Religion And Twentieth Century American Intellectual Life
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In this imaginative history of modern American evangelicalism, Molly Worthen offers a dramatic rethinking of the evangelical movement, arguing that it has been defined not by shared doctrines or politics, but by the struggle to reconcile head knowledge and heart religion in an increasingly secular America. -- Back cover.
The Next Religious Establishment by Eldon J. Eisenach Pdf
America cannot survive without a common faith. History has taught us that our national identity and our political order require voluntary religious and civic organizations. Following the social, political, and cultural upheavals of the 1960s, Americans are now engaged in a struggle to determine the future of our nation's character and destiny. So argues prominent political theorist Eldon J. Eisenach in this brilliant and controversial new book. Contentious debates over multiculturalism, church-state relations, and immigration illustrate America's current identity crisis. Creating a common vision for America is no easy task but Eisenach describes how the moral and spiritual foundations of a new, coherent, American identity and faith are already emerging. As in the past, the next religious establishment's primary expression will be a political and cultural order that mediates and integrates personal, ethnic, religious, and civic identities. The Next Religious Establishment alerts readers to the changing landscape of America's identity and invites us to participate in its redefinition. This book will profoundly alter the way political theorists, intellectual historians, and theologians conceptualize America's past, present, and future.
That Old-time Religion in Modern America by Darryl G. Hart Pdf
In this cogent history, Hart unpacks evangelicalism's current reputation by tracing its development over the course of the 20th century. He shows how evangelicals entered the century as full partners in the Protestant denominations and agencies that molded American cultural and intellectual life.
Original Sin and Everyday Protestants by Andrew S. Finstuen Pdf
In the years following World War II, American Protestantism experienced tremendous growth, but conventional wisdom holds that midcentury Protestants practiced an optimistic, progressive, complacent, and materialist faith. In Original Sin and Everyday Protestants, historian Andrew Finstuen argues against this prevailing view, showing that theological issues in general--and the ancient Christian doctrine of original sin in particular--became newly important to both the culture at large and to a generation of American Protestants during a postwar "age of anxiety" as the Cold War took root. Finstuen focuses on three giants of Protestant thought--Billy Graham, Reinhold Niebuhr, and Paul Tillich--men who were among the era's best known public figures. He argues that each thinker's strong commitment to the doctrine of original sin was a powerful element of the broad public influence that they enjoyed. Drawing on extensive correspondence from everyday Protestants, the book captures the voices of the people in the pews, revealing that the ordinary, rank-and-file Protestants were indeed thinking about Christian doctrine and especially about "good" and "evil" in human nature. Finstuen concludes that the theological concerns of ordinary American Christians were generally more complicated and serious than is commonly assumed, correcting the view that postwar American culture was becoming more and more secular from the late 1940s through the 1950s.
Author : William M. Shea,Peter A. Huff Publisher : Cambridge University Press Page : 378 pages File Size : 44,8 Mb Release : 2003-02-13 Category : History ISBN : 0521533287
Knowledge and Belief in America by William M. Shea,Peter A. Huff Pdf
The Enlightenment values of individual autonomy, democracy, and secularizing reason conflict with the religious traditions of community, authority, and traditional learning. Yet in American history the two heritages have been intertwined since the colonial era: the development of the Enlightenment has been influenced by community-based thinking and religious institutions have adopted to an extent critical methods and a democratic ethos even within their own walls. This volume unites the work of a distinguished group of theologians, historians, literary critics, and philosophers to explore the interaction between Enlightenment ideals and American religion. The Enlightenment's effect on the major religious traditions, including the Catholic Church, Evangelical Protestantism, and Judaism, is examined. Also highlighted is religion in the thinking of such representative figures as Edwards, Franklin, Emerson, Lincoln, Santayana, and the Pragmatists, Stevens and Eliot.
The Science of Religion: A Defence by Donald Wiebe Pdf
The Science of Religion: A Defence offers a brilliant overview of Donald Wiebe’s contributions on methodology in the academic study of religion, of the development of his thinking over time, and of his intellectual commitment to 'a science of religion'.
After Cloven Tongues of Fire by David A. Hollinger Pdf
The important role of liberal ecumenical Protestantism in American history The role of liberalized, ecumenical Protestantism in American history has too often been obscured by the more flamboyant and orthodox versions of the faith that oppose evolution, embrace narrow conceptions of family values, and continue to insist that the United States should be understood as a Christian nation. In this book, one of our preeminent scholars of American intellectual history examines how liberal Protestant thinkers struggled to embrace modernity, even at the cost of yielding much of the symbolic capital of Christianity to more conservative, evangelical communities of faith. If religion is not simply a private concern, but a potential basis for public policy and a national culture, does this mean that religious ideas can be subject to the same kind of robust public debate normally given to ideas about race, gender, and the economy? Or is there something special about religious ideas that invites a suspension of critical discussion? These essays, collected here for the first time, demonstrate that the critical discussion of religious ideas has been central to the process by which Protestantism has been liberalized throughout the history of the United States, and shed light on the complex relationship between religion and politics in contemporary American life. After Cloven Tongues of Fire brings together in one volume David Hollinger's most influential writings on ecumenical Protestantism. The book features an informative general introduction as well as concise introductions to each essay.
Evangelicals, argues Wells, have largely lost the truth that God also stands outside all human experience, that he still summons sinners to repentance and belief regardless of their self-image, and that he calls his church to stand fast in his truth against the blandishments of the modern world.
Respectably Catholic and Scientific by Alexander Pavuk Pdf
Respectfully Catholic and Scientific traces the unexpected manner in which several influential liberal-progressive Catholics tried to shape how evolution and birth control were framed and debated in the public square in the era between the World Wars-- and the unintended consequences of their efforts. A small but influential cadre of Catholic priests professionally trained in social sciences, Frs. John Montgomery Cooper, John A. Ryan, and John A. O’Brien, gained a hearing from mainline public intellectuals largely by engaging in dialogue on these topics using the lingua franca of the age, science, to the near exclusion of religious argumentation. The Catholics’ approach was more than just tactical. It also derived from the subtle influence of Catholic theological Modernism, with its strong enthusiasm for science, and from an inclination toward scientism inherited from the Progressive Era’s social science milieu. All three shared a fervent desire to translate the Catholic ethos, as they understood it, into the vocabulary of the modern age while circumventing anti-Catholic attitudes in the process. However, their method resulted in a series of unintended consequences whereby their arguments were not infrequently co-opted and used against both them and the institutional church they served. Alexander Pavuk considers the complex role of both liberal religious figures and scientific elites in evolution and birth control discourse, and how each contributed in unexpected ways to the reconstruction of those topics in public culture. The reconstruction saw the topics themselves shift from matters considered largely within moral frameworks into bodies of kno
God-Optional Religion in Twentieth-Century America by Isaac Barnes May Pdf
"This book is about the relationship between the American religious left and secularization. It explores how three liberal religions -liberal Quakers, Unitarians, and Reconstructionist Jews- attempted to preserve their traditions in the modern world by redefining what it meant to be religious. Between the 1920s and the 1960s, these groups underwent the most massive theological change imaginable, allowing their members to opt not to believe in a personal God. As the God of traditional theism did not seem to fit into a post-Darwinian framework, these traditions took the dramatic step of redefining that concept to make a "God" that did fit, and eventually they went even further by making belief in God a matter of purely personal preference. This book narrates how, over the course of the twentieth century, believing in God and being religious became increasingly disconnected. It documents the continuance of these religious communities even after the theological rationales that originally brought them together disappeared, their communal identities instead becoming focused on humanitarian service and political commitments, which began to replace a shared adherence to theism. The radical religious views of these small liberal denominations became influential among the wider society, and eventually became accepted in American popular culture and law"--
Princeton in the Nation's Service by P. C. Kemeny Pdf
This book argues against the conventional idea that Protestantism effectively ceased to play an important role in American higher education around the end of the 19th century. Employing Princeton as an example, the study shows that Protestantism was not abandoned but rather modified to conform to the educational values and intellectual standards of the modern university. Drawing upon a wealth of neglected primary sources, Kemeny sheds new light on the role of religion in higher education by examining what was happening both inside and outside the classroom, and by illustrating that religious and secular commitments were not neatly divisible but rather commingled.
The Blackwell Companion to Religion in America by Philip Goff Pdf
This authoritative and cutting edge companion brings togethera team of leading scholars to document the rich diversity andunique viewpoints that have formed the religious history of theUnited States. A groundbreaking new volume which represents the firstsustained effort to fully explain the development of Americanreligious history and its creation within evolving political andsocial frameworks Spans a wide range of traditions and movements, from theBaptists and Methodists, to Buddhists and Mormons Explores topics ranging from religion and the media,immigration, and piety, though to politics and social reform Considers how American religion has influenced and beeninterpreted in literature and popular culture Provides insights into the historiography of religion, butpresents the subject as a story in motion rather than a snapshot ofwhere the field is at a given moment
Social Christianity was a major force in the life of the United States, Canada, and Britain for more than sixty years, beginning in the closing decades of the Victorian age. As a tide of concern swept through Protestantism in the face of mounting social ills, Social Gospelers and Christian Socialists urged a less competitive, more compassionate society. They pioneered in many fields of modern social science and actively engaged in social work and party politics. In A Kingdom on Earth, Paul T. Phillips provides an unusually broad view of the movement from both sides of the Atlantic. He is also unique in carrying the story up to 1940, thereby tying Social Christianity to the origins of the welfare state. Using a wide range of sources, A Kingdom on Earth places the activities of Social Christians firmly in the social and cultural contexts of the day. Phillips's analysis reveals the dilemmas of a movement that sought to achieve social harmony and justice through close cooperation with secular reformism. Such dilemmas invariably led to rivalries with competing ideologies and brought secularizing influences into the churches themselves. In spite of these worldly aspects, however, Phillips finds that the inspiration and essence of the movement were essentially religious.