No political movement has impacted the United States over the past century more than Progressivism.  The principles, policies and values of Progressive ideology are integrated into the fabric of the American nation at every level of governance and society, and its views and beliefs are ingrained in the hearts and minds of many in every class across every region of the country.  At one time, however, Progressivism was not natural or accepted ideology, but a new and foreign concept that was rejected by many Americans, or at least unknown and vaguely defined.  The question that confronts the historian is, how did the philosophy of Progressivism, which would give rise to so much of the modern and postmodern socio-political landscape, become the most effective, impacting and powerful American political movement of the last 100 years? 

There were, of course, many contributing factors to the formation of the movement that would become known as “Progressivism.”  The nexus of these influences are complex and widely varied – beginning with the early monarchical machinations of Founding Father Alexander Hamilton who desired an all-powerful centralized government,[1] and the Alien and Sedition Acts passed in 1798 by the Federalist Congress in part to restrict criticism of President John Adams’ policies and silence his political oppositions “free speech.” [2]   Some would also label as a “progressive” trait the rather heavy-handed style of leadership characteristic of the presidency of Andrew Jackson who “defended his own authority with resolute determination, [but] he did not manifest a general respect for the authority of the law when it got in the way of the policies he chose to pursue.”[3]

The Progressive Movement certainly doesn’t owe its whole existence to American sources and personalities.  With the emergence of the socio-economic political theories of Karl Marx, “socialism” or “communism” became quite popular after the publication of The Communist Manifesto in 1848, and the philosophical premises of Marx’ ideology were to some extent adopted by those in American Government and politics, which contributed greatly to the continuing hunger of many for the centralization of power in a Federal State, a centerpiece of the Progressive Movement. 
            Many members of the early Marxist movement from Germany and France immigrated to the United States after the failed Marxist French Revolution of 1848, and became leading proponents of the Union Cause in the American Civil War, supporting Lincoln, the strengthening of the Federal Government, and centralized political power.  Karl Marx himself, as well as Friedrich Engels saw the victory of the Union as a triumph for Socialism, and Marx even penned a letter of support to Lincoln during the course of the war.[4]  These early infusions of foreign “socialist” intellectual encouragement in addition to the many thousands of Europeans that immigrated, bringing their dialectical materialist worldview with them certainly had an impact in creating the foundations of the Progressive Movement.
            Furthermore, Progressivism came from a long line of American protest movements particular to the American Mid-west, beginning with the Grangers and moving to the rural Populists, and then naturally migrating into major population centers to form what became Progressivism.  While Historian Russell B. Nye noted that Progressives were generally urban,

and not of the same “class” as their predecessors in protest, the Populists, he contended they came from the same general line of ideological remonstrance against the system.[5]  While Populist rural farm and ranch laborers protested against the Cattle Barons and Railroads, Progressivist urban industrial laborers took up the cause against so-called “Robber Barons” or Captains of Industry.

Socio-Economic and Political forces did not exhaust the attitudes and convictions that were driving formation of Progressivism, either.  The United States was a nation given to religion, and particularly to a predominantly Protestant brand of Christianity that had its roots sunk deep into the traditional faiths of their European forefathers, particularly as they emerged from the Reformation era of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.  While many Americans came from spiritual backgrounds steeped in one of the English Church traditions or its “spin-off’s,” the Anglicans, Episcopals, Baptists, Methodists, Congregationalist Puritans, and so forth, many others followed similar Protestant Church traditions, though with their own national and cultural flavors, such as the German Lutherans, Dutch Reformed, Scottish Presbyterian, French Huguenot, Moravians, Waldensians, and so on.  Regardless of the particular strain of Christianity, however, Historian Nathan O. Hatch observed two very important “central components” that were common to most Christians of the Early Republic, and that by their nature would come to mesh well with a Progressive agenda and political ideology, at least on the surface.  First, Hatch noted that Christianity in America, unlike its European counterparts, had largely jettisoned the antiquated idea of the strict distinction between clergy and laity, and had instead adopted as the “central force” of the American faith “its democracy or populist orientation.”[6]  Hatch went on to explain that this “empowered ordinary people by taking their deepest spiritual influences at face value” rather than subjecting them to “the frowns of respectable clergy,” and actually freed the lay people to act on their faith, their belief system, and to become involved.[7]  These two elements of personal empowerment and populist orientation were big influences on the psyche of common Christians in the first half of the nineteenth century, which explains why a growing number of them became involved, not only in spiritual matters such as the “Second Great Awakening,” but also in social issues of the day like abolition of slavery, temperance and the fight against alcoholic beverages, women’s suffrage, the labor movement, and many more. 

But, what motivated the involvement of these Christians?  What internal conviction, what doctrinal affirmation compelled them to labor toward the ends of establishing positive social change?  Of particular interest in addressing this question, particularly during this period of American History, is the way Christians saw the future.  Eschatology is “a branch of theology concerned with the final events in the history of the world or of humankind; a belief concerning death, the end of the world, or the ultimate destiny of humankind; specifically : any of various Christian doctrines concerning the Second Coming, the resurrection of the dead, or the Last Judgment.”[8]  Most American Christians have always considered their understanding of how the future will unfold from both a Biblical and a social perspective to be an essential facet of their religious faith.
            From the earliest days of the nation, and in fact, back to the beginning of the Colonial period, many of the prominent Protestant ministers and theologians, heavily influenced by the Reformation tradition and Puritan experiences in the New World, took a very optimistic view of the future, believing that redeemed humans, as embodied in the Christian Church, would eventually evangelize and win the world to Christ, leading not only to a spiritual but also to a social transformation of the entire globe; a Kingdom of God come on earth.

One such Protestant leader was Puritan John Winthrop, who led the early English settlers of the Massachusetts Bay Colony.  It was Winthrop’s fervent hope that he and his colony would serve as an example of redemption and reform that would transform, not only the “New World,” which they called “New England,” but also the “Old World” of Europe, and eventually the entire world.  Despite the hardships of the early years, Winthrop’s famous words echo through history and set the optimistic, but demanding tone so characteristic of Puritan eschatology of the time: “We must consider that we shall be as a city set on a hill; the eyes of all people are upon us.”[9]

  America’s most famous native scholar of Scripture, Johnathan Edwards, also affirmed this optimistic and theologically progressive view of eschatology in his works during the first half of the 1700’s.  Edwards, a Newport, Rhode Island Congregational Minister, is most renowned historically for his leadership in the spiritual revival known as “The First Great Awakening” of the 1730’s and 1740’s, and the classic sermon “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God,”  which he preached hundreds of times in Churches throughout New England and beyond.  He was, however, also a prolific writer and theologian who contributed a great deal to a uniquely American Protestant theological vision, and his most important conclusion with regard to how the Kingdom of God would be achieved on earth is revealed in his The Works of Johnathan Edwards, A.M., in a commentary entitled, “To the Fall of the Antichrist.”  Edwards, regarding the coming of the Millennium, or Kingdom of God on earth, summarizes, “This is a work that will be accomplished by means, by preaching of the gospel, and the use of the ordinary means of grace, and so shall be gradually brought to pass.”[10]
            During the Colonial and Early American era, this concept of Christian Eschatology formally became known as “Postmillennialism.”  The formal theological definition of Postmillennialism is “The Christian doctrine that Jesus Christ’ Second Coming will follow the millennium, a kingdom or utopian age (that may not necessarily be viewed as a literal 1,000 years).  In this view, the Church progressively “conquers the world” so to speak.   During this present age, Postmillennialists believe that sin will not cease, but it will be minimized because of the influence of the church.  Christ will not physically reign but rather he will spiritually reign through the church because of its vast influence over all facets of life. At the culmination of time, Jesus will return to judge the world, sending the wicked to Hell and the righteous to their reward.”[11]  In very simple terms, Postmillennialism understands the future “millennium” or “kingdom age” as “the climax and goal of human progress, with human effort contributing to the realization of God’s providential design….  This is called postmillennialism [because] the Second Coming of Christ occurs at the end of the millennium.”[12]

The question, then, is how this popular, fervent and optimistic brand of Christian Eschatology became an influential, perhaps even formative element in the development of the political movement called Progressivism in the late nineteenth century United States.
            One suggestion might be that Postmillennialism combined the perfectionist ideals of the Second Great Awakening with the kingdom-building optimism of “Yankee pietism.”[13]  Yankee Pietism emerged as a movement among the:
                        New Testament oriented, anti-ritualist, congregational in governance, active

            in para-church organizations, and committed to individual conversion and

            societal reform in order to usher in the millennial reign of Jesus Christ.

            Pietists did not compartmentalize religion and civil government.  Right

            belief and right behavior are two sides of the same spiritual coin.[14]

Mark Noll and Luke Harlow additionally observed that, though most of the “Yankee Pietists” were from the “anti-liturgical” traditions (such as “Baptists, Methodists, Disciples, Congregationists, Quakers”),[15] in the political and social movements, the term was “too vague,” and “confessionalists can be pietists and devotionalists too.”[16]  The social and political implications of “Yankee Pietism” transcended the sectarian Christian doctrinal differences.  This ecumenism naturally lent itself to “other than Christian” motivations for accomplishing goals for the greater good, and later perhaps motivations with no religious foundation at all.
            Numerous historians have addressed the effect of the Christian eschatological belief system of Postmillennialism and how it influenced the development of the United States politically, particularly during the nineteenth and early twentieth century.   
            Daniel Walker Howe noted that “Postmillennialism provided the capstone to an intellectual structure integrating political liberalism and economic development with Protestant Christianity.”[17] This was certainly not the universal view of all Protestant Christians of the time, but with the champions of Second Great Awakening like Lyman Beecher,[18] Richard T. Ely[19] and Charles Grandison Finney,[20] it became the prevailing view by mid-century, and certainly after the Civil War. 

            Part and parcel of postmillennial eschatology was the encouragement of activism.[21] It was this brand of Christian eschatology that drove the “continuing moral and social improvement” movements such as abolition, temperance and women’s suffrage,[22] and also “provided the rationale and motivation to sustain the imperial vision” along the way, leading to such events as the Monroe Doctrine, Manifest Destiny, the Spanish-American War and ultimately World War I.[23]

            According to Mark Noll and Luke Harlow, there is no doubt that as Postmillennial “Yankee Pietism” grew in numbers and social clout, beginning early in the nineteenth century when they “launched a crusade to Christianize America.”[24]  This agenda was deliberate and divided into two phases.

                        First, they created the “benevolent empire” in the 1810’s to spread

                        the Gospel and teach the Bible.  Then, in the 1820’s, they established

                        reform societies to eradicate slavery, saloons, Sabbath desecration,

                        and other social ills.  Finally, in the 1830’s, they entered the political

                        mainstream by joining the new Whig Party against the Jacksonian

                        Democrats.  By the end of the 1840’s….they added nativist legislation

                        To their agenda, especially by extending the naturalization period

                        from four to fourteen years.[25]

            Somewhere along the way, however, Postmillennialism lost its “spirituality” but retained its optimism, its utopian ideals, and its concept of human progress.  Historian James H. Moorhead refers to this as an “erosion to the more open-ended eschatology of the kingdom,”[26] which is also seen in the emergence of theological liberalism and Biblical “higher criticism” regarding heretofore traditionally accepted orthodox doctrines of the faith.  William R. Hutchison quotes Charles S. Briggs, a late nineteenth century proponent of “Modernism” and Biblical higher criticism as saying “We have undermined the breastworks of traditionalism; let us blow them to atoms.  We have forced them from the face of the earth that no man hereafter may be kept from the Bible.”[27]

            In the absence of a strong reliance on Christian traditions and staunchly held cardinal doctrines, those who maintained a generally “postmillennial” eschatology began to gravitate to a philosophy that placed their reliance in another means of “establishing the kingdom.”   “God,” Richard T. Ely declared, “works through the State in carrying out His purposes more universally than through any other institution.”[28]  This was the perfect soil into which was sewn the seed of collectivism, Darwinian Evolution, a drive by Radical Republicans during and following the Civil War toward centralization of power in the Federal Government, and a Marxian Dialectical Materialistic philosophy that conspired to produce Progressive political pioneers like Robert M. La Follette,[29] and Presidents Theodore Roosevelt[30] and Woodrow Wilson.[31]

            The emergence of politicians like Wisconsin Governor and later Senator Robert M “Fighting Bob” La Follette in the last half of the nineteenth century tracked with the merging of the social practices and political ideas of the more liberalized Postmillennial Pietists and their more secular and materialist counterparts in public life.  La Follette, born in 1855, rose to prominence as a Congressman first elected in 1884 and serving three terms as a champion of the populist interests of common laborers and farmers, and an outspoken foe of the industrial giants and corporate interests like railroads and the lumber industry, very prominent in Wisconsin.[32] 

            La Follette himself had been raised by a Baptist mother who had come west with Yankee Pietist ideals already formulated, however his father Josiah La Follette, who had died when Robert was young, was an agnostic.  When his Mother remarried John Z. Saxton, a very conservative, strict and dedicated Baptist, Robert grew to dislike the formal religion and doctrinal absolutes of his Step-father. 
            “I got fed up with that sort of thing as a boy.  My stepfather insisted on entertaining the Baptist Minister every Sunday,” La Follette once quipped when asked about his disposition to churches and religion.  According to biographer Nancy Unger, his disdain went further than merely disliking the institution, but the harsh discipline his religious Stepfather often inflicted upon he and his siblings for “poor manners, impoliteness, and discourtesy” and other unacceptable behaviors in children of the day.[33]  Yet La Follette never abandoned the ideals of “Yankee Pietism” he was taught as a child, and he wove them into his social philosophy and political ideology, forming a microcosm and prototype of the exemplary “Progressive” in the late nineteenth century, having moved away from the overt religious faith, but kept the social involvement and activism, and gravitated toward a much more statist and collectivist theory of governance.  In this sense, Robert La Follette serves as the nearly perfect reflection of what happened to the population of Postmillennial Yankee Pietists in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. 

            By the time Theodore “Teddy” Roosevelt assumed the presidency in 1901 after the assassination of William McKinley, the “Progressive Era” was well underway.  During Roosevelt’s Presidency, the “Social Gospel” movement was at its height, and theologically liberal leaders such as Baptist Walter Rauschenbusch, Episcopal Richard T. Ely, and Congregationalist Washington Gladden were championing many diverse social causes.  Common during this time were temperance and the push for prohibition of alcohol, support of labor unions and “worker’s rights,” women’s suffrage, working against poverty, and just the beginnings of racial desegregation and “civil rights.”[34] 

            Teddy Roosevelt was no political slouch.  Unlike McKinley, Roosevelt was a Republican in the more “progressive” vein of the Party.  While he was certainly no Robert La Follette, Roosevelt more than once spoke of his appreciation for the Progressive firebrand, so the direction Roosevelt took in governing the nation was not surprising.  Roosevelt demonstrated his “progressive faith in scientific management and committed to enlarging presidential power,” also “sponsoring legislation that expanded the administrative power of the federal government.”[35]  Theodore Roosevelt rightly earned the title of the first “Progressive” President, because the Federal Government had not taken a leap in regulatory power or legal control over the people or the States since the end of “Reconstruction.”

            President Roosevelt knew how to make his view of an “energetic national government” palatable to the American people, however.  As an example, this was demonstrated when he chose to run for re-election in 1912 after a term out of office. The Republican Party failed to nominate him, instead re-nominating incumbent President William Howard Taft.  Taft was from the Conservative wing of the Party, and Roosevelt bolted, running on the “Bull-Moose” ticket – another name for the Progressive Party.  At the conclusion of the Progressive Party convention that year, Roosevelt is reported to have proclaimed, “Our cause is based on the eternal principles of righteousness; We stand at Armageddon, we battle for the Lord.”  As a response to his speech, Roosevelt had the Convention delegation wave their Bibles and march out of the auditorium as they sang the Christian hymn Onward, Christian Soldiers.[36]
            Woodrow Wilson was, by far, the most successful President of the classic Progressive Era.  Wilson managed to integrate the formerly separate Progressive Party into his Democrat Party, and persuade his party to adopt many of their ideas.  Among his greatest triumphs were the creation of the Federal Reserve Bank, the passage of the Sixteenth Amendment approving the “graduated” or “Progressive” Income Tax, the Seventeenth Amendment authorizing the direct election of Senators by democratic vote rather than by vote of the State Legislatures, the creation of the Federal Trade Commission and the passage of the Clayton Anti-Trust Act regulating commerce and limiting monopolies as well as aiding organized labor, the Keating-Owen Act outlawing child labor, the Federal Highway Act, and the Eighteenth Amendment prohibiting the transport and sale of intoxicating liquors.[37]

            Raised the son of a Presbyterian Pastor and Theologian, he drank deeply from the well of Calvinist theology, believing in the tenets common to the Reformed tradition: Predestination, the omnipotence and sovereignty of God, and a personal life of devotion to his faith which included daily Bible reading, morning and evening prayers, and church attendance, including at mid-week prayer services.[38]  If Robert La Follette was the prototype of Progressivism’s beginning, it’s flirtation with Christian themes but adoption of secular and materialistic methods and goals, then President Woodrow Wilson was the personification of the Postmillennial Progressive Christian.  His religious convictions and ideas of God formed the framework of his entire worldview.  His assurance in the truth of God’s sovereignty and predestination gave him a confidence in God’s guidance, both for himself as a leader, and for the nation he led.  He held an optimistic and idealistic view that the United States, as a Christian nation, was to exemplify that devotion to the elements of righteousness which are derived from the revelations of Holy Scripture.”[39]  Wilson was firmly postmillennial, viewed his role as a messenger of God, and considered his support for democracy, the “War to End All Wars” (World War I) and establish a “League of Nations” as “divinely inspired paths” to achieving the prophesied “Kingdom of God” spoken of by the prophets in Scripture.[40]

The eschatological view of Postmillennialism found its greatest acceptance among Protestant Christians in the United States, Europe and around the industrialized world as Christian missionaries continued to reach new lands with the Gospel, revivalism and awakenings continued to flourish, and Christian nations enjoyed general prosperity and comfort.  Is it any coincidence that during this period of time, the political movement known as Progressivism developed, and enjoyed its greatest popularity during the Industrial Revolution in America and England when people saw their world improving, their faith growing, and their causes advancing?
            Of course, it couldn’t last forever.  Woodrow Wilson’s second term ended after he’d won “The Great War,” but the American People balked at his “League of Nations,” fearful of the international entanglements it could bring.  Wilson was struck down by a stroke, and the US economy suffered a brief but sharp recession as he left office, returning a Conservative, Calvin Coolidge to the Presidency.  So, too, the days of Postmillennialism’s popularity were numbered.  After 1921, the United States suffered two more major blows that caused many Christians to entirely abandon the optimistic eschatological prognostications once held by so many in the prior century.  The Great Depression, which began in 1929 with the crash of the Stock Market, followed by a second and even more devastating World War less than three decades after the first simply crush whatever optimism many had left for a better world.[41] 

            Progressivism, however, has remained one of the most pervasive and longest lasting political movements in American history.  The proponents of Progressivism and its reforms may find it politically expedient to change the labels they are wearing at a given time in the life of the national body politic, like “Liberal,” for instance, or they might retreat on certain policy issues when the political tone and atmosphere turns against them.  A great example of that might be the Clinton triangulation on the issue of “Workfare” rather than “welfare,” which President Clinton initially resisted, but once a Republican Congress was elected, he not only embraced, but claimed credit for.  This kind of tactical retreat and incrementalism has allowed the survival of Progressivism as political movement far longer than most others, and for that reason, its impact cannot be overestimated. 
            Often, however, one of its most important sources is glossed over or completely missed by some historians and modern commentators.  Much of the basis for the optimism, collectivism, and the positive belief in building a better world “progressively” may be attributed to the ascendancy of the nineteenth century Protestant eschatological view known as postmillennialism.  Affirming a great optimism in the abilities of “redeemed humanity,” they believed the Church could bring about the Kingdom of God on earth through reform, economic and social improvement, and the use of Government to implement these changes, both in the United States and eventually, abroad.  Though the initial dedication of early Protestant adherence to traditional doctrines gave way to higher criticism and their rejection, these more liberalized Christians retained their optimism, collectivism, concepts of Statist centralization and high opinion of human abilities to achieve a “utopian” ideal, and the result by the beginning of the twentieth century was a full and complete political philosophy known as “Progressivism.”  This movement gave birth to modern Liberalism, and indeed, remains a major player in politics today as expressed in the ideology and policies of President Barack Obama, the Democrat Party, major Unions, Occupation Wall Street and the like.  While it may seem unlikely in some cases, one of the pillars of Progressivism was a Christian Eschatological view with a positive view of the future, and of human’s abilities to bring it to pass.  That vision endures in most Progressives of today.

Bibliography

Bendle, Ph.D., Melvin F. . “The Apocalyptic Imagination and Popular Culture.” Journal of           Religion and Popular Culture 11 (2005),

http://www.usask.ca/relst/jrpc/art11-apocalypticimagination.html

            (accessed August17, 2012).

DiLorenzo, Thomas.  Hamilton’s Curse. New York: Crown Forum Publishing Group, 2008.

Edwards, Johnathan, Henry Rogers, Sereno Edwards Dwight.  The Works of Johnathan Edwards             A.M. Vol. 2 London: Childs & Sons, 1839.

Evans, Christopher H.  The Social Gospel Today. Louisville, Kentucky: Westminster John Knox Press, 2001.

Fine, Sidney. Laissez Faire Thought and the General-Welfare State: A Study of Conflict in           American Thought, 1865-1901. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1956.

Gillon, Steven M. & Cathy D. Matson. The American Experiment: A History of the United           States. Boston: Houghton-Mifflin, 2006.

Handy, Robert T. A Christian America: Protestant Hopes and Historical Realities.2^nd ed. New    York: Oxford University Press USA, 1971, 1984.

Hatch, Nathan O.  The Democratization of American Christianity. Boston: Yale University Press,            1989.

Howe, Daniel Walker. What Hath God Wrought: The Transformation of America, 1815-1848.     New York: Oxford University Press, 2007.

 Hutchison, William R. The Modernist Impulse in American Protestantism. Durham, North          Carolina: Duke University Press, 1992.

Kleppner, Paul. The Third Electoral System, 1835-1892: Parties, Voters, and Political Cultures. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1979.

Link, Arthur S. ed. The Papers of Woodrow Wilson, Volume 23. Princeton, New Jersey:   Princeton University Press, 1977.

Magee, Malcolm D.  What the World Should Be: Woodrow Wilson and the Crafting of a Faith-    Based Foreign Policy.  Waco, Texas: Baylor University Press, 2008.

Merriam-Webster Dictionary. (Encyclopedia Brittanica Co., 2012):

            http://www.merriam-webster.com/  (accessed August 19, 2012)

Moorhead, James H. “The Erosion of Postmillennialism in American Religious Thought, 1865     — 1925,” Church History 53 (March 1984): 61 — 77.

Moorhead, James H. World Without End: Mainstream American Protestant Visions of the Last    Things 1880-1925. Bloomington, Indiana: Indiana University Press, 2006.

Noll, Mark A., Luke E. Harlow.  Religion and American Politics: From the Colonial Period to    the Present. New York: Oxford University Press USA, 2007.

Nye, Russell B. Midwestern Progressive Politics: A History of its Origins and Development         1870-1950. East Lansing, Michigan: Michigan State College Press, 1951.

Online Bible Dictionary. (Spreading the Light Ministries, 1999-2009):             http://www.spreadinglight.com/theology/dictionary/definitions/postmillennialism.html     (accessed August 19, 2012)

Pestritto, Ronald J. & William J. Atto, eds. American Progressivism: A Reader. Lanham, Maryland: Lexington Books, 2008.

Quandt, Jean B., “Religion and Social Thought: The Secularizing of           Postmillennialism,” American Quarterly 25 (October 1973): 390 — 409.

Schweikart, Larry & Michael Allen. A Patriot’s History of the United States. New York: Penguin Group, 2004.

Unger, Nancy.  Fighting Bob La Follette: The Righteous Reformer. Chapel Hill: University Of    North Carolina Press, 2000.

Wilson, Clyde. “Lincoln’s Marxists: a Review.” Chronicles Magazine, April 2012.  p. 27

---

[1] DiLorenzo, Thomas. Hamilton’s Curse. (New York: Crown Forum Publishing Group, 2008), pp. 16-17.

[2] Schweikart, Larry & Michael Allen. A Patriot’s History of the United States. (New York: Penguin Group, 2004): p. 152

[3] Howe, Daniel Walker. What Hath God Wrought: The Transformation of America 1815-1848.  (New York: Oxford University Press, 2007): p. 411

[4] Wilson, Clyde. “Lincoln’s Marxists: A Review,” Chronicles Magazine (April, 2012): p. 27

[5] Nye, Russell B. Midwestern Progressive Politics: A History of its Origins and Development 1870-1950 (East Lansing, Michigan: Michigan State College Press,1951): 4, 13, 21-22

[6] Hatch, Nathan O. The Democratization of American Christianity. (Boston: Yale University Press, 1989): pp. 9-10, 213

[7] Hatch, p. 10

[8]Merriam-Webster Dictionary. (Encyclopedia Brittanica Co., 2012): http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/eschatology

[9] Schweikart, Allen. p. 29

[10] Edwards, Johnathan, Henry Rogers, Sereno Edwards Dwight. The Works of Johnathan Edwards A.M. 2 Vols.(London: Childs & Son, 1839): Vol. 2, p. 605

[11] Online Bible Dictionary. (Spreading the Light Ministries, 1999-2009): http://www.spreadinglight.com/theology/dictionary/definitions/postmillennialism.html

[12] Howe, p. 286

[13] Paul Kleppner. The Third Electoral System, 1835-1892: Parties, Voters, and Political Cultures. (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1979), p. 190; Howe, p. 619

[14] Noll, Mark A., Luke E. Harlow. Religion and American Politics: From the Colonial Period to the Present. (New York: Oxford University Press, USA, 2007): p. 150

[15] Noll, Harlow, ibid.

[16] Noll, p. 142.

[17] Howe, p. 287

[18] Howe, pp. 287, 580

[19] Jean B. Quandt. “Religion and Social Thought: The Secularizing of Postmillennialism.” American Quarterly 25 (October 1973): p. 403

[20] Howe, pp. 174, 287

[21]Moorhead, James H. World Without End: Mainstream American Protestant Visions of the Last Things 1880-1925. (Bloomingtom, Indiana: Indiana University Press, 1999): p. xv

[22] Moorhead, p. 47

[23] Moorhead, p. 6

[24] Noll, Harlow, p. 150

[25] Noll, Harlow, pp. 150, 151

[26] Moorhead, p. 173

[27] William R. Hutchison. The Modernist Impulse in American Protestantism. (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1992): p. 94

[28] Sidney Fine. Laissez Faire Thought and the General-Welfare State: A Study of Conflict in American Thought, 1865-1901. (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1956): p. 180

[29] Steven M. Gillon & Cathy D. Matson. The American Experiment: A History of the United States. (Boston: Houghton-Mifflin, 2006): p. 816

[30] Gillon & Matson, p. 828

[31] Gillon & Matson, p. 836

[32] Gillon & Matson, pp. 816, 817

[33] Unger, Nancy C. Fighting Bob La Follette: The Righteous Reformer. (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2000 ): p. 22

[34] Evans, Christopher H. The Social Gospel Today. (Louisville, Kentucky: Westminster John Knox Press, 2001): p. 149

[35] Gillon, Matson, p. 829

[36] Pestritto, Ronald J. & William J. Atto, Ed. American Progressivism: A Reader. (Lanham, Maryland: Lexington Books, 2008): p. 10

[37] Gillon, Matson, p. 837

[38] Link, Arthur S. ed. The Papers of Woodrow Wilson (Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 1977): Vol. 23, p. 20.  “The Bible and Progress,” a speech delivered May 7, 1911, in Denver, Colorado.

[39] Link, ibid.

[40] Magee, Malcolm D. What the World Should Be: Woodrow Wilson and the Crafting of a Faith-Based Foreign Policy. (Waco, Texas: Baylor University Press, 2008 ): p. 34

[41] Online Bible Dictionary. (Spreading the Light Ministries, 1999-2009): http://www.spreadinglight.com/theology/dictionary/definitions/postmillennialism.html

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 11^th 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 political 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 11^th 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.

Footnotes

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

WORKS CITED

Gilbert, James. Redeeming Culture: American Religion In an Age of Science. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1997.

Greene, Jack P. Pursuits of Happiness: The Social Development of Early Modern British 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 American Republic. Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press, 1994.

Hatch, Nathan O. The Democratization of American Christianity. New Haven: Yale Univeristy Press, 1989.

Marsden, George M. Fundamentalism and American Culture: The Shaping of Twentieth-Century Evangelicalism 1870-1925. New York: Oxford University Press, 1980.

Mathews, Donald G. Religion in the Old South. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1977.

Snay, Mitchell. Gospel of Disunion: Religion and Separatism in the Antebellum South. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1993.

Wilson, Charles Reagan. Baptized in Blood: The Religion of the Lost Cause, 1865-1920. Athens, Georgia: The University of Georgia Press, 1980.

Wuthnow, Robert. The Restructuring of American Religion: Society and Faith since World War II. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1988.