American Evangelicalism

Description

No living scholar has shaped the study of American religious history more profoundly than George M. Marsden. His work spans U.S. intellectual, cultural, and religious history from the seventeenth through the twenty-first centuries.

This collection of essays uses the career of George M. Marsden and the remarkable breadth of his scholarship to measure current trends in the historical study of American evangelical Protestantism and to encourage fresh scholarly investigation of this faith tradition as it has developed between the eighteenth century and the present. Moving through five sections, each centered around one of Marsden’s major books and the time period it represents, the volume explores different methodologies and approaches to the history of evangelicalism and American religion.

Besides assessing Marsden’s illustrious works on their own terms, this collection’s contributors isolate several key themes as deserving of fresh, rigorous, and extensive examination. Through their close investigation of these particular themes, they expand the range of characters and communities, issues and ideas, and contingencies that can and should be accounted for in our historical texts. Marsden’s timeless scholarship thus serves as a launchpad for new directions in our rendering of the American religious past.

Sujets

• Religion
• Christianisme
• Christian Theology
• HISTORY
• Histoire
• América del Norte
• George Marsden
• General officer
• Great Awakening
• North America
• Christianity
• General
• Grand réveil

Informations

• Publié par: University of Notre Dame Press
• Date de parution: 15 octobre 2014
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9780268158552
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 2 Mo

Extrait

AMERICAN EVANGELICALISM
George M. Marsden. Photo by Lisa Svelmoe .
EDITED BY
Darren Dochuk, Thomas S. Kidd ,
AND
Kurt W. Peterson
AMERICAN EVANGELICALISM
George Marsden and the State of American Religious History
UNIVERSITY OF NOTRE DAME PRESS NOTRE DAME, INDIANA
University of Notre Dame Press
Notre Dame, Indiana 46556
www.undpress.nd.edu
All Rights Reserved
Published in the United States of America
Copyright 2014 by University of Notre Dame
Paberback published in 2016
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
American evangelicalism : George Marsden and the state of American religious history / edited by Darren Dochuk, Thomas S. Kidd, and Kurt W. Peterson.
pages cm
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-0-268-03842-7 (hardback) - ISBN 0-268-03842-2 (hardcover) - ISBN 978-0-268-15879-8 (paper)
1. United States-Church history. 2. Marsden, George M., 1939- 3. Evangelicalism-United States-History. I. Dochuk, Darren, editor. II. Kidd, Thomas S., editor. III. Peterson, Kurt W., editor.
BR515.A537 2014
277.3 08-dc23
2014022435
ISBN 9780268158552
The paper in this book meets the guidelines for permanence and durability of the Committee on Production Guidelines for Book Longevity of the Council on Library Resources
This e-Book was converted from the original source file by a third-party vendor. Readers who notice any formatting, textual, or readability issues are encouraged to contact the publisher at [e-mail] .
For George M. Marsden
CONTENTS
Foreword: George Marsden as Scholar, Christian, and Friend
N ATHAN H ATCH , M ARK N OLL , H ARRY S TOUT, AND G RANT W ACKER
Acknowledgments
Introduction
PART I. Puritan Beginnings
1 Jonathan Edwards and the Study of His Eighteenth-Century World: George Marsden s Contribution to Colonial American Religious Historiography
Douglas A. Sweeney
2 Jonathan Edwards: A Life
Thomas S. Kidd
3 Jonathan Edwards and Francis Asbury
John Wigger
PART II. Protestantism s Century
4 The Evangelical Mind and the Historians
Margaret Bendroth
5 The Evangelical Mind and the New School Presbyterian Experience
Peter J. Wallace
6 The African American Great Awakening and Modernity, 1866-1900
Jay R. Case
PART III. Protesting Modernity
7 Marsden and Modern Fundamentalism
Barry Hankins
8 Fundamentalism and American Culture
William L. Svelmoe
9 Reorienting American Religious History in the Age of Global Christianity: The Case of Katharine Bushnell
Kristin Kobes Du Mez
10 A Gilded Age Modernist: Reuben A. Torrey and the Roots of Contemporary Conservative Evangelicalism
Timothy E. W. Gloege
11 The Interdenominational Evangelicalism of D. L. Moody and the Problem of Fundamentalism
Michael S. Hamilton
PART IV. Pluralism s Challenge
12 Marsden and Secularization
John Schmalzbauer
13 The Soul of the American University
Steven M. Nolt
14 More Than a Footnote? Evangelical Ministries and the Secular University
John G. Turner
15 The Southernization of the Evangelical Mind
Rick Ostrander
PART V. Pluralism s Blessing
16 Marsden and Fundamentalist Resurgence
Garth M. Rosell
17 Reforming Fundamentalism
Darren Dochuk
18 Missionary Realities and the New Evangelicalism in Post-World War II America
Kathryn T. Long
19 The Evangelical Left and the Politicization of Evangelicalism
David R. Swartz
Conclusion: How an Evangelical Won the Bancroft Prize
Mark Noll
Appendix: List of George Marsden s Doctoral Students and Their Dissertations
Selected Bibliography of George Marsden s Works
List of Contributors
Index
FOREWORD
George Marsden as Scholar, Christian, and Friend
George Marsden s efforts have opened many doors for many people. At different times and in different ways the four authors of this preface have been able to do what we have done only because George was there first. We find ourselves profoundly indebted to George for many reasons, but three stand out.
First is the sheer magnitude of what he has written-a river flowing unabated for four decades of books, scholarly articles, essay reviews, public addresses, and As We See It op-eds in the late, lamented Reformed Journal . Most historians emphasize their specializations, but Marsden s work has spanned U.S. intellectual, cultural, and religious history from the early seventeenth to the early twenty-first centuries. After publishing his Yale dissertation on the origins of New School Presbyterianism in the Age of Jackson, George took in stride the development of fundamentalism, the secularization of the modern university, the philosophy of historical analysis, the life of Jonathan Edwards, and, currently, the twilight of the American Enlightenment after World War II. Two or three historians of our generation might have written (even) more, but none has published as many distinguished landmarks on so many subjects. Each of his books has defined the conversation. Thoughtful scholars sometimes have disagreed with George s interpretations, but few have dared to ignore them. Each book advanced an argument-keyed to specific questions, circumstances, or individuals-but in every case Marsden also created an agenda that others eagerly engaged. George s work has given new meaning to the aphorism that words should be weighed, not just counted.
Our second debt concerns the clarity and boldness of George s effort to integrate critical historical method with Christian faith. The operative word here is integrate . On one hand, his work has met the most rigorous standards of the modern academy. Despite George s quip that historians are expert at building a mountain of speculation on a molehill of evidence, he has known better than anyone that responsible historical publication requires responsible historical research. His books have smelt of the candle. Yet there is more. He also has known that the evidence must be tortured, as R. G. Collingwood once said, in order to see what conclusions it warrants, and maybe even more important, does not warrant. And then it requires positioning in a compelling vision of what the past has meant , both then and now. If there is an antiquarian bone in George s body, he has kept it hidden.
On the other hand, and at the same time, George also showed that responsible historical method could become even more critical if it remained open to ultimate religious questions. Through judicious deployment of his own Reformed and evangelical commitments, he encouraged others who shared his convictions, and many who did not, to engage large questions of meaning directly. This also obliged them to interpret their data empathetically, so that believers of times past would have been able to recognize themselves in the portrait. To make religious commitments transparent is to tempt triumphalism on one side and paternalism on the other. Yet by skirting the special pleading and in-group preoccupations of conventional church history and by eschewing the elitist reductionism of anticonventional religious and cultural studies, Marsden has sailed straight between those perils.
A third vitally important feature of George s influence stems from his personal relationships-as a teacher, a mentor of graduate students, and a colleague. What his lectures may have lacked in histrionics, they have more than made up in thought-provoking content. And in the seminar room, George s ability to discern the point of a text, and somehow persuade graduate students that they saw it first, has won universal admiration. Though none of us was his graduate student, we have experienced enough of his personality in small group settings to understand why his style has been so pedagogically effective: modest, ironic, pithy, often self-deprecating, and always laced with bon mots to take down sacred cows. Then, too, the remarkable number of students whom George mentored through PhD programs at Duke and at Notre Dame, the prizes they have won, and the academic positions they have captured-as well as the essays many of them contributed to this volume-define a record worthy of his own Yale teacher, Sydney Ahlstrom. Finally, as George s slightly junior colleagues, we all have benefited from his perennial willingness to break away from his own projects in order to read, critique, and encourage our own. He never has taken the easy route of saying, I liked your manuscript. Rather, he always has taken the hard one of saying, I liked your manuscript-but here are some paragraphs you might want to revisit.
We gratefully introduce this collection, reflecting as it does George s lifetime contribution to historical thought and inquiry enacted in the context of his lived faith. More particularly, we celebrate the occasion of this publication as a witness to the meaning of George s friendship to each of us, both as professional historians and as fellow sojourners.
Nathan Hatch Mark Noll Harry Stout Grant Wacker
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
This book grew out of conversation between George Marsden s graduate students who felt that his mentorship should, upon his retirement from the University of Notre Dame, be honored in published form. Each one of this volume s chapters bears witness to the impact he has had on countless readers through his prodigious research and writing, but none comes close (though a few offer hints) to revealing the true weight of his influence, which came through his teaching. All of the contributors to this volume have benefited directly from George s instruction-whether through coursework, dissertation advising, or scholarly consultation-and have pursued research and writing agendas shaped under his counsel. There is much more that we could say about George s commitment to our intellectual and professional development and about the many admirable characteristics that have made him such a warm and gracious friend as well as adviser to us all. Alas, time and space are too short. We trust, however, that the labor committed to this volume will offer readers at leas