 400
Coming to Terms with Pluralism	p. 414
Religion in the New Millennium	p. 432
Epilogue	p. 443
Chronology	p. 446
Further Reading	p. 468
Acknowledgments	p. 497
Text Credits	p. 500
Picture Credits	p. 502
Index	p. 50
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