For my American Religious Experience final project, I have the freedom to look outside American religion and to my thesis field, New Testament Studies. I am interested in building a picture of lived religion for early Christianities. I don’t know yet what branch I am going to target - most likely it will be urban Christians. As to what Christianity to look at, I want to go as early as possible, so there would be no established branch that can be distinguished from another.

I need to focus on practices (lived religion) and the common people, not beliefs nor elites. Interesting thing here is the creation of elites from the common people. I think that is what is happening, especially if you define elite as “one with authority or power.” I’ll also try to keep a close eye on the changing roles of women. I preliminary guess is that, like always, they were given newfound power and responsibility at first, and then as the movement crystallized, they were shut out of authority.

As of right now, I am using the following books for the basis of my research.

• Christians as the Romans Saw Them by Wilken
• Hidden Transcripts and the Arts of Resistance by Horsley
• Christianity and the Roman Empire: Background Texts by Novak
• Paul’s letters to the Thessalonians, Galatians, and Corinthians

I plan on focusing on the religious background that the Christians developed out of and look for differences that made them stand out. I will assume for the sake of the paper that everything else was maintained. Even though I have no way of knowing if they dropped certain practices or not, I’ll assume for the preliminary examination that they do. Perhaps in a later project I can look for the differences, say perhaps in another thesis chapter?

George Marsden attempted to give an accurate portrayal of the life, times, and effects of Jonathan Edwards in Jonathan Edwards: A Life. He had identified several misappropriations that other scholars had utilized in their portrayal of Edwards. Marsden thought that many of these mischaracterizations stemmed from am importing of outside ideas onto Edwards and his time. To counter these flawed portraits, Marsden tried to give an account of Edwards through the same lens from which Edwards saw the world. Inter-spliced throughout Edward’s personal story are descriptions and explanations of the Edward’s historical backdrop. This serves to further immerse the reader into Edward’s life and worldview. With this aim in mind, Marsden is remarkably effective.

In light of the ease of which one can find an inaccurate view of Edwards, Marsden does a commendable job sorting out the issues. Much care and detail was given in explaining the ins and outs of the religious controversies of New England in the 1700’s. Similar care was given in relating these issues to the larger whole, the movements and currents in public and religious thought of the Western world as it impacted New England. The exposition of the relationship between the Old and New Lights and how they related to Whitefield’s ministry and those that came after him were especially helpful. This helped to further ground Edward’s actions and predispositions in their proper context.

The largest obstacle that this approach encounters is that sometimes the narrative is confusing to the modern reader. This is especially the case if the reader is not a white male protestant. The narrative is written so closely to the point of view of Edwards that the effect is that his sensibilities, such as the equivocating of the Catholic Church with the Antichrist of the book of Revelation. While careful and through examination will exonerate Marsden from this charge, there are times in which the casual reader could be lead to believe that Marsden held these views in line with Edwards.

Another issue that came up in the work was, at times, the apparent undue sympathy that Marsden gave Edwards. His character flaws are minimalized or explained away while those of his adversaries are enlarged or painted in a selfish light. Examples of this are the conflict with the town of Northampton and the conflict over the Stockbridge. The reader is given in depth explanations of how Edwards was operating off the best of intentions and was impaired by personal flaws, such as the inability to communicate or the grafting of his moral perfectionism onto the townspeople of Northampton. The reader is given diary accounts, personal testimony among other sources to strike home this point. No such in depth explanation is offered of the opposing parties’ motivations. Again, the reply to this criticism could be that Marsden was trying to get the reader to see the world from Edward’s perspective, to see how he viewed the matter and how Edward’s attempted to live out his ideals in the swamp of his personal foibles.

These minor criticisms set aside, Jonathan Edwards, A Life accomplishes something much more than a mere biography of Jonathan Edward’s life. It paints an astonishingly detailed portrait the later stages of the Puritan movement. For instance, through descriptions of Edward’s view of millennial history and God’s relation to humanity, gives insights as to how the Puritans viewed the progression of God’s plan in history. It also showed how the Puritan canopy cracked as was Noll posited in America’s God. It illuminates what Noll meant when he gave the advice to “read Edwards” if one wanted to understand pre-Revolutionary War colonial America.

Wonders of America is an interesting look at the development of Jewish culture in America through the eyes of religion. In the work, she examines three phases of American Judaism, the immigrants, their children, and the Post-War Jews. Joselit presents a social history of American Judaism that focuses on how rituals were transformed and imbued with contemporary meanings. The story is of a struggle of identify, a conflict between the pressures of community vs. democratization, ritual vs. consumerism, and tradition vs. American culture. The Jewish culture was in a constant dialectic with itself, the drifting interest of the populace was countered by the cultural custodians, resulting in an amalgamation of the two or more views. Interspaced within the narrative were illustrations that illuminated Jaselit’s examples, drawing the reader into the Jewish world more than they would have otherwise.

There were several problems with the book, most of them issues of clarification. Joselit was not careful enough in distinguishing between the various movements within American Judaism, most notably the Reformed and Orthodox movements. Each movement was mentioned in the examples she gives throughout the work, but there was not clarification as to whether or not some examples were a function of Judaism in general or a fun ction of specific ideologies within one of the movements. This could have been alleviated if the chapters were organized with sections dealing with each of the major movements or perhaps if there were clarifying statements that informed the reader about the differences between the movements. As it is, Joselit practically assumes that there was no real difference between Reformed and Orthodox movements as they related to American culture and that is perhaps a bit hasty of a generalization.

Along these same lines, more clarification between trends of the Jewish cultures and the larger American culture as a whole would have been extremely helpful. There was an excellent opportunity to make this work more relevant to the larger picture and to better situate the culture in connecting and differentiating trends in Jewish culture and American culture. How did the subsumption of consumerism in the home compare between Jewish culture and American culture at the time. If Joselit would have made these connections, a better picture of each would have arisen. Granted, this was a social history, so the focus was from the bottom – up, but widening the scope would have helped the work in several ways.

The last problem with The Wonders of America is methodological in nature. It is not clear what method Joselit used in her study. While sources are mentioned and quoted extensively, there are no footnotes and only referenced words are cited by page number and word phrasing in the “Notes” section at the end of the book. This makes double checking her claims a nightmare. For example, on page 182, she cites a study on eating habits of children within several cultures. However, the only references for that page are listed as “clients,” “‘You learned us,’” “Jews put great emphasis,” “the taking of food,” over-protective attitude,” and “preoccupation with food” all direct quotations. Roughly three times the work is needed to track down her citation in this method than if a simple footnoting system was used.

Despite these criticisms, the book remains an interesting account of how Jewish culture adapted to it new and changing situations once it reached the Americas in large numbers. In this regard, the work is valuable in identifying the dialectic with American culture and the self-contained dialectic that shaped American Judaism.

Richard Bushman has written an excellent biography of Mormonism’s founder in Joseph Smith: Rough Stone Rolling. Its principle strengths are its narrative style, balanced sympathy for a complex character, meticulous research, and its attention to detail. Conversely, the principle problems with the work are related to its strengths, sometimes the work is too sympathetic to the main character and other times there is too much attention paid to detail. The book is arranged into twenty-nine chapters, each covering a phase or topic in Smith’s life. The thirtieth section, the epilogue, is an extension historically of how the Mormon Church reacted to its leader and founder’s death. From a stylistic sense, Bushman is an excellent story teller. He is able, for the most part, to breathe life into the mundane details of Smith’s life. While the book is incredibly well researched, footnoted, and well written, sometimes the level of detail is distracting from the progression of Smith’s life.

Reconstructing a controversial religious figure like Joseph Smith is a daunting task. Anytime a religious figure claims to have received a divine revelation, translated a revealed work that depicts an entire lost civilization, and is involved in several scandals, skepticism is bound to ensue in large quantities. Writers within the community most certainly will be biased towards an inspired view of the accounts whereas writers from outside the community are likely to undercut the significance of these accounts under the banner of reductionist fraud. Because of these concerns, it was refreshing to see the more balanced approach that Bushman takes. Bushman is a Mormon believer himself, so this allows him and “insider’s perspective” of the Mormon tradition and it is assured that Bushman will not attempt to reduce the religious aspects of Joseph Smith’s life to mere culture forces or a desire to defraud or exploit his followers. He states that on the problem of Smith’s inspiration, he will present Smith in good faith that his accounts were genuine. An excellent example of this is Bushman’s treatment of Smith’s First Vision. Bushman does a good job explaining how and why the focus shifts in later accounts of the vision from Smith’s conversion or forgiveness of his sins, to the statement of apostasy of the current church. Other accounts of this that I have read have sought to explain this shift in terms of Smith trying to give credence to his current movement building.

On the other side of the fence, Bushman is no Mormon apologist in this work. He endeavors to show Smith for how he was; Bushman does not shy away from the controversies in Smith’s life. Bushman states early on in his prologue, “For a character as controversial as Smith, pure objectivity is impossible. What I can do is to look frankly at all sides of Joseph Smith, not ducking any of the problems. Covering up flaws makes no sense in any case. Most readers do not believe in, nor are they interested in, perfection. Flawless characters are neither attractive nor useful.” An excellent example of this is on 371 and spilling onto 372, where Bushman places the blame for what happened to the Davies County opponents, saying,

“Joseph must take responsibility for the Mormon raids on their Daviess County enemies. His angry rhetoric stirred the blood of more militant men. After the Daviess raids, Rockwell wrote his father that “the prophet has unsheathed his sword and in the name of Jesus declares that it shall not be sheathed again until he can go into any county or state in safety and in peace.” Words like that licensed Lyman Wight’s desperate plans. Joseph’s approval of Rigdon’s salt sermon with its strong threats against dissenters had justified the Danites’ expulsion of the Whitmers, Cowdery, and Phelps.”

Here Bushman establishes that he is indeed no Mormon apologist, even though he gives Smith the benefit of the doubt in the book.

Perhaps the greatest weakness of the book, besides the fundamental assumption, is the reliance on Smith’s mother’s journals for Smith’s early life. It is easy to imagine the forced relationship between Smith and his father that Smith’s mother could have created between them in retrospect. However, I don’t know of what source Bushman should have used in its stead.

Bushman situates Smith within a larger period of tremendous religious creativity. Going along with Hatch’s thesis, Bushman sees Smith developing Mormonism through the lenses of anti-clerical and anti-authoritarian sentiment, the empowerment of each person to interpret the Scriptures, and a since of divine purpose and mission drove Smith to be industrious. Hatch himself had used the Mormons as an example that demonstrated his thesis. Whereas Hatch looked at the early Mormon Church’s leaders as a whole, Bushman only examines Smith and his contributions to the movement. While the scope is slightly different, the two works reinforce each other. For example, Hatch speaks in depth about the popular appeal of Smith’s message and how Smith’s roots aided in the construction of that message. Bushman gives, not only an in depth exploration of Smith’s early life, but also a step by step account of how his message attracted laity from other denominations.

The resulting effect of Bushman’s work is a careful and respectful representation of the life and times of Joseph Smith and as an extension, the beginnings of the Mormon Church. While a bit tedious to digest at 666 pages, including notes, the work is effective at stringing along the reader, maintaining interest while developing a coherent narrative. Because of the highly controversial nature of Bushman’s subject, this is quite an accomplishment. Because of the highly suggestive nature of Smith’s life, one has to take him as a real prophet, a delusional soul, or the dastardliest of conmen. Bushman says, “Let see what he looks like if we take him at his word.” Because one cannot prove without a doubt that Smith was lying and conning the whole time, I can accept this hypothetical for the basis of the book. Granting the hypothetical, it makes for an excellent biography.

In the book, A Shopkeeper’s Millennium, Paul Johnson attempts to show how, in Rochester, New York, Finney’s religious revivals helped to develop the free labor market. (1) In doing so, Johnson takes a careful measurement of the economic, social, political and religious life in Rochester and sees how these issues were intertwined and changed over time, with the hope of discovering how these forces influenced one another. Johnson traced the shifting moods through a variety of methods, utilizing detailed statistical analysis to uncover trends.

Before Finney arrived in Rochester, the town had undergone a tremendous social upheaval. From 1820 to 1830, the town’s economic structure had transitioned from Medieval, guild based economy, to a more capitalistic one, with divisions of labor and a separation of the producers from the owners. With this economic shift came class struggle, most notably in the form of the abuse of alcohol and the unrest that comes with it. When Finney came to Rochester, he attacked the religious authorities and the Calvinistic determinism that came with them. In Finney, the shopkeepers found a solution to the problem – autonomy. No longer were they innately depraved persons who needed to be lorded over by the regenerate. With effort, they could be relied and expected to be the solid, dependable citizens and workers that the city needed. It is Johnson’s contention it was not Finney’s religious platform alone that attracted so many of the middle class but it was Finney’s platform as a way to garner the control that they had lost that was the real factor behind the success of the revivals. It is because of this claim that the work is reductionist in scope, despite Johnson’s claim that the revival was not a capitalistic plot. (2)

Johnson’s presentation differs substantially from Hatch’s depiction of the role and aims of Christianity in the formation of America and its national values. Johnson indicates that Christianity and its revivals helped to shape the economic landscape, providing the moral framework and economic power that enabled the wealthy elites of the upper class to maintain control over the lives of their workers. Hatch, on the other hand, maintains that the new forms of Christianity that exploded onto the stage during the post-Revolutionary were all forms of social protest, not social control.(3) Far from playing into the hands of the powerful, Hatch describes Finney as calling for a Copernican revolution in Christianity and “railed at ecclesiastical bureaucracy.”(4) I think that Johnson would agree with this, but he would add that the effect of Finney and his attack on religious authority helped the churchgoing businessmen to give men moral and religious autonomy – an autonomy that the worker could be held responsible for.

The most important point of divergence in the two studies is the scope and classes that Hatch and Johnson studied. Hatch looked at the religious leaders across a broad spectrum of beliefs and localities, whereas Johnson looked at the entire social order of one town over time. With Hatch, one is able to see the wider developments in society. With Johnson, one is able to see how economics, class, and gender are able to shape and influence the spread of Christianity. Hatch did not include these factors in his study. Hatch gives a functioning description of how the democratization of Christianity allowed it to regionally spread in new forms. Johnson on the other hand, focuses his historical lens with a much smaller scope, but a higher resolution. This detail allows one to see how economic, political, and class structures helped create the space for Finney’s revivals to flourish. It is implied that since this was the case for the town of Rochester, the most evangelized and economically powerful cites in the republic, that it is a mold for how religion worked in general in the United States. To apply a specific case, one that is analyzed in such detail, to the religious experience of the United States as a whole is an overgeneralization. Varying social, political, and religious factors make this a impossibility. One cannot apply this situation to the homogenous American setting because it has never existed.

One is better served limiting Johnson’s approach from the primary reason that the revivals were a success to one of the contributing factors behind the success. Then one can then incorporate elements from Hatch’s thesis into one’s analysis of the success of the religious revivals. In doing so, one can have a more complete picture, one that incorporates more segments of society, resulting in a more accurate picture of the development of American Christianity.

Footnotes:

1. Johnson. A Shopkeeper’s Millennium. pages 138-140.
2. Ibid. page 141.
3. Hatch. Democratization of Christianity. page 225.
4. Hatch. ibid. page 199.

  

In reading both Material Christianity and Parlor Piety, I had mixed reactions to Colleen McDannell’s claims. At first glance, she presented two clear arguments for the change of Christian American attitudes towards the home over time and the change in how the social sciences viewed American Christianity over time. She did a great job looking at issues and tying them to the larger picture. However, there were also some minor issues that kept creeping up, such as the backing of claims and the lack of distinction amongst religious groups.

The question of relevance has been one of the themes of the semester so far. At what point does an ethnographic study of religion cease to be linked to larger themes and become a curiosity? McDannell was obviously aware of this and was quick to bypass the problem in both her articles. I noticed that she was quick to make her studies relevant to the larger whole of scholarship very early on in both articles. In Material Christianity, she links her study of the photograph as a case study of American Christianity, saying , “..throughout American history, Christians have explored the meaning of the divine, the nature of death, the power of healing, and the experience of the body by interacting with a created world of images and shapes.”(1) In her other article, she immediately states that her cases in the article are “quintessential examples” of the larger American picture of Christianity. (2) By her linkage of the specific to the general, McDannell attempts to demonstrate how ethnographic sketches, even ones done over time, can be relevant to the larger picture.

In her articles, I kept running into what felt like unfounded claims. They were not outright falsehoods, but were just too much of a stretch for me without concrete examples. For instance, she claimed that “bad architecture encouraged sinfulness.”(3) While this might have been the case, she only quotes one or two architects in support of the converse of the above quote. How can the reader be sure that such a quote is representative of the general attitude of Christian America at that particular time? It might be more sensible that the architect that said the structure of the home influenced morals was speaking instead from a sales pitch instead of encapsulating the attitudes of Christian America. Another instance of this was later on in the same article where she stated, “Merely believing was not enough. Christians must visually demonstrate their piety. They must make their homes sacred.” (4) Perhaps this was not the only reason for how they decorated their homes. Perhaps it was in their belief that having such a home was an outward sign of an inward faith instead of making their homes sacred. Another issue that kept creeping up was the lumping together of all the denominations into a single group. While she was upfront about this, it still seemed as though there might be more at work behind the scenes besides the issues she described. I am not saying that she is incorrect in these statements, but a more careful approach is needed to convince me completely of her claims.

Overall, I would have liked a more careful look at the issues she raised. At the same time I realize that if she had looked as carefully as I would have liked, I would be reading two books this week instead of four articles.

Footnotes

1. McDannell, Material Christianity, p.24.
2. McDannell, Parlor Piety: The Home as Sacred Space in Protestant America, p.162.
3. Ibid. p. 165.
4. Ibid. p. 170.

The Madonna of 115^th Street was not at all what I was expecting. When I first heard about the book during the first class period, I expected a long and detailed analysis of the rituals that took place during the festa, perhaps accompanied with small excursions into the Italian Harlem’s culture. What I got was quite the opposite; long and detailed analysis of the Italian Harlem’s culture and the domus, with many small excursions into the festa. Despite this distance from my expectations, I feel that I am more intimately acquainted with the setting and practice of the Madonna of 155^th Street.

I also appreciated his explanation of terms in the introduction of the book, especially his discussion of power and the meaning of “popular religion.” Sometimes there is a feeling that popular religion is the opposite of established religion; merely a rebellion against the establishment consisting of rejected practices. Here, a much more agreeable definition was used, where the emphasis was on a synthesis of the established religion and the religious values of the people at large. More importantly, it was a dialectic between the people and the culture, a way to protest and resolve tensions. Orsi drew this out in his analysis of the domus and the festa.

I am sure that several fellow students will ask why any of this really matters, or how this wonderful exposition of the domus and the Madonna of the Italian Harlem, which does not really exist anymore, is nothing but a historical curiosity. Orsi wrestled with this several times throughout his introduction(s) and his work. He deems it necessary to connect to work to the larger whole of American history, least it be striped of meaning. How particularistic is this work? Is it representational American Christianity? Can one apply notions of the domus to and religiosity to members of the Disciples of Christ? Not really. Can one narrow the application to other Catholics? Orsi goes to great length to show the differences between Catholic groups, across class lines, such as the established clergy and the laity; and ethnic/economic lines, such as the established Irish Catholics and the poorer Italian Catholics. In light of this, is the work reduced to merely a study of a particular group in a particular place in (a) particular time(s)? I do not think it is, and I think that Orsi pointed this out in several places. He described the linkage of these immigrants and their story of the conflicts within their society is instructive in viewing the history of immigrant groups. One can see parallels between the internal and external views of immigrants of the early 1900’s and today, despite differences in geographic origin. Looking at the book through a broader historical context, one not only obtains a better view of the people studied, but an addition is made to the understanding of the development of the United States. As such, there is a “so what” in this story.