Formed From This Soil E-Book

Thomas S. Bremer

• Herausgeber: John Wiley & Sons
• Kategorie: Religion und Spiritualität
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 923

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2014

Beschreibung

Formed from This Soil offers a complete history of religion in America that centers on the diversity of sacred traditions and practices that have existed in the country from its earliest days. * Organized chronologically starting with the earliest Europeans searching for new routes to Asia, through to the global context of post-9/11 America of the 21st century * Includes discussion of race, ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, socio-economic class, political affiliations, and other elements of individual and collective identity * Incorporates recent scholarship for a nuanced history that goes beyond simple explanations of America as a Protestant society * Discusses diverse beliefs and practices that originated in the Americas as well as those that came from Europe, Asia, and Africa * Pedagogical features include numerous visual images; sidebars with specialized topics and interpretive themes; discussion questions for each chapter; a glossary of common terms; and lists of relevant resources to broaden student learning

Leseprobe

CONTENTS

Cover

Title page

Copyright page

Dedication page

Acknowledgments

Prelude for Instructors

Beginnings

Defining America

Defining Religion

The Diversity of American Religious History

Questions for Discussion

Part I: New Worlds

1 Encounters

African Encounters

European Conquests in America

Native Encounters

New Worlds of Contact

Questions for Discussion

Suggested Primary-Source Readings

2 Reformations

Religious Upheavals

Colonizing America

Reforming Native Religions of America and Africa

New Worlds of Reformed Authorities

Questions for Discussion

Suggested Primary-Source Readings

3 Conflicts and Persecutions

Native Revolutions

Improvements upon the Land

Captivities

The Diversity of Religious Conflicts

Questions for Discussion

Suggested Primary-Source Readings

4 Resistance, Revival, and Revolution

Resisting Slavery

Reviving Religious Fervor

A New Nation

The Limits of Liberty

Questions for Discussion

Suggested Primary-Source Readings

Part II: The New Nation

5 An Expanding Nation

America in the Pacific World

A New Awakening

A Nation Enslaved

Expansion

Questions for Discussion

Suggested Primary-Source Readings

6 The Many Religious Voices

Women's Voices

Displaced Voices

Immigrant Voices

Restorationist Voices

The Diversity of Religious Voices in America

Questions for Discussion

Suggested Primary-Source Readings

7 One Nation

Spiritual Purposes

A Nation Divided

The Nation at War

Reconstructing the Nation

Diverse Voices of the Unified Nation

Questions for Discussion

Suggested Primary-Source Readings

8 Changing Society

New Lands

New People

New Religious Ways

America's Double Consciousness

Questions for Discussion

Suggested Primary-Source Readings

Part III: The Modern World

9 Modern Worlds

Science

Religious Responses to Modern Sciences

Migrations

Global America

Questions for Discussion

Suggested Primary-Source Readings

10 Cold War and Civil Rights

Religion of the Nation

Clash of Classes

Confronting Racial Apartheid

Liberated People

Questions for Discussion

Suggested Primary-Source Readings

11 A Spiritual Nation

Spiritual Immigrants

Religious Bodies

Spiritual Borderlands

Religious America

Questions for Discussion

Suggested Primary-Source Readings

12 Crossing Borders

Rethinking America and Religion

Questions for Discussion

Suggested Primary-Source Reading

Glossary

Index

Access to Companion Website

End User License Agreement

List of Illustrations

Chapter 01

Figure 1.1 The European entry into the contact zones of America was later imagined as a pious act of bringing Christianity to the “pagan” peoples of America, as illustrated in this nineteenth-century engraving of Columbus' first landing in the New World.

Map 1.1 The Leardo Map of the World, produced by the Italian mapmaker Giovanni Leardo in the 1450s, shows how Europeans understood the world in the middle of the fifteenth century. The map is oriented with east at the top and has Jerusalem at the center, marked by the large edifice at the top of (i.e., east of) the Mediterranean Sea.

Figure 1.2 Medieval and early modern Europeans imagined Prester John as a powerful Christian monarch in Africa who would join with European Christians to conquer Muslims in Africa and the Christian Holy Land.

Map 1.2 The African continent with a few of the major areas of Portuguese exploration listed. Portuguese emissaries eventually found the Christian ruler King Eskender in Abyssinia (Ethiopia); Europeans regarded him as the legendary Prester John.

Figure 1.3 This illustration from the middle of the seventeenth century shows the Manicongo receiving Portuguese soldiers while three missionaries stand beside the African king. As both political and religious leader of the Congo region, the Manicongo's alliance with the Portuguese was strengthened by his acceptance of Christianity. But powerful economic interests in the slave trade eventually undermined the missionaries' religious efforts in central Africa.

Figure 1.4 The Spaniards were horrified by Mexica rituals of human sacrifice. This drawing shows a ritual heart sacrifice atop one of the Mexica temple structures.

Map 1.3 Route of Cabeza de Vaca. The highlighted areas show the general route traversed by Álvar Núñez Cabeza de Vaca and his companions between 1528 and 1536 from the Florida peninsula by raft to what is today the Gulf Coast area of Texas, and eventually to the Pacific Ocean in what is now Mexico. Some of the major Native American groups are listed. The triangles show the locations of Spanish colonial settlements.

Figure 1.5 Cabeza de Vaca and his companions spent eight years among the indigenous people of North America, where they earned reputations as healers with supernatural powers.

Figure 1.6 These ruins of an ancient

kiva

in present-day New Mexico reveal the structure of the underground ritual spaces that serve as ceremonial centers of Pueblo communities, from ancient times to the present.

Figure 1.7 French Jesuits brought Christianity and European civilization to Native Americans. This nineteenth-century drawing titled “The Jesuit Teacher” depicts the missionary as benevolent teacher instructing a rapt Indian in the powers of literacy.

Chapter 02

Figure 2.1 This romanticized depiction shows native people greeting Francis Drake in the contact zone of California. In actuality, the Indians of California “wept and bloodied their faces with their fingernails,” according to an eyewitness account. Drake interpreted their behavior as adoration, for which he rebuked them, declaring that the Englishmen were not gods.

Figure 2.2 Reformation leader Martin Luther sought to make Christianity more accessible to common parishioners; he is shown here preaching to villagers. His Protestant revolt against the Catholic Church in Rome plunged Europe into a series of bloody religious conflicts.

Map 2.1 Areas of religious dominance in western Europe following the reformations of the sixteenth century.

Figure 2.3 The efforts of Cardinal Francisco Ximénes de Cisneros included the building of public projects in addition to his religious reforms and political concerns. Here he is shown in a nineteenth-century Spanish painting directing the construction of a hospital.

Map 2.2 Europeans and Native Americans in eastern North America during the colonial period. The map shows approximate locations of major Native American groups during the early decades of the colonial period. The areas of the five European nations with claims in eastern North America are shown at their greatest extent. The Dutch and Swedish colonies ended in the seventeenth century; the English, French, and Spanish claims are shown for the 1770s.

Figure 2.4 The baptism of Pocahontas, daughter of a local chieftain in Virginia. During hostilities between her father's people and the Jamestown colonists, she was taken hostage and held for ransom. While in captivity she converted to Christianity and chose to stay with the English, taking the name Rebecca and eventually marrying colonist John Rolfe.

Figure 2.5 The Puritan teacher Anne Hutchinson stood trial in 1637 for challenging the religious and civil authorities of the Massachusetts Bay Colony. Although her charismatic authority gained many supporters, her trial ended with her excommunication and banishment from the colony. She resettled in Rhode Island, where she joined another Puritan dissenter, Roger Williams.

Figure 2.6 William Penn's Quaker principles included fair treatment of local native groups. This painting, commissioned by Penn's son, shows the founder of the Pennsylvania colony making a treaty with members of the Lennie Lenape tribe at Shackamaxon on the Delaware River. (Benjamin West (1738–1820),

Penn's Treaty with the Indians

, 1771–1772, oil on canvas; 75 ½ × 107 ¾ in., Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, Philadelphia, Gift of Mrs. Sarah Harrison (The Joseph Harrison, Jr. Collection), 1878.1.10.)

Figure 2.7 Puritan missionary John Eliot became known as the “Apostle to the Indians” for his evangelizing efforts among the Native Americans of New England. He eventually established fourteen “praying towns” for native converts to Christianity, and he oversaw the translation of the Christian Bible into the Algonquian language.

Chapter 03

Figure 3.1 Popé, leader of the Pueblo Revolt of 1680, was commemorated with the dedication of his statue in the Rotunda of the US Capitol building, September 2005.

Figure 3.2 This 1869 painting shows the Jesuit missionary Jacques Marquette (1637–1675) in New France. Marquette joined the 1673 expedition of French fur trader Louis Joliet (1645–1700) to explore and map the Mississippi River. They went as far south as the mouth of the Arkansas River, claiming much of the Mississippi River Valley and the Great Lakes region for France.

Figure 3.3 This illustration of a maroon community in the Louisiana swamps appeared in the

Harper's Weekly

periodical in 1873. It offered to nineteenth-century American readers a somewhat romanticized view of maroon life.

Figure 3.4 Cover of the 1682 London edition of Mary Rowlandson's account of her captivity among “King Philip's” people. Her book was one of the first American bestsellers, both in Europe and the colonies, and became the standard for subsequent captivity narratives.

Figure 3.5 The testimony of young women and girls, some of them seized with hysteria and even collapsing in the courtroom, led to the convictions of accused witches in Salem, Massachusetts, in 1692.

Chapter 04

Figure 4.1 Phillis Wheatley's elegy to George Whitefield brought her international acclaim when her collection of poems was published in London in 1773.

Figure 4.2 A few schools for African American children appeared in the eighteenth century, though they rarely lasted. One of the more successful efforts was in Philadelphia, started by the Quaker teacher and antislavery activist Anthony Benezet (1713–1784), shown here in a nineteenth-century illustration. Benezet began teaching African American children in his home in 1754, and in 1770 he opened the Negro School at Philadelphia with the support of the local Quaker community.

Figure 4.3 Cover of the London edition of

A Faithful Narrative of the Surprizing Work of God in the Conversion of Many Hundred Souls in Northampton

. This essay by Jonathan Edwards, theologian of the Great Awakening, describes religious revivals that occurred in western Massachusetts in the 1730s. Edwards' report includes a theological explanation of religious conversion from an evangelical perspective; his interpretations had a significant influence on George Whitefield and numerous other evangelists both in Europe and America.

Figure 4.4 George Whitefield's preaching tours made him the most widely known person in America. He attracted large crowds to his revivals wherever he appeared.

Figure 4.5 The Jefferson Memorial in Washington, DC, enshrines the sacred words of Thomas Jefferson, including the lines of the Declaration of Independence engraved on the wall to the rear of the statue. Surrounding the dome above Jefferson's statue is a quotation from a letter Jefferson wrote in 1800 to his friend Benjamin Rush (1746–1813), declaring, “I have sworn upon the altar of god eternal hostility against every form of tyranny over the mind of man.” Jefferson's hostility, however, was aimed specifically at the tyrannical dogma of Christian ministers who opposed his political ambitions.

Chapter 05

Figure 5.1 The Shawnee prophet Tenskwatawa, the “Open Door,” led a millenarian movement alongside his brother Tecumseh's diplomatic and military efforts. Together the brothers engaged their Indian allies with a religious vision opposing the incursions of Euro-Americans in the Ohio Valley in the early nineteenth century.

Map 5.1 North America in 1800 showing the claims of four European nations plus the United States of America. Russian eastward colonization across Siberia had entered the Alaskan region, and the Spanish had built a series of missions along the coast of Alta California. Oregon Country was claimed by both Spain and Britain, and after acquiring Louisiana from France in 1803 the United States also claimed Oregon.

Figure 5.2 St. Herman of Alaska (1756–1837), the first saint glorified (i.e., canonized) by the Orthodox Church in America, was one of the earliest Russian Orthodox missionaries in North America, arriving in the Aleutian Islands in 1793. This contemporary hand-painted icon of the saint is by a Russian iconographer based in New York.

Figure 5.3 Junípero Serra, the Franciscan missionary who founded the California missions, has been honored by the Roman Catholic Church with beatification, the penultimate step to sainthood. However, critics condemn him as an agent of genocide among the native peoples of the west coast. Shown here in an illustration holding a crucifix in one hand and a stone in the other as he preaches to a crowd of indigenous people, Serra remains a controversial figure in Californian history.

Figure 5.4 Arriving precisely at an auspicious moment in the ritual celebrations of Makahiki, Captain James Cook elicited the respect and adoration of the Native Hawaiian people, shown here bowing down to the notorious captain. His return to the islands shortly after the conclusion of the festival, however, spelled doom as Cook reentered the contact zone without the ritual protections he had enjoyed initially.

Figure 5.5 Methodist camp meetings were occasions for preaching, proselytizing, and professing religious faith, but they also served as social gatherings, especially in rural areas, where the diversions in many cases were more than merely religious in nature.

Figure 5.6 A distinctive “black church” began to emerge in the antebellum period as African Americans, both enslaved and free, began forming their own Christian congregations, often in secret. Typical of these communities of African American Christians were call-and-response preaching styles that elicited “furious emotions” as well as lively traditions of music and dance. Their innovative patterns of worship eventually influenced Protestant evangelical worship practices across racial and ethnic boundaries.

Chapter 06

Figure 6.1 Jarena Lee's autobiography, which she first published in 1836, tells how African Methodist Episcopal founder Richard Allen authorized her as the first woman preacher in the church. The narrative goes on to detail her struggles and triumphs as an African American woman preacher in antebellum America.

Figure 6.2 Charles G. Finney's “new measures” introduced more diverse participation in Protestant evangelical revivals, especially allowing women's voices to be heard in ways that were not often available to them in the early nineteenth century.

Figure 6.3 A monument dedicated to three of the most prominent nineteenth-century women's rights leaders, Susan B. Anthony, Lucretia Mott, and Elizabeth Cady Stanton, was unveiled in Washington, DC, in 1921. The monument celebrates their contribution to women's suffrage, which would eventually culminate with the passage in 1920 of the Nineteenth Amendment to the US Constitution, guaranteeing women the right to vote.

Figure 6.4 Sojourner Truth's voice resounded powerfully when she demanded a place for African Americans in the women's movement by declaring “I am a woman” in 1851 at the Ohio Women's Rights Convention.

Map 6.1 Trail(s) of Tears. Routes of Native American forced migrations during the Indian removals of the 1830s.

Figure 6.5 This 1812 sketch shows the Kahal Kadosh Beth Elohim synagogue in Charleston, South Carolina, where Reform Judaism was first introduced in the United States.

Figure 6.6 Shaker worship practices kept women and men separate from each other even as they engaged in their distinctive ritual dances.

Figure 6.7 This stylized nineteenth-century illustration shows the Christian biblical character John the Baptist conferring the Aaronic priesthood on Mormon leaders Joseph Smith, Jr., and Oliver Cowdery.

Chapter 07

Figure 7.1 As early as the 1840s, the unfinished chapel of the Alamo in San Antonio, Texas, became a sacred site commemorating the famous battle and the martyrs of the Texas Revolution. The Alamo, shown here in an 1844 engraving, and the Texas rebels who died there subsequently became icons of American providentialism as the nation asserted Manifest Destiny across the continent.

Figure 7.2 Unitarian minister Theodore Parker was a founding member of the Transcendentalist Club, and he later emerged as a leading advocate of the abolitionist cause. This 1856 illustration shows him lecturing on the evils of slavery.

Figure 7.3 This engraving of the infamous slave insurgent Nat Turner appeared in a Civil War-era book titled

History of American Conspiracies

; the caption reads, “Nat Turner & his confederates in conference.” Motivated by a religious vision, Turner's rebellion registered terror among slaveowners everywhere.

Figure 7.4 Activist Lucretia Mott exemplified the Quaker virtues of social protest as an “agitator” who advocated the duty to “stand out in our heresy” in her public efforts as a women's rights leader and abolitionist.

Figure 7.5 The abolitionist John Brown encounters a slave mother and her child as he is being led to his execution in this 1867 painting by artist Thomas S. Noble (1835–1907), himself a Confederate Army veteran who professed a hatred of slavery.

Figure 7.6 Fascination and repulsion, especially regarding plural marriage, defined popular attitudes toward Mormons by non-Mormon Americans in the nineteenth century. Their rightful place in the American nation became a political issue and even involved a military occupation. This nineteenth-century illustration depicts some of Brigham Young's wives in the Salt Lake City Tabernacle with the American flag draped over the railing beside them.

Chapter 08

Figure 8.1 Even today the enigmatic Marie Laveau, legendary “Queen of Voodoo,” attracts visitors to her gravesite in St. Louis Cemetery No. 1, New Orleans, Louisiana; shown here are recent offerings left by devotees at her tomb. In the nineteenth century Laveau reigned as an icon of exotic culture for Euro-Americans in the Crescent City.

Figure 8.2 This fanciful illustration of a Lakota Ghost Dance appeared in a London newspaper just weeks after the Wounded Knee massacre in 1890 that ended the millenarian Ghost Dance movement for most of its practitioners.

Figure 8.3 California's Yosemite Valley, shown here in a nineteenth-century engraving, inspired John Muir's reverence for nature. In 1871 Muir hosted the aging Transcendentalist Ralph Waldo Emerson in Yosemite; Emerson convinced Muir to pursue a career of writing about his beloved mountains.

Figure 8.4 Hull House in Chicago, founded by Jane Addams and Ellen Gates Starr, exemplified the social gospel movement in offering support, companionship, and various types of assistance for immigrants.

Figure 8.5 The Fisk Jubilee Singers, shown here in a group portrait from the 1870s, introduced traditional spirituals to audiences throughout America and Europe, giving legitimacy to a musical style that became a standard feature in many African American churches.

Figure 8.6 The Western Health Reform Institute, more commonly known as the Battle Creek Sanatorium, introduced healthy nutrition and exercise and treated patients with hydrotherapy, in line with Seventh-Day Adventist doctrines. John Harvey Kellogg directed the Institute for many years, and his commitment to Adventist dietary principles led to the invention of corn flakes, which his brother developed into a major breakfast-cereal company based in Battle Creek, Michigan.

Figure 8.7 Delegates to the World's Parliament of Religions pose on stage while members of the press look on. Participants gathered in Chicago's Memorial Art Palace during the 1893 World's Columbian Exposition to celebrate “the sun of a new era of religious peace and progress.”

Chapter 09

Figure 9.1 William Jennings Bryan faces Clarence Darrow during an outdoor session of the Scopes Trial in July 1925 in Dayton, Tennessee. The trial pitted the claims of religion against the evidence of science as fundamentalist Christians, led by Bryan, challenged Darwin's theory of evolution in a trial that caught the attention of the nation.

Figure 9.2 Ever the dramatist, even in casual settings like the one shown in this 1927 photograph, Pentecostal preacher Sister Aimee Semple McPherson used radio technology and later television to broadcast her religious performances to broad audiences, making her a national celebrity.

Figure 9.3 This photograph from the 1920s shows a ceremonial dance in Zuni Pueblo, New Mexico. The Pueblo dance controversy involved a defense of Native American rituals as legitimate religious practices protected under the First Amendment of the US Constitution. Christian missionaries working among native tribes regarded their indigenous dances and other practices as “pagan rites” that should be outlawed.

Figure 9.4 Membership at the Olivet Baptist Church in Chicago, shown here in the 1920s, grew dramatically as African Americans moved north in the Great Migration during the years between World War I and World War II, making it America's largest Protestant congregation by 1940.

Figure 9.5 Pentecostalism traces its roots to a series of revivals organized by William Seymour beginning in 1906 held in this building at 312 Azusa Street in Los Angeles. From its humble beginnings on Azusa Street, the various branches of the Pentecostal movement have grown into one of the largest and most influential Christian sects in the world.

Figure 9.6 Pentecostal singer Sister Rosetta Tharpe popularized amplified guitar music in the church as well as for secular audiences.

Figure 9.7 Parades sponsored by the Universal Negro Improvement Association (UNIA), the Pan-African organization led by Marcus Garvey, attracted sizable crowds in the Harlem section of New York City in the 1920s. Although its founding document includes the promotion of Christian worship in Africa as a goal, UNIA declined to declare Christianity its “state religion,” acknowledging the diversity of religious orientations among its members.

Chapter 10

Figure 10.1 US senator and presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy kneels in prayer at the conclusion of the 1968 fast of United Farm Workers leader César Chávez, shown seated in prayer behind Kennedy, in Delano, California. Chávez's fast attracted national attention, and thousands of pilgrims visited him during his religious retreat.

Figure 10.2 Dorothy Day (far right) is shown at work with the editorial staff of the

Catholic Worker

in 1934. Teaming up with French immigrant philosopher, poet, and street theologian Peter Maurin, Day led a Roman Catholic lay movement emphasizing voluntary poverty, pacifism, and communitarian values that included urban hospitality houses, rural communes, and a radical newspaper still published today and sold for a penny a copy as it was in 1933.

Figure 10.3 Reverend Billy Graham preaches to the largest crowd he had addressed at the time, fifty thousand people gathered outdoors on Boston Common in the spring of 1950. The evangelical preacher's sermon called for a presidential declaration of a “National Repentance Day” to “seek God's forgiveness.”

Figure 10.4 This winter scene captured by photographer Ansel Adams (1902–1984) in 1943 shows Japanese detainees at the Manzanar Relocation Center in California as they leave the camp's Buddhist church following devotions. Despite official attempts to Christianize the internees held in the camps during World War II, Buddhism, Shinto, and other non-Christian religious practices continued and even flourished.

Figure 10.5 Abraham Joshua Heschel (center) described his participation with Martin Luther King, Jr. (right) during the 1965 civil rights march from Selma to Montgomery in Alabama by recalling, “I felt my feet were praying.”

Figure 10.6 Malcolm X (right) with Martin Luther King, Jr., in their only meeting, a brief encounter when both attended the US Senate hearings on civil rights legislation in March 1964, the same month that Malcolm X ended his affiliation with Elijah Muhammad's Nation of Islam. Their meeting was amicable, despite Malcolm X's past condemnations of King's approach to racial reconciliation.

Chapter 11

Figure 11.1 Among the many temples and shrines in California, the Hsi Lai Temple, located in Hacienda Heights near Los Angeles, is one of the largest Buddhist temples in North America.

Figure 11.2 After relocating to San Francisco, members of the International Society for Krishna Consciousness, commonly known as the Hare Krishnas, were a common sight on the local cultural scene. Here they are shown in a parade during their annual gathering in Golden Gate Park in 1977.

Figure 11.3 New Age seekers gather in the inner circle of a labyrinth at the Angel Valley Sedona retreat center in Arizona. Long regarded as a “vortex” of powerful spiritual energies, Sedona attracts many practitioners of New Age and Neopagan traditions who patronize the numerous spiritual entrepreneurs and facilities in the area.

Figure 11.4 Protestant men gathered at Promise Keepers rallies across the United States in the 1990s to proclaim their faith in Jesus Christ and to reclaim their gendered roles as husbands, fathers, and church members.

Figure 11.5 Devotional images of Nuestra Señora de Guadalupe, the Virgin of Guadalupe, can be found wherever Latino/a Catholics worship, as well as in homes, in businesses, and even in tattoos on the bodies of the faithful. This tiled version of the Guadalupe image appears in a niche at Mission San Gabriel near Los Angeles, California.

Chapter 12

Figure 12.1 Religious leaders and political luminaries along with Master of Ceremonies Oprah Winfrey (front row, left) join hands on the stage at New York's Yankee Stadium while the Harlem Boys and Girls Choir sing “We Shall Overcome” during the memorial service “A Prayer for America” on September 23, 2001.

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Formed From This Soil

An Introduction to the Diverse History of Religion in America

Thomas S. Bremer

This edition first published 2015© 2015 Thomas S. Bremer

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available for this title

Bremer, Thomas S., 1957–Formed from this soil : an introduction to the diverse history of religion in America / Thomas S. Bremer.  pages cm Includes bibliographical references and index.

 ISBN 978-1-4051-8927-9 (cloth) – ISBN 978-1-4051-8926-2 (pbk.) 1. United States–Religion. I. Title. BL2525.B74 2014 200.973–dc23

      2014030507

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

Cover image: Moira Gil, Arbol de la Vida, acrylic. www.sincronizarte.comCover design by Design Deluxe

To the teachers who introduced me to the pleasures of learning, and to the students who inspire me to continue learning, this book is affectionately dedicated.

Acknowledgments

Like many professors who teach courses in American religious history, I had long been dissatisfied with the offering of textbooks in this field, and consequently I had taught courses cobbled together using a variety of primary- and second-source readings. So when Andrew Humphries, at that time a commissioning editor for Wiley Blackwell, first approached me with the idea of producing a new textbook in American religious history that would present a different narrative, one that focuses on diversity, I was enthusiastic about undertaking the challenge. Of course, without Andy's encouragement it would never have become more than an idea; he was instrumental in helping me think through the scope of the book and shepherding me through the proposal process at Wiley Blackwell. When he left for other opportunities in publishing, Rebecca Harkin took over editing responsibilities as I struggled through too many years of false starts and thinking through how to structure the book. Rebecca's patience and support allowed me to work through the myriad issues in producing a narrative that tells a different story of American religious history but is also teachable for a new generation of students. As I neared completion of the manuscript, Georgina Coleby took over the editing responsibilities. I am especially grateful for her help throughout the production process, answering my many questions and concerns with cheerful promptness and keeping me on track to finish this undertaking. As well, Hazel Harris's expert copy-editing has made the text far more readable. In short, this book has benefited tremendously from the many talented people at Wiley Blackwell.

A number of friends, colleagues, and students have made helpful contributions to the production of this work. Tisa Wenger of Yale University commented on an early draft of the proposal for the book. Gregory Johnson at the University of Colorado provided helpful guidance on the religious history of Hawaii, and iconographer Anna Edelman commented on the history of Russian Orthodoxy in Alaska. Several of my colleagues in Religious Studies at Rhodes College read parts of the manuscript and made useful suggestions that I have incorporated in the text. In particular, Luther Ivory offered helpful comments on discussions of African American religions; Kendra Hotz as well as former colleagues Michelle Voss Roberts and Ellie Gebarowski-Shafer read and commented on an early version of the second chapter, greatly helping me to summarize the Christian theological debates of the sixteenth century; and Rhiannon Graybill saved me from settling for inadequate discussions on voice, gender, and sexuality in Box 6.1, Box 6.2, and Box 9.2.

My attempt to construct a narrative that is accessible to students while incorporating additional elements to aid student learning has benefited from feedback from my students at Rhodes College. Student remarks in the “Religion in Colonial America” class that I taught during the fall semester of 2010 and in the “Religion in Nineteenth-Century America” class offered during the fall semester of 2012 helped me to reconceptualize key parts of the book. In the fall of 2013 I used a draft of the complete manuscript for my “Religion in America” class, and student comments on virtually every chapter have been incorporated into the final version of the text. In addition to those enrolled in my classes, three students in particular served key roles in producing this book. Bailey Romano read all of the chapters and commented specifically on the history of Judaism in America, a topic she has pursued in graduate school at Hebrew Union College. Both Leanne Naramore and Lauren Hales helped to identify images for the various chapters; in addition they each read early drafts of the manuscript and provided invaluable feedback.

Without question, the most important help came from Melanie, my partner in this endeavor. Besides putting up with my impatience and frustration working through this project, she read every chapter carefully more than once, making innumerable comments and suggestions about the content, organization, and grammar. She ably managed the complicated and often frustrating process of acquiring images for each chapter, a task I certainly would not have completed without her help. More helpful than all else, though, have been her constant inspiration and encouragement; without them, this work would not have been possible.

The comments and help of all of these people and others have improved this book immensely; its faults and shortcomings, however, are mine alone.

Prelude for InstructorsA Decentered Narrative of American Religious History

Scholars of American religious history have long called for a retelling of the story of religions in America.1 This book responds to such calls for new narratives by repositioning American religious developments in larger global contexts with an emphasis on diversity. The story here highlights the diverse origins of religious orientations, communities, and phenomena found in America, with attention to the influences of peoples originating in the Americas as well as those coming from Europe, from Africa, from Asia, and elsewhere. It presents the historical dynamics of how these diverse peoples have encountered and interacted with each other, and how their religious lives and experiences have contributed to the various meanings of America. This history is laid out in three parts arranged chronologically. The first part covers the initial periods of contact between peoples of the Americas, Europe, and Africa and the subsequent centuries of colonization. The second part encompasses the nineteenth century, while the final part covers the twentieth century and the beginning of the twenty-first century.

One primary goal in writing this book has been to make it teachable and flexible. As a pedagogical tool, it does not pretend to be comprehensive in telling a story of religion in American history. Some readers certainly will be disappointed by particular omissions: there is nothing, for instance, on Freemasonry, the Amish, or Scientology, and only scant mention of the Bahá'í Faith. On the other hand, several groups rarely mentioned in typical survey courses on religion in America get attention here, such as indigenous Hawaiian traditions, Sikhs, and Santeríans. In constructing a teachable and flexible textbook that will be useful in many different classroom situations, I have aimed more for the evocative and provocative rather than for comprehensive knowledge.2 Students will find much here to engage with, both in the historical narrative and in the various critical terms and interpretive concepts introduced throughout the book; the goal has been to evoke various interpretations of the historical record and to provoke students to become aware of, to engage critically with, and to synthesize their own understandings of the many perspectives and experiences that make up American religious history.

Individual instructors certainly will bring their own interests and areas of specialized knowledge to the teaching of this material, supplementing and enriching the narratives presented here; every teacher, I trust, will use this book in a way that reflects their own interests, strengths, and areas of expertise. In my own experience of teaching the complete draft version of the book, I was happily surprised by students' engagement with the interpretive concepts that are introduced throughout the chapters. These concepts, highlighted in boxes, give brief introductions to theoretical and methodological terms and concepts for analyzing and interpreting the historical materials; they include contact zones, animism, millenarianism, authority, sacred space, pluralism, syncretism, voice, gender, nativism, race, orientalism, fundamentalism, sexuality, civil religion, class, spirituality, and globalization. Not only do these concepts offer transferable knowledge and skills for student learning but they also provide structure for organizing class lectures and discussions and may serve as the basis for exam questions and paper assignments.

As a historical narrative, this book preserves the chronological integrity found in many renderings of religion in American history, but it departs from its predecessors in two important ways. First, regarding the narrative itself, the emphasis here is on diversity, not only regarding the variety of religious traditions found in America but also concerning the many and creative ways of being religious, as well as how religious orientations, practices, and communities have contended with other sorts of differences, specifically regarding race, gender, sexual orientation, ethnicity, national origin, and socioeconomic class. The story here lacks an obvious center or dominant teleological narrative of religion in America; instead, it leaves American religious history more open to various interpretations. In contrast to narratives of Protestant Christians triumphantly bringing Christianity to the New World, this book regards America as a place of interaction between groups from four areas of origin, each with peculiar religious orientations formed in their own complex histories of contact, conflict, and exchange; these four geographically oriented groups are the indigenous peoples of the Americas, Europeans and their descendants, Africans and their descendants, and Asians and their descendants;3 each of these populations remains part of the story throughout the book (with the exception of Asians, who do not enter the narrative until the nineteenth century). Certainly, Christian orientations are prominent among all of these groups, and Christianity receives much attention, but other religious orientations are kept in view in addition to the remarkable variations among Christians in America.

The second way that this book departs from earlier texts on American religious history is in how it encourages students to think of religion in broader terms. Besides the emphasis on the differences that underlie religious diversity, attention is given to the concept of religion itself as an analytic category. To help students think of religion as something more than church, synagogue, mosque, temple, or shrine, or even in more generic terms as beliefs and worldviews, the critical terms and interpretive concepts introduced throughout the book provide learning opportunities that go far beyond a mere historical survey of religions in the American context.

To supplement the historical narrative and the interpretive concepts offered throughout the text, other pedagogical features also aim to enhance student learning. Images add a visual-learning component to the chapters, and maps give geographical orientation to the historical materials. Each chapter includes questions for discussion that can be used for paper assignments, to initiate classroom discussions, and for exam reviews. All but the introductory chapter have a short list of relevant suggested primary-source readings for supplementing the topics covered. In addition, citations in the notes include numerous secondary sources; instructors can refer to these for additional background information, and teachers will find many of them useful as additional readings for students. Finally, the glossary includes some of the terms that students may not be familiar with; these glossary terms are emboldened in their initial appearance in each of the chapters.

In sum, the goals of this book are twofold. First, it is a chronological survey of American religious history; it introduces students to the diverse complexities of religious orientations, communities, and practices that have been crucial factors in American society over the centuries. Second, the materials found in each chapter equip students with critical tools for understanding and interpreting religious diversity in America. Together the chapters aim to prepare students for understanding and interpreting the ongoing tale of American religiosity.

Notes

1

See for instance Thomas A. Tweed, “Expanding the Study of US Religion: Reflections on the State of a Subfield,”

Religion

40, no. 4 (2010), 250–258.

2

I am in agreement with Philip Deloria on this emphasis of the evocative and provocative; see Philip J. Deloria,

Indians in Unexpected Places

(Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 2004), 12.

3

Of course, these are not the only populations in the Americas; other groups, such as those from the Arabian Peninsula and from Oceania, also make appearances in the historical narrative.

BeginningsThe Diversity of Religion in America

On Memorial Day weekend in 1996, visitors to the San Antonio Missions National Historical Park found Native American tipis set up in the compound yard at the San Juan Capistrano mission, a quaintly charming Spanish colonial site preserved as part of the national park in San Antonio, Texas. A small group of native dancers, described as “Aztec performers,” had chosen the busy holiday weekend to hold religious observances inside the national park. Even though they lacked the proper permits from the National Park Service to perform their ceremonies, the dancers occupied the large grassy area at the center of the historic mission complex with the consent of the parish priest at the San Juan church. Because of the special arrangement between the federal government, local officials, and the Roman Catholic Church, park rangers were prevented from removing the group, despite the extreme danger posed by their ceremonial fires amid the dry grasses of the mission compound.1

There was more at stake, however, than public safety in the appearance of Indians in the churchyard at the national park. In particular, they were making a claim to the history of the mission itself, and, by extension, to the long and conflicted history of religious traditions in America. The Indian group at Mission San Juan insisted on their right to have sweat lodges, perform dances, and hold vigils there based on their descent from the native Coahuiltecan people who originally built and occupied the mission under the tutelage of eighteenth-century Franciscan missionaries. Moreover, they claimed that their native ceremonies properly belonged within the religious traditions of the Roman Catholic Church, and therefore they needed only the cooperation of the parish priest to perform their ceremonies unimpeded by the National Park Service.

In fact, the parish priest had invited them to the mission in the first place. He had come to Texas just a few years earlier from his native Mexico, where his ministry had been involved with the native peoples of Mexico. Soon after arriving in San Antonio, the priest met the Indian dancers performing for tourists in a downtown plaza, and he invited them to participate in worship services in the church at Mission San Juan. Although the dancers claimed an ancestral heritage to Coahuiltecan people who were among the earliest inhabitants of San Antonio's colonial missions, their costumes, musical and dance styles, ritual practices, and other trappings of indigenous culture exhibited a broad, eclectic mix of native traditions from North and Central America, with no distinctly Coahuiltecan cultural emphasis. Nevertheless, they asserted their right to perform their religious rituals in what they claimed was their ancestral home, and with the support of the parish priest they regularly danced at the Mission San Juan church.

But the introduction of a native element in the religious life of the San Juan parish did not go without notice. Longtime parishioners of the church, some of whom also claimed Coahuiltecan ancestry, resented the imposition of what many regarded as pagan practices in their Christian worship; as one parishioner exclaimed, they come to church for worship, “not to see a show.” Their priest, however, sided with the dancers, whom he encouraged to practice their native traditions at the church and on the mission grounds.2

This incident involving Catholics, Native Americans, the National Park Service, and others in San Antonio suggests a number of dilemmas for narrating a coherent tale of American religious history. Throughout its history, America has been marked by religious difference. The presence of multiple religious orientations and traditions has been a pervasive feature of American cultural landscapes from long before the arrival of Europeans right up until the present day. Moreover, adherents of the many religions found in America have constantly crossed the borders of nation, of language, of ethnicity, of religion, sometimes in creative cooperation but many times in bitter conflict. Consequently, there are many histories to be told of religions in America, and the stories are dynamic beyond comprehension. For instance, the conflicts over native dancers at Mission San Juan suggest complex histories involving contemporary struggles over sacred places, painful memories of colonial conflicts, church authority at odds with local parishioners, religious adherents at odds with civil authorities, and religious imaginations that meld disparate traditions into novel systems of spiritual practice. In all of its complexity and messiness, this brief episode in San Antonio exemplifies the histories of religious life in America.

In whatever manner we choose to characterize its religious narratives, we cannot ignore the historical reality that America has been from the beginning a place of religious encounter, contention, and struggle. In the words of historian Perry Miller, America is and has always been “a congeries of inner tensions,”3 and one goal of this book is to consider the role of religion in producing and sustaining these tensions. Indeed, people with diverse religious orientations and cultural traditions have met and confronted each other throughout history, sometimes with hopeful outcomes but often with tragic consequences. Yet, despite the dominance of Protestant perspectives in the most popular renderings of the nation's history, America remains not a single, unified “universe” of American religion with Protestant Christianity providing its gravitational center; instead the American religious landscape is more like a “multiverse” of very different religious universes, each with their own assumptions, commitments, and priorities, as well as their own systems of religious ideas, practices, traditions, and institutions. This book seeks to explore the historical contours of this American religious multiverse.

In exploring this multiverse of religious orientations in America, it would be a mistake to assume that everyone agrees on what is meant by “American religions.” In fact, there is a surprising range of views on what the term “America” means and who or what exactly can claim to be American. Likewise, coming to an agreement on what constitutes a “religion” and what sorts of practices, cultural traditions, communities, places, and material objects we should regard as religious remains an elusive task. Before tackling significant themes of American religious history, we must first contemplate how we think of both America and religion.

Defining America

An exploration of American religious history must begin by considering what we regard as America. In fact, pinpointing precisely what is meant by “America” can quickly turn into a complicated exercise in fluid definitions. Consider, for instance, a few of the many ways of thinking about America. One obvious approach is to define America geographically, a nation delineated by its physical boundaries. It is simple enough to see America by the colors on a map, the multicolored array of states wedged between the red of Mexico to the south and the blue of Canada to the north. But, depending on what historical era the map depicts, America looks very different from century to century. Its borders have shifted radically over time as the United States of America expanded from a thin sliver of former English colonies along the Atlantic coast of North America to a country encompassing the breadth of the continent and even beyond as it incorporated the territories of other nations. Moreover, as folks both north and south of the United States will point out, America is much more than the United States. Just as individual states constitute the nation, the United States is one of many nations that constitute the Americas.

But, one might argue, the nation's borders reflect more than geographical boundaries. Another approach to defining America is according to the political and legal structures that make up the nation. Certainly, the idea of America as a single, unified nation is essentially a political one. The relationship of the United States to other nations in the Americas is fundamentally different from the political relationships between the various states within the United States. Moreover, implicit in this political perspective is the idea of America as a nation defined by its laws, beginning with the US Constitution and supplemented by hundreds of thousands of pages of legal codes, regulatory policies, and judicial opinions, with even more layers at the state and local levels. Taken together, this complex web of legal structures and political institutions constitutes the American nation.

On the other hand, as important as the law may be to the collective life of the nation's citizens, America is much more than the technical intricacies of its legal apparatus. Alternatively, we could regard America according to moral or ideological dimensions. A tradition of national civic culture has long promulgated ideals of a nation defined by its democratic principles. After all, America is, according to the national anthem of the United States, “the land of the free and home of the brave.” But the ideological approach to defining America loses its traction in the complicated histories of actual practice. From the beginning, disenfranchised populations have been legion in America: women; people of color; non-English-speakers; those who do not own property – the list of populations left out of the story of American democracy is quite long. Even today, the prevalence of poverty, the inadequacy of such basic amenities as healthcare and education, and an overburdened criminal justice system with the largest prison population in the world all point to the contingent and compromised nature of the United States from an ideological perspective.

However we choose to configure the nation – geographically, politically, ideologically, or otherwise – the questions “What is America?” and “Who is American?” are never easy to answer. As we consider the diversity of religious life in American history, we must consider a variety of ways to address these and other questions regarding the nation and national identities.

Defining Religion

Just as different people have different understandings of America, there are many ways of being religious, making religion equally difficult to define. For centuries students of religion have struggled to find a satisfying definition of the term, one that encompasses the diversity of the world's traditions and enjoys wide acceptance among scholars. Their efforts thus far have not yielded agreement. It seems that, no matter how we define it, all notions of religion fail in some way to account for all instances of religious behavior, all worldviews, and all traditions. For example, an early attempt by the nineteenth-century anthropologist Edward B. Tylor (1832–1917) famously defined religion as “belief in Spiritual Beings.” But, as numerous critics have insisted, many religions do not concentrate on “beliefs” as their defining characteristic, in contrast to the predominantly Christian culture of nineteenth-century Europe where Tylor developed his ideas about religion. Countless religious people around the world value practical goals in their devotional lives over abstract beliefs. Thus, for the adherents of many religious traditions, the correct performance of appropriate rites at the proper time carries more importance than professing orthodox beliefs.

A number of scholars have tried to go beyond the emphasis on beliefs as the defining characteristic of religion. Some, like French sociologist Émile Durkheim (1858–1917), focus more on the collective, communal aspects of religious life. Durkheim went so far as to claim that religion is inextricably linked to all societies and that, just as all religious traditions, practices, and beliefs are essentially social, no society can exist without religion. Phenomenologists of religion, on the other hand, turn their attention to the human experience of religion, in particular what is often called “the experience of the sacred.” Rudolf Otto (1869–1937), a German Protestant theologian working in the early part of the twentieth century, set out to describe these religious experiences as “mysterium tremendum et fascinans,” emphasizing both the frightening awesomeness and compelling fascination involved when humans come into direct contact with divinity. Taking a cue from Otto's insights, the Romanian phenomenologist of religions Mircea Eliade (1907–1986) regarded all humans as Homo religiosus, insisting that at some level the desire for interactions with sacred forces and beings is fundamental to human nature.

Other scholars have concentrated on the ethical aspects of religious systems. A particularly influential approach introduced later in the twentieth century by the American cultural anthropologist Clifford Geertz (1926–2006) links the ethical system of a culture to its assumptions about the nature of reality. This is done, according to Geertz, through systems of religious symbols, including symbolic actions performed in religious rituals. His five-part definition of religion reveals how religious symbols and traditions serve to synthesize a people's worldview with how they behave and act ethically in their lives.4

As this brief review of a few approaches to understanding religions suggests, the list of ways that scholars, theologians, religious communities, civic governments, and others have defined “religion” quickly grows to unwieldy proportions. This prolific attention to marking out the boundaries of religion is not merely a frivolous exercise in erudition; on the contrary, how we regard what is and is not religious can have very real and often significant consequences for particular groups of people. For instance, many American Christians have long viewed non-Christian religious traditions with suspicion. This has had disastrous consequences for many groups; Native American peoples, for example, have suffered religious persecution since their earliest contacts with European Christians. By deeming Native American religions as illegitimate and therefore not subject to the guarantees of religious freedom in the US Constitution, the dominant Christian population in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries effectively suppressed the religiosity of indigenous peoples.

The history of religious oppression reveals a dominant way of thinking about religion for many Americans. The prevailing model for “religious” has been Christianity, especially Protestant Christianity, which has served as the standard by which to measure the beliefs, practices, and traditions of other people. In this regard, those who do not meet the “religious” standards of a Christian-informed view of religion are often depicted as savage, barbaric, a cult, and therefore a dangerous threat that must be contained and eliminated; or, on the other hand, some people have found it easy to dismiss unfamiliar, non-Christian traditions or practices as superficial, trivial, and not serious enough to be regarded as religion. Hence, alternative ways of religious understanding, of devotional practice, of social organization that remain alien to Christian conventions are beyond the purview of “religious” in the minds of many Americans.

The historical prevalence of a Christian, and specifically Protestant, model of religion has encouraged another common distinction in American society: the difference between “religious” and “spiritual.” It is not uncommon for people to deny being religious while claiming to be spiritual. Most often this amounts to a rejection of the formal institutions of organized religion in favor of personal spiritual growth, a stance that has a long history in Protestant critiques of other religions, especially Catholicism. For those making this claim, the distinction is usually between the public and communal aspects of religion versus the private and personal dimensions of spirituality. Such claims are generally critical, sometimes overtly and sometimes merely implicitly, of organized religion or the public institutions of religiosity. In effect, they serve as a way to claim religiosity while not affiliating with any particular religious community, tradition, or institution.5