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America's God: From Jonathan Edwards to Abraham Lincoln
Religious life in early America is often equated with the fire-and-brimstone Puritanism best embodied by the theology of Cotton Mather. Yet, by the nineteenth century, American theology had shifted dramatically away from the severe European traditions directly descended from the Protestant Reformation, of which Puritanism was in the United States the most influential. In its place arose a singularly American set of beliefs. In America's God, Mark Noll has written a biography of this new American ethos.
640 pages, Paperback
First published September 13, 2002
44 people are currently reading
1191 people want to read
About the author
Mark A. Noll
124 books214 followersMark A. Noll (born 1946), Francis A. McAnaney Professor of History at the University of Notre Dame, is a progressive evangelical Christian scholar. In 2005, Noll was named by Time Magazine as one of the twenty-five most influential evangelicals in America. Noll is a prolific author and many of his books have earned considerable acclaim within the academic community.
The Scandal of the Evangelical Mind
, a book about the anti-intellectual tendencies within the American evangelical movement, was featured in a cover story in the popular American literary and cultural magazine, Atlantic Monthly. He was awarded a National Humanities Medal in the Oval Office by President George W. Bush in 2006.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 46 reviews
September 9, 2011
This book is fascinating not just to those interested in history, for many of the views discussed in this book are still prevalent today.
Noll talks about what happened in America that happened nowhere else: the combination of historic Christian orthodox belief and republican political freedom. Everywhere else, when people started to desire political democracy they were often also desiring to reject Christianity (i.e. French Revolution). Noll shows that the Founding Fathers were, for the most part, not Christians seeking to build a Christian nation.
I wish more evangelical Christians would read Mark Noll rather than someone like David Barton. While reading this book I got an e-mail forward, written by David Barton, saying how real Christians could not vote for Obama. The idea is that true Christian faith also happens to endorse conservative American political views. Maybe conservatism is the best political philosophy (I have no idea) but it is pretty clear it is not from the Bible. But, like a fish not noting the water it swims in, we do not notice how we have combined Biblical truths with inherited American ones. Unlike Barton, who seems to have an agenda, Noll appears to want to get to the honest truth of history (and thus is why I get e-mail forwards from him and not Noll). He is a Christian, but he does not feel the need to recreate early Americans in his own image.
He writes at length on the influential Christians (Jonathan Edwards) in the colonies. But the work of Jefferson, Madison and most of the Fathers was not Biblically motivated. But discovering the faith commitments of the Founding Fathers is not actually the primary part of the book.
Noll then shows how the uncritical adoption of Scottish Common Sense realism formed how Christians in the 1800s read the Bible. Where early colonial theologians, like Jonathan Edwards, emphasized the traditional Calvinist view that without God's enlightening no one could understand scriptural truth (let alone be saved), later Christians bought into the philosophy that all people have this ability. The assumption was that any person could pick up the Bible and simple read what it literally says and come to the true conclusion. The problem with this was demonstrated in the Civil War as two sides read the Bible and disagreed.
This problem went deeper as those who supported slavery seemed to have the literal Bible on their side. Christians in the North who opposed slavery struggled to meet their foes on exegetical grounds. They knew slavery was wrong, but they had to basically admit the Bible allowed it on a literal reading. This forced some theologians to move in new directions, but in a culture that had completely adopted the common sense literal reading as THE reading, they could not provide powerful enough arguments to best supporters of slavery.
I could not help but think about contemporary debates evangelical Christians have and how they practically replay this. Most recently was the dust-up over Rob Bell's book Love Wins and views of hell. It seemed many of his most vocal opponents pointed to the common sense literal reading to support the traditional view of hell. Just as supporters of slavery would proof-text, finding specific scriptures that support slavery, so supporters of the traditional view did the same with hell. Rob Bell, like the abolitionists, seemed to go a different direction, feeling in his gut that the traditional view is wrong. Bell may not have proof-texts to support his views, the abolitionists did not either.
Now I do not mean to say the two issues are the same. It just seems that we have forgotten the lessons of the Civil War, primarily that if we claim to just read the Bible literally we throw out all kinds of cultural context, not to mention we have little hope when different literal readings clash. No evangelical Christian thinks slavery is a good, God-ordained institution. Perhaps this simply shows that any who claim to read the Bible simply "literally" really are not. Or at least a more nuanced definition of "literal" is needed.
That was not really related to the book. Overall the book was interesting, well-argued and thought-provoking. It reminded me why I love reading history: to learn from our past, hopefully so we can avoid repeating it!
Noll talks about what happened in America that happened nowhere else: the combination of historic Christian orthodox belief and republican political freedom. Everywhere else, when people started to desire political democracy they were often also desiring to reject Christianity (i.e. French Revolution). Noll shows that the Founding Fathers were, for the most part, not Christians seeking to build a Christian nation.
I wish more evangelical Christians would read Mark Noll rather than someone like David Barton. While reading this book I got an e-mail forward, written by David Barton, saying how real Christians could not vote for Obama. The idea is that true Christian faith also happens to endorse conservative American political views. Maybe conservatism is the best political philosophy (I have no idea) but it is pretty clear it is not from the Bible. But, like a fish not noting the water it swims in, we do not notice how we have combined Biblical truths with inherited American ones. Unlike Barton, who seems to have an agenda, Noll appears to want to get to the honest truth of history (and thus is why I get e-mail forwards from him and not Noll). He is a Christian, but he does not feel the need to recreate early Americans in his own image.
He writes at length on the influential Christians (Jonathan Edwards) in the colonies. But the work of Jefferson, Madison and most of the Fathers was not Biblically motivated. But discovering the faith commitments of the Founding Fathers is not actually the primary part of the book.
Noll then shows how the uncritical adoption of Scottish Common Sense realism formed how Christians in the 1800s read the Bible. Where early colonial theologians, like Jonathan Edwards, emphasized the traditional Calvinist view that without God's enlightening no one could understand scriptural truth (let alone be saved), later Christians bought into the philosophy that all people have this ability. The assumption was that any person could pick up the Bible and simple read what it literally says and come to the true conclusion. The problem with this was demonstrated in the Civil War as two sides read the Bible and disagreed.
This problem went deeper as those who supported slavery seemed to have the literal Bible on their side. Christians in the North who opposed slavery struggled to meet their foes on exegetical grounds. They knew slavery was wrong, but they had to basically admit the Bible allowed it on a literal reading. This forced some theologians to move in new directions, but in a culture that had completely adopted the common sense literal reading as THE reading, they could not provide powerful enough arguments to best supporters of slavery.
I could not help but think about contemporary debates evangelical Christians have and how they practically replay this. Most recently was the dust-up over Rob Bell's book Love Wins and views of hell. It seemed many of his most vocal opponents pointed to the common sense literal reading to support the traditional view of hell. Just as supporters of slavery would proof-text, finding specific scriptures that support slavery, so supporters of the traditional view did the same with hell. Rob Bell, like the abolitionists, seemed to go a different direction, feeling in his gut that the traditional view is wrong. Bell may not have proof-texts to support his views, the abolitionists did not either.
Now I do not mean to say the two issues are the same. It just seems that we have forgotten the lessons of the Civil War, primarily that if we claim to just read the Bible literally we throw out all kinds of cultural context, not to mention we have little hope when different literal readings clash. No evangelical Christian thinks slavery is a good, God-ordained institution. Perhaps this simply shows that any who claim to read the Bible simply "literally" really are not. Or at least a more nuanced definition of "literal" is needed.
That was not really related to the book. Overall the book was interesting, well-argued and thought-provoking. It reminded me why I love reading history: to learn from our past, hopefully so we can avoid repeating it!
August 20, 2016
It’s not hyperbole when I say that it is without a doubt one of the most important books I have ever read, and should be required reading for anyone studying to be a pastor in America. The most important thing I learned from the book is this: The way that Americans read the Bible is not the way that any other Christians have read the Bible, ever. In fact, the way we read the Bible was invented less than 300 years ago. We like to say that “The Bible says what the Bible says,” but we should be more honest about the ways in which our American culture deeply influences the way we read the Bible. Americans like to think that they read the Bible without tradition getting in the way, but the uncomfortable truth is that our way of reading IS a tradition, the tradition of Francis Bacon, John Locke, and Thomas Reid. Wouldn’t it be better to be honest about our tradition and reform it? We need a stronger understanding of the activity of God in the act of reading the Bible, the work of the Holy Spirit in an interpretive tradition, and the deep, forgotten links between sanctification and interpretation. In short, we need to return to a Trinitarian way of living inside scripture. Thanks, Mark Noll, for being an incredible historian and a gift to the church.
September 28, 2010
This was a good book. It is very detailed and very academic. I wish he would write a layman's version of this book and argue his main theses. This would help his important message make some headway in the evangelical world.
It is good to see evangelicals doing first-rate historical work.
It is good to see evangelicals doing first-rate historical work.
August 18, 2015
"America's God" is an incredible work of historical and theological scholarship. Noll's main goal is to explain how republican ideology based on Scottish common-sense moral reasoning changed and developed theology in early America. This development is surprising since traditional Christianity had been fairly antagonistic to republicanism and the liberal (or Lockean) ideology. Yet during the war for American Independence, and the disestablishment of state churches, orthodox Christians began to find ways to amalgamate the two. This is especially apparent in the early 19th century theologians use of Jonathan Edwards to speak to the new situation. During the second great awakening, church growth (especially the Baptists and Methodists), exploded and the fusion of liberal republicanism and Reformed orthodoxy developed an energetic Christian civilization. Yet this ideology couldn't answer (and thus crumbled) under the era's greatest failure: slavery.
How theologians of both North and South interpreted the Bible on slavery can be disturbing, yet enlightening. How do we in our preset day allow cultural ideology to influence Christian theology? Two examples (or debates) came to mind as I read: homosexuality and the influence of post-modernism.
The book, at times, is not easy reading, at least for me. That said, Noll's arguments are straightforward and well-organized, so his main points are clear. The footnotes and bibliography attest that Noll's knowledge and reading on this era is broad and deep. He knows what he is talking about. This book is obviously recommended for those interested in church history and the early american era. It is equally important those interested in theology and it's development.
How theologians of both North and South interpreted the Bible on slavery can be disturbing, yet enlightening. How do we in our preset day allow cultural ideology to influence Christian theology? Two examples (or debates) came to mind as I read: homosexuality and the influence of post-modernism.
The book, at times, is not easy reading, at least for me. That said, Noll's arguments are straightforward and well-organized, so his main points are clear. The footnotes and bibliography attest that Noll's knowledge and reading on this era is broad and deep. He knows what he is talking about. This book is obviously recommended for those interested in church history and the early american era. It is equally important those interested in theology and it's development.
April 3, 2015
It's almost obligatory to describe a work this long as "magisterial." But the shoe fits. In a lengthy, detailed but cogent argument, Noll shows how American theology developed from the Revolutionary war to the Civil War. In particular he demonstrates how a blend of historic, Reformed Christian theology, republican political theory, and commonsense moral philosophy combined both to create the new nation of America, and also to create a very distinct American version of Christianity. Well worth the effort to finish this substantial tome!
August 11, 2016
For those who would like to know more about the development of the theology of the United States of America, I recommend this book heartily. It is extremely eye-opening.
America's God portrays the development of American theology from Jonathan Edwards to Abraham Lincoln, the great formative period that has led to so much of the current American religious landscape.
The story begins with the state of American religion in the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries, demonstrating how American Christianity had not essentially changed much from European Christianity. One important facet from this period is to note the Puritans of Massachusetts, and particularly their nation-covenant theology, the idea that as God covenanted with the nation Israel, so He was now in covenant with the entire people. Jonathan Edwards was part of a great change in the Puritan belief system, closing the communion to professing Christians as opposed to leaving it open to the community, representing a shift away from that nation-covenant system to a more "evangelical," belief-based system.
The next phase of the narrative-- the eighteenth century-- tells the simultaneous stories of the decline in American religion, with the advancement of Universalism especially among the elite that would comprise the "founding fathers," along with the beginnings of the vast "evangelical" movement that would eventually explode in the antebellum nineteenth century. This, of course, is the critical period that is so highly contested today, for the "intent of the founding fathers" is a great motivator in many a discussion about the future of America.
What is of greater interest, at least in the history of theology, is the working out of the peculiarities of the American Christianity that developed at the end of the eighteenth and into the nineteenth centuries. The peculiarity was based on the general tenets of common-sense moral reasoning, picked up from the Scottish school, the acceptance and promulgation of republicanism and its language, and distrust of any inherited authority save the Bible. These ideas-- which seem so normative now in Christianity-- were really revolutionary. It was not believed by anyone, really, before the 1760s that Christians could live in a republican society. Even after the Reformation the majority of "churches" maintained hierarchial structures that kept the Bible and its interpretation in the hands of the elites. "Liberty," "freedom," "virtue," and many other terms had entirely different meanings than they do now.
Against all odds, the United States experiment was working, and the first half of the nineteenth century saw the explosion of evangelicalism and conversion. Various denominations set out to convert the country, and were largely successful in their efforts. The revivals and meetings of this period led to thousands of conversions to various denominations.
Noll then spends much time examining two particular groups-- the Calvinists and the Methodists-- and their developments and changes throughout the period between 1790 and 1860. In regards to the Calvinists, a clear progression away from the Westminster confessions and the inherited Augustinian system is percieved, all aiming towards conformity to the values of commonsense moral reasoning and the freedom of will. The Methodists provide an interesting story, beginning with an intense drive to evangelize, remaining essentially apolitical and conversion-centered, and then a period of entrenchment and conformity to the republican language of America and American denominational systems of seminaries, publications, and development in theology.
The final part of the book examines the Civil War and how it represented the crisis of American theology. Based on the above tendencies, most American religious groups were united in a "literal, Reformed hermeneutic," taking the Bible for exactly what it said and believing all of it to be relevant to the modern day. When the matter of slavery is brought forth in this system, conflict was almost impossible to avoid: it was certainly Biblically justifiable, and therefore according to the hermeneutic of the day was a necessity. Those who opposed slavery, while holding some form of "moral high ground," could not, with the current Biblical hermeneutic, provide a truly Biblical argument against the practice. Therefore the matter was resolved with bullets, and led to the belief fragmentation that continues on.
Noll also noted how Lincoln, despite not being one of the educated theological elite of the day, brought forth the most profound theological reflections on the Civil War, far more developed than the majority of the theologically trained citizens of the day. What perhaps would be more astounding to us was the nature of his reflections-- the idea that maybe America is not the chosen land of the chosen people, and perhaps God is not on one side or the other side of the Civil War conflict. With these observations Lincoln was able to transcend the North/South perspective difference that led to such sectarianism in not only politics but also religion.
The above does not really do much justice for Noll's magisterial work, but it represents a very short synopsis of the story presented. It is a very engaging and profitable read.
Based on my reading, I would like to offer the following thoughts.
1. Religion and perspective. Noll does an excellent job of contextualizing American religion into the American culture of the day, and demonstrates well how religion both shaped the culture and was shaped by the culture.
One major problem of religion, especially in America, is when religion and perspective get confused. The Bible was not revealed only to Americans. Many of the attitudes and perspectives we hold are not from the Bible but from the social milieu into which we were born.
Noll's best example of this was the race question. Although in sermon after sermon before the Civil War, many evangelists spoke of the "inferiority of the black people," no one actually defended this concept Biblically. The race question drove the slavery issue, yet no perspicacious pro-slavery, or even anti-slavery, advocate, ever questioned this belief or its foundation. What society determined, religion justified, and the results were terrible and abhorrent.
2. The "literal, Reformed" hermeneutic. Perhaps one of the greatest fallacies-- and one that proved fatal-- of American religion of the nineteenth century was the excessive literalism and application of the Bible. It was reasoned that since the Patriarchs owned slaves and Leviticus legislated slavery, slavery was not only acceptable but was pleasing to God. Such attitudes led many to look toward the "spirit" of the Bible to get away from slavery, and has probably in large part led to the modern attitude of "spirit" to the detriment of truth. The problem is not really with interpreting the Bible literally for the most part, but more with the application of the interpretations. First and foremost, the New Testament demonstrates that the old covenant has been superceded by the new (Ephesians 2:11-18, Colossians 2:14-17, Hebrews 7-9), and so therefore what the Patriarchs did or what Leviticus said is not bound upon Christians. Secondly, distance must always be preserved between the text and the reader, made necessary by the fact that the New Testament was written to first century congregations. This separation should not lead us to forsake the practices commanded of Christians, but should help us to recognize that certain social paradigms of the first century need not be replicated in the twenty-first. The New Testament presents an apoliticial and asocial message: it does not call for political or social change, but that all people in whatever circumstance they find themselves in should seek the spiritual kingdom. Therefore, the Biblical acceptance of the Roman slave system is more about not violating social norms than it is about establishing how later societies should be run. It is one thing to say that the Bible shows that there can be masters and slaves; it is entirely another thing to say that the Bible commands, or that God desires, such systems.
This should be a warning to all Christians to not be so excessive in interpretation that one is found advocating something that God is not concerned about in the least, or saying that God desires something that God merely accepts as existing. It is tragic that the result of the problems with this particular hermeneutic has led many to go the other way and not respect the authority of the Scriptures, yet the abuses of the previous system cannot go overlooked.
3. Covenant. A major theme of American religious consciousness in the discussed period, as it is even now, is the idea of America as the Promised Land and its people as God's chosen people. This concept began with the Puritans and their nation-covenant theology, and while in practice it did not continue, as an ideology it is still pervasive.
This belief system is based on a far-too-close parallel with Israel of old, and, in truth, America probably parallels Israel's history far too closely. Regardless, Christ on the cross negated this system and the physical covenant system. The new covenant is a spiritual covenant with spiritual people toward spiritual ends. The greatest fault in denominationalism through the millennia has been the physicalizing of the covenant based on the previous covenant with Israel.
The New Testament is clear: Christians are members of a spiritual kingdom (John 18:36, Colossians 1:3), and Christians are citizens of Heaven (Philippians 3:20). There is no hint of any nation covenant or any particular nation being God's people from the New Testament, yet plenty of lands and countries have claimed as much.
Lincoln's ideas were more toward the truth: America is not the Promised Land, and Americans are not God's chosen people. Yes, many Americans seek the promised land of Heaven, and many Americans are God's chosen people, but not because they are Americans in America. It is because they are Christians obeying their Lord and seeking His promise.
America could use the humility inherent in recognizing that it's not inherently a promised land or a chosen people. We can only hope denominations begin to make that clear.
4. American Language and Christian language. Another matter of great consequence has been the appropriation of American language in Christian theology. In America, the parallel between the two is assumed and not greatly questioned, and this has led to what is, in the end, an unholy synthesis.
Before America, "freedom" in Christianity was spoken of in terms of "freedom from", as it ought to be. In the New Testament, Christians are not set free to license. Christians are set free from death, from sin, from the Law of Moses, from bondage. Romans 6 presents the truth of the matter succinctly: Christianity allows one to be freed from the shackles of sin to serve righteousness. It is not a license to do whatever, but freedom from evil.
America, however, defined "freedom" in terms of license. The Revolution was fought in the spirit of Lockean and Enlightenment concepts of freedom, virtue, and liberty. Freedom from British oppression was gained by blood; freedom was enshrined in the founding documents of the nation. In America, you were free to do as you pleased as long as it did not injure any person or the state. This concept of freedom entered into Christianity, and voila: we now have plenty of denominations advocating the American concept of freedom in religious matters and act as if they are using Biblical language. "Freedom" certainly is a concept in the New Testament; whether "freedom" there is as Americans have defined the term is far more debatable.
Similar things are true with "liberty," which in America is fought for and highly prized, yet in Christianity is to be sacrificed at a whim for the unity in the faith (Romans 15:1-2, 1 Corinthians 10:24, Philippians 2:1-4). To fight for a liberty is honorable in America; in Christianity, it is deplored as selfishness.
We must always be concerned about our language to make sure that we do not corrupt the truth of God based on our societal values.
It is not my intent to make America look bad or act as if our freedoms in this country are evil; far from it. Nor is it my desire to make it seem as if America hopelessly corrupted religion; again, far from it. If you take the long view, looking over the entire history of Christianity, America in many ways allowed for Christianity to return to its original state, since for the first time in over 1500 years the state did not impose one denominational concept upon all the people, and Christianity could get away from the hierarchialized, world-conforming forms it had taken for the majority of the medieval and early modern periods. Christianity again could be a politically and earthly disinterested group of spiritual people striving for Heaven by obeying their Master, the Lord Jesus Christ. Yet, as with all societies, America and its freedom poses certain stumbling-blocks that are unique to its experience. While we ought to be thankful for the benefits our country provides us, we ought not be so naive or delusional to think that American cultural and social beliefs are precisely like New Testament beliefs. America's God can help us see what is culture from what is religion in America, and can assist us in holding fast to the latter while being wary of the former.
America's God portrays the development of American theology from Jonathan Edwards to Abraham Lincoln, the great formative period that has led to so much of the current American religious landscape.
The story begins with the state of American religion in the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries, demonstrating how American Christianity had not essentially changed much from European Christianity. One important facet from this period is to note the Puritans of Massachusetts, and particularly their nation-covenant theology, the idea that as God covenanted with the nation Israel, so He was now in covenant with the entire people. Jonathan Edwards was part of a great change in the Puritan belief system, closing the communion to professing Christians as opposed to leaving it open to the community, representing a shift away from that nation-covenant system to a more "evangelical," belief-based system.
The next phase of the narrative-- the eighteenth century-- tells the simultaneous stories of the decline in American religion, with the advancement of Universalism especially among the elite that would comprise the "founding fathers," along with the beginnings of the vast "evangelical" movement that would eventually explode in the antebellum nineteenth century. This, of course, is the critical period that is so highly contested today, for the "intent of the founding fathers" is a great motivator in many a discussion about the future of America.
What is of greater interest, at least in the history of theology, is the working out of the peculiarities of the American Christianity that developed at the end of the eighteenth and into the nineteenth centuries. The peculiarity was based on the general tenets of common-sense moral reasoning, picked up from the Scottish school, the acceptance and promulgation of republicanism and its language, and distrust of any inherited authority save the Bible. These ideas-- which seem so normative now in Christianity-- were really revolutionary. It was not believed by anyone, really, before the 1760s that Christians could live in a republican society. Even after the Reformation the majority of "churches" maintained hierarchial structures that kept the Bible and its interpretation in the hands of the elites. "Liberty," "freedom," "virtue," and many other terms had entirely different meanings than they do now.
Against all odds, the United States experiment was working, and the first half of the nineteenth century saw the explosion of evangelicalism and conversion. Various denominations set out to convert the country, and were largely successful in their efforts. The revivals and meetings of this period led to thousands of conversions to various denominations.
Noll then spends much time examining two particular groups-- the Calvinists and the Methodists-- and their developments and changes throughout the period between 1790 and 1860. In regards to the Calvinists, a clear progression away from the Westminster confessions and the inherited Augustinian system is percieved, all aiming towards conformity to the values of commonsense moral reasoning and the freedom of will. The Methodists provide an interesting story, beginning with an intense drive to evangelize, remaining essentially apolitical and conversion-centered, and then a period of entrenchment and conformity to the republican language of America and American denominational systems of seminaries, publications, and development in theology.
The final part of the book examines the Civil War and how it represented the crisis of American theology. Based on the above tendencies, most American religious groups were united in a "literal, Reformed hermeneutic," taking the Bible for exactly what it said and believing all of it to be relevant to the modern day. When the matter of slavery is brought forth in this system, conflict was almost impossible to avoid: it was certainly Biblically justifiable, and therefore according to the hermeneutic of the day was a necessity. Those who opposed slavery, while holding some form of "moral high ground," could not, with the current Biblical hermeneutic, provide a truly Biblical argument against the practice. Therefore the matter was resolved with bullets, and led to the belief fragmentation that continues on.
Noll also noted how Lincoln, despite not being one of the educated theological elite of the day, brought forth the most profound theological reflections on the Civil War, far more developed than the majority of the theologically trained citizens of the day. What perhaps would be more astounding to us was the nature of his reflections-- the idea that maybe America is not the chosen land of the chosen people, and perhaps God is not on one side or the other side of the Civil War conflict. With these observations Lincoln was able to transcend the North/South perspective difference that led to such sectarianism in not only politics but also religion.
The above does not really do much justice for Noll's magisterial work, but it represents a very short synopsis of the story presented. It is a very engaging and profitable read.
Based on my reading, I would like to offer the following thoughts.
1. Religion and perspective. Noll does an excellent job of contextualizing American religion into the American culture of the day, and demonstrates well how religion both shaped the culture and was shaped by the culture.
One major problem of religion, especially in America, is when religion and perspective get confused. The Bible was not revealed only to Americans. Many of the attitudes and perspectives we hold are not from the Bible but from the social milieu into which we were born.
Noll's best example of this was the race question. Although in sermon after sermon before the Civil War, many evangelists spoke of the "inferiority of the black people," no one actually defended this concept Biblically. The race question drove the slavery issue, yet no perspicacious pro-slavery, or even anti-slavery, advocate, ever questioned this belief or its foundation. What society determined, religion justified, and the results were terrible and abhorrent.
2. The "literal, Reformed" hermeneutic. Perhaps one of the greatest fallacies-- and one that proved fatal-- of American religion of the nineteenth century was the excessive literalism and application of the Bible. It was reasoned that since the Patriarchs owned slaves and Leviticus legislated slavery, slavery was not only acceptable but was pleasing to God. Such attitudes led many to look toward the "spirit" of the Bible to get away from slavery, and has probably in large part led to the modern attitude of "spirit" to the detriment of truth. The problem is not really with interpreting the Bible literally for the most part, but more with the application of the interpretations. First and foremost, the New Testament demonstrates that the old covenant has been superceded by the new (Ephesians 2:11-18, Colossians 2:14-17, Hebrews 7-9), and so therefore what the Patriarchs did or what Leviticus said is not bound upon Christians. Secondly, distance must always be preserved between the text and the reader, made necessary by the fact that the New Testament was written to first century congregations. This separation should not lead us to forsake the practices commanded of Christians, but should help us to recognize that certain social paradigms of the first century need not be replicated in the twenty-first. The New Testament presents an apoliticial and asocial message: it does not call for political or social change, but that all people in whatever circumstance they find themselves in should seek the spiritual kingdom. Therefore, the Biblical acceptance of the Roman slave system is more about not violating social norms than it is about establishing how later societies should be run. It is one thing to say that the Bible shows that there can be masters and slaves; it is entirely another thing to say that the Bible commands, or that God desires, such systems.
This should be a warning to all Christians to not be so excessive in interpretation that one is found advocating something that God is not concerned about in the least, or saying that God desires something that God merely accepts as existing. It is tragic that the result of the problems with this particular hermeneutic has led many to go the other way and not respect the authority of the Scriptures, yet the abuses of the previous system cannot go overlooked.
3. Covenant. A major theme of American religious consciousness in the discussed period, as it is even now, is the idea of America as the Promised Land and its people as God's chosen people. This concept began with the Puritans and their nation-covenant theology, and while in practice it did not continue, as an ideology it is still pervasive.
This belief system is based on a far-too-close parallel with Israel of old, and, in truth, America probably parallels Israel's history far too closely. Regardless, Christ on the cross negated this system and the physical covenant system. The new covenant is a spiritual covenant with spiritual people toward spiritual ends. The greatest fault in denominationalism through the millennia has been the physicalizing of the covenant based on the previous covenant with Israel.
The New Testament is clear: Christians are members of a spiritual kingdom (John 18:36, Colossians 1:3), and Christians are citizens of Heaven (Philippians 3:20). There is no hint of any nation covenant or any particular nation being God's people from the New Testament, yet plenty of lands and countries have claimed as much.
Lincoln's ideas were more toward the truth: America is not the Promised Land, and Americans are not God's chosen people. Yes, many Americans seek the promised land of Heaven, and many Americans are God's chosen people, but not because they are Americans in America. It is because they are Christians obeying their Lord and seeking His promise.
America could use the humility inherent in recognizing that it's not inherently a promised land or a chosen people. We can only hope denominations begin to make that clear.
4. American Language and Christian language. Another matter of great consequence has been the appropriation of American language in Christian theology. In America, the parallel between the two is assumed and not greatly questioned, and this has led to what is, in the end, an unholy synthesis.
Before America, "freedom" in Christianity was spoken of in terms of "freedom from", as it ought to be. In the New Testament, Christians are not set free to license. Christians are set free from death, from sin, from the Law of Moses, from bondage. Romans 6 presents the truth of the matter succinctly: Christianity allows one to be freed from the shackles of sin to serve righteousness. It is not a license to do whatever, but freedom from evil.
America, however, defined "freedom" in terms of license. The Revolution was fought in the spirit of Lockean and Enlightenment concepts of freedom, virtue, and liberty. Freedom from British oppression was gained by blood; freedom was enshrined in the founding documents of the nation. In America, you were free to do as you pleased as long as it did not injure any person or the state. This concept of freedom entered into Christianity, and voila: we now have plenty of denominations advocating the American concept of freedom in religious matters and act as if they are using Biblical language. "Freedom" certainly is a concept in the New Testament; whether "freedom" there is as Americans have defined the term is far more debatable.
Similar things are true with "liberty," which in America is fought for and highly prized, yet in Christianity is to be sacrificed at a whim for the unity in the faith (Romans 15:1-2, 1 Corinthians 10:24, Philippians 2:1-4). To fight for a liberty is honorable in America; in Christianity, it is deplored as selfishness.
We must always be concerned about our language to make sure that we do not corrupt the truth of God based on our societal values.
It is not my intent to make America look bad or act as if our freedoms in this country are evil; far from it. Nor is it my desire to make it seem as if America hopelessly corrupted religion; again, far from it. If you take the long view, looking over the entire history of Christianity, America in many ways allowed for Christianity to return to its original state, since for the first time in over 1500 years the state did not impose one denominational concept upon all the people, and Christianity could get away from the hierarchialized, world-conforming forms it had taken for the majority of the medieval and early modern periods. Christianity again could be a politically and earthly disinterested group of spiritual people striving for Heaven by obeying their Master, the Lord Jesus Christ. Yet, as with all societies, America and its freedom poses certain stumbling-blocks that are unique to its experience. While we ought to be thankful for the benefits our country provides us, we ought not be so naive or delusional to think that American cultural and social beliefs are precisely like New Testament beliefs. America's God can help us see what is culture from what is religion in America, and can assist us in holding fast to the latter while being wary of the former.
January 6, 2024
Fantastic book. If you are a pastor in America and are up for a dense read, you have to read this. Noll with great clarity lays the principles that have influenced American theology given the events of the Revolutionary War and the Enlightenment. One aspect I appreciate, having freshly finished it, is how he addresses the Civil War within a century of context, having dealt with the principles of republicanism and common sense reasoning from the time of Edwards, the reader walks into the room, so to speak, and knows what to expect.
January 11, 2013
A dense and thorough study exploring the intellectual evolution of a uniquely American Protestantism. In particular he concentrates on changing cultural meaning and the political ideological contexts for changes in American Protestantism during the first half of the 19th century. The book includes a very useful glossary of terms.
June 27, 2009
Read some 75% of this book for a history class and wasn't bored to tears. I actually quite enjoyed it.
May 16, 2018
A very engaging and useful intellectual history of theology in America, and how Protestantism got "Americanized."
July 15, 2024
Full Review here: https://pastoral-theology.com/2024/01...
November 26, 2020
An epic and magisterial history of American Protestant theology through the Civil War, America's God is a dense, enlightening, and rewarding read, even if it doesn't quite live up to the promise of its title.
Mark Noll is the world's foremost scholar of evangelical Christianity – is arguably the foremost scholar who is a self-professed evangelical Christian – so it's unsurprising that the culmination of his career is a lengthy book on the development of evangelical theology in the early United States. He acknowledges up front that while the book's title is America's God,>/i> the book itself focuses mainly on intellectual elites: the preachers and publishers whose theological treatises set the tone for belief in God among evangelical Protestants in the 18th and 19th centuries.
The discrepancy is broader than he acknowledges, however. It's not just a question of whether the title should more aptly be Elite America's God, but really more like White Evangelical Protestant America's God in the 1830s and 1840s, which doesn't have quite the same ring. The fact is this is not a book that describes Catholic theology in America, or mainline theology in America, or magic, occult, and nonbelieving theology in America, or Black Protestant theology in America. This is about white evangelicalism – which, granted, did rule the roost in the early 19th century, at least until disputes over slavery fractured the white Protestant consensus.
Still, that shouldn't detract from the accomplishment Noll achieves here of synthesizing seemingly disparate groups – New England Congregationalists, mid-Atlantic Presbyterians, frontier Methodists, southern Anglicans/Episcopalians – into a coherent story of how theology and political ideology embraced each other in the wake of the Revolution and led to a distinctively American blend of belief in God, individual common sense, and republican civic virtue.
Reading this an age when America is abjectly failing in its response to collective crises – a deadly pandemic, climate change, gun violence, drug addiction, racial injustice – was especially helpful in understanding why our society seems uniquely susceptible to the idolatry of individualism, even when it's literally choking us to death. Although Canada and Europe both are struggling in their response to these or similar crises, neither has flailed so futilely as the United States. Noll's book not only traces the history of American theology and its entwinement with political ideology – but also how that history took a different course from our neighbors to the north and across the Atlantic, despite our close relationship geographically and genealogically. In short, America's theological embrace of republicanism and common sense moral philosophy set us on a different course: what clearly seems now to be an unsustainable embrace of the individual and suspicion of the collective.
Grandiose title notwithstanding, Noll tells a fascinating and fantastic story, one that retains its relevance for today despite ending in the cataclysm of disunion more than 150 years ago. At times, he delves too deep into the weeds, and the grand narrative he wants to tell means he leaves out many other factors that he arguably should have considered – the role of the rising market economy, the often overlooked yet vital role of women, the coalescing theology of race – but this is well worth a read for anyone interested in the history of American religion.
Mark Noll is the world's foremost scholar of evangelical Christianity – is arguably the foremost scholar who is a self-professed evangelical Christian – so it's unsurprising that the culmination of his career is a lengthy book on the development of evangelical theology in the early United States. He acknowledges up front that while the book's title is America's God,>/i> the book itself focuses mainly on intellectual elites: the preachers and publishers whose theological treatises set the tone for belief in God among evangelical Protestants in the 18th and 19th centuries.
The discrepancy is broader than he acknowledges, however. It's not just a question of whether the title should more aptly be Elite America's God, but really more like White Evangelical Protestant America's God in the 1830s and 1840s, which doesn't have quite the same ring. The fact is this is not a book that describes Catholic theology in America, or mainline theology in America, or magic, occult, and nonbelieving theology in America, or Black Protestant theology in America. This is about white evangelicalism – which, granted, did rule the roost in the early 19th century, at least until disputes over slavery fractured the white Protestant consensus.
Still, that shouldn't detract from the accomplishment Noll achieves here of synthesizing seemingly disparate groups – New England Congregationalists, mid-Atlantic Presbyterians, frontier Methodists, southern Anglicans/Episcopalians – into a coherent story of how theology and political ideology embraced each other in the wake of the Revolution and led to a distinctively American blend of belief in God, individual common sense, and republican civic virtue.
Reading this an age when America is abjectly failing in its response to collective crises – a deadly pandemic, climate change, gun violence, drug addiction, racial injustice – was especially helpful in understanding why our society seems uniquely susceptible to the idolatry of individualism, even when it's literally choking us to death. Although Canada and Europe both are struggling in their response to these or similar crises, neither has flailed so futilely as the United States. Noll's book not only traces the history of American theology and its entwinement with political ideology – but also how that history took a different course from our neighbors to the north and across the Atlantic, despite our close relationship geographically and genealogically. In short, America's theological embrace of republicanism and common sense moral philosophy set us on a different course: what clearly seems now to be an unsustainable embrace of the individual and suspicion of the collective.
Grandiose title notwithstanding, Noll tells a fascinating and fantastic story, one that retains its relevance for today despite ending in the cataclysm of disunion more than 150 years ago. At times, he delves too deep into the weeds, and the grand narrative he wants to tell means he leaves out many other factors that he arguably should have considered – the role of the rising market economy, the often overlooked yet vital role of women, the coalescing theology of race – but this is well worth a read for anyone interested in the history of American religion.
May 6, 2021
This is an extraordinary book that explains how evangelical Protestantism evolved from the time of Jonathan Edwards to the Civil War. Noll argues that the evangelical Protestantism allied itself with a republican approach to politics and common sense philosophy to develop its theology by the time of the Civil War.
These alliances had two consequences. First, evangelical Protestantism interpreted America as God's chosen nation and democracy as a gift from God. The common sense philosophy emphasized the average person's ability to understand morality and the Bible which resulted in an emphasis on a matter-of-fact (literal) reading of the Bible. Noll shows that evangelical Protestantism, especially Methodism, became the dominant religion within the United States by the 18th century so these tendencies characterized mainstream Christianity in America.
Noll emphasizes that slavery became a significant problem for this synthesis because many evangelicals read the Bible as authorizing slavery, although some considered slavery evil. Of course, the Civil War brought this conflict to a head with both sides crying that God was on their side. Noll contrasts this more typical approach with Lincoln's Second Inaugural Address which meditates on the role of God in the Civil War. Noll definitely prefers Lincoln.
Readers should be warned that this book is not an easy read, for a number of reasons. First, the mid-18th century mindset is unfamiliar to many of us. Moreover, Noll is dealing with theological and philosophical details that might well be unfamiliar to a typical reader. Noll has an extraordinary glossary at the back of the volume which is invaluable to understanding this book.
Finally, it should be noted that this book is dealing mostly with theologians, not the average Christian believers. Noll is well aware of this shortcoming, but it is difficult to identify the thoughts of the typical person in the pew. Nonetheless, anyone familiar with contemporary American Christianity understands that these theologians have had a long-lasting influence. There are certainly Christians alive today who try to understand God by reading the Bible in an extremely literal fashion and who believe that God has uniquely blessed the United States.
These alliances had two consequences. First, evangelical Protestantism interpreted America as God's chosen nation and democracy as a gift from God. The common sense philosophy emphasized the average person's ability to understand morality and the Bible which resulted in an emphasis on a matter-of-fact (literal) reading of the Bible. Noll shows that evangelical Protestantism, especially Methodism, became the dominant religion within the United States by the 18th century so these tendencies characterized mainstream Christianity in America.
Noll emphasizes that slavery became a significant problem for this synthesis because many evangelicals read the Bible as authorizing slavery, although some considered slavery evil. Of course, the Civil War brought this conflict to a head with both sides crying that God was on their side. Noll contrasts this more typical approach with Lincoln's Second Inaugural Address which meditates on the role of God in the Civil War. Noll definitely prefers Lincoln.
Readers should be warned that this book is not an easy read, for a number of reasons. First, the mid-18th century mindset is unfamiliar to many of us. Moreover, Noll is dealing with theological and philosophical details that might well be unfamiliar to a typical reader. Noll has an extraordinary glossary at the back of the volume which is invaluable to understanding this book.
Finally, it should be noted that this book is dealing mostly with theologians, not the average Christian believers. Noll is well aware of this shortcoming, but it is difficult to identify the thoughts of the typical person in the pew. Nonetheless, anyone familiar with contemporary American Christianity understands that these theologians have had a long-lasting influence. There are certainly Christians alive today who try to understand God by reading the Bible in an extremely literal fashion and who believe that God has uniquely blessed the United States.
January 23, 2021
Great book! It is amazing how reading Mark Noll’s book provides food for thought. In this volume, Noll draws a detailed portrait of religious developments through Edwards and Lincoln, noting the ideological movements of the time analyzed. In sum, the author argued convincingly how American churches played a significant role in forming the country while the American circumstances, for a variety of reasons, also influenced the theology and religious beliefs of people in America. This process is explained in the parts of the book: Introduction, Synthesis, Evangelization, Americanization, and Crisis.
I’m a Brazilian evangelical, and I started this reading in an attempt to better understand the roots of the American Protestant religion, once American evangelicals have a huge influence on evangelical faith in our country. Of course, evangelicalism (Pentecostalism in particular) has been increasing here only in the last four decades, and I suspect that I need to read more about the twenty-century American religion to better figure out this influence on Brazilian soil. To put in a few words, the Brazilian churches import a lot of things from American Evangelicals - from reformed theology books in well-established publishers to the Prosperity Gospel of Neopentecostal churches in poor neighborhoods, and, of course, the gospel music.
However, I think that we Brazilians reflect little on this influence, and therefore we fail to understand the origin and implications of some beliefs or religious practices developed in the US. For example, I consider that the instinct to democratize Scripture access has some important role in the spreading of evangelical religion in Brazil. But the literalism can (although not necessarily) provide the insight that “God’s people are in warfare against other religions” - despite religious intolerance in Brazil can not be reduced to that. Also, I think that it is important for Brazilian evangelicals to recognize that American Evangelical tradition is not THE correct vision for everything - the Crisis over Bible and Slavery, and Race reveals well its problems - despite its fundamental influence that has good parts, of course. Brazil and Brazilians have our particular challenges, as so the United States and its people have your own.
I’m a Brazilian evangelical, and I started this reading in an attempt to better understand the roots of the American Protestant religion, once American evangelicals have a huge influence on evangelical faith in our country. Of course, evangelicalism (Pentecostalism in particular) has been increasing here only in the last four decades, and I suspect that I need to read more about the twenty-century American religion to better figure out this influence on Brazilian soil. To put in a few words, the Brazilian churches import a lot of things from American Evangelicals - from reformed theology books in well-established publishers to the Prosperity Gospel of Neopentecostal churches in poor neighborhoods, and, of course, the gospel music.
However, I think that we Brazilians reflect little on this influence, and therefore we fail to understand the origin and implications of some beliefs or religious practices developed in the US. For example, I consider that the instinct to democratize Scripture access has some important role in the spreading of evangelical religion in Brazil. But the literalism can (although not necessarily) provide the insight that “God’s people are in warfare against other religions” - despite religious intolerance in Brazil can not be reduced to that. Also, I think that it is important for Brazilian evangelicals to recognize that American Evangelical tradition is not THE correct vision for everything - the Crisis over Bible and Slavery, and Race reveals well its problems - despite its fundamental influence that has good parts, of course. Brazil and Brazilians have our particular challenges, as so the United States and its people have your own.
July 25, 2024
Evidently a lot of pastors read this book.
I'm not a pastor, I study history, and this book is an excellent way to see American history through the lens of religion.
This book has a surprising thesis, at least for me and anyone coming at religion from a secular history.
Noll argues that understanding the nation's early history necessitates grappling with the foundational influence of "Christian republicanism”. This ideology was a blend of evangelical Protestantism and civic republicanism that meld into a unifying society. The book is a definitive contribution to the study of US religious and political history. I think it's a must-read for anyone seeking a deep understanding of the complex ways that religion and politics have intersected to shape the nation’s identity.
The book meticulously traces the roots of this kind of republicanism, drawing connections between the Enlightenment, the Great Awakenings, and the justification for American Revolution.
Readers may be familiar with the historical figures that the book leverages for textual evidence, including Jonathan Edwards, George Whitefield, Thomas Paine, Benjamin Rush etc. yet lesser known past people are conjured up to testify and give evidence, including Jacob Green, Samuel Davies, William Paterson, etc. Noll uses this textual evidence to show how religious rhetoric permeated the political discourse of the time. This analysis shows that seemingly secular, political stump speeches for liberty and freedom often drew upon biblical metaphors and narratives, resonating deeply with colonial and early Americans steeped in Protestant beliefs.
The only negative about the book is that it's academic and scholarly stuff. The reader is presumed to know about Christian theological ideas, like Socinianism and the interpretation of Biblical verses, like 1 Samuel 8. I don't consider that to really be negative because a reader can look up anything they don't understand these days. Nonetheless, Noll assumes you will know these things, and some reviewers have asked for a less scholarly "Short Version".
I'm not a pastor, I study history, and this book is an excellent way to see American history through the lens of religion.
This book has a surprising thesis, at least for me and anyone coming at religion from a secular history.
Noll argues that understanding the nation's early history necessitates grappling with the foundational influence of "Christian republicanism”. This ideology was a blend of evangelical Protestantism and civic republicanism that meld into a unifying society. The book is a definitive contribution to the study of US religious and political history. I think it's a must-read for anyone seeking a deep understanding of the complex ways that religion and politics have intersected to shape the nation’s identity.
The book meticulously traces the roots of this kind of republicanism, drawing connections between the Enlightenment, the Great Awakenings, and the justification for American Revolution.
Readers may be familiar with the historical figures that the book leverages for textual evidence, including Jonathan Edwards, George Whitefield, Thomas Paine, Benjamin Rush etc. yet lesser known past people are conjured up to testify and give evidence, including Jacob Green, Samuel Davies, William Paterson, etc. Noll uses this textual evidence to show how religious rhetoric permeated the political discourse of the time. This analysis shows that seemingly secular, political stump speeches for liberty and freedom often drew upon biblical metaphors and narratives, resonating deeply with colonial and early Americans steeped in Protestant beliefs.
The only negative about the book is that it's academic and scholarly stuff. The reader is presumed to know about Christian theological ideas, like Socinianism and the interpretation of Biblical verses, like 1 Samuel 8. I don't consider that to really be negative because a reader can look up anything they don't understand these days. Nonetheless, Noll assumes you will know these things, and some reviewers have asked for a less scholarly "Short Version".
August 26, 2022
I don't know how to rate this book as I had to stop and come back to it multiple times. There is so much information and I have forgotten more than I remember about this book. Mark Noll (in my opinion) is one of the best researcher/historians around. He is thorough...I mean SO thorough that even I got lost at times (and I like this kind of stuff).
I will probably have to read it again just to glean the salient points (again)...but that makes a good book.
I will probably have to read it again just to glean the salient points (again)...but that makes a good book.
May 27, 2017
Fantastic! You can't expect anything less from the likes of Mark Noll. He's easily one of the best historians of early America. It was easy to give this a 5. It can be a tough read because Noll throws a TON of history your way. Take your time and sift through it. You will be greatly rewarded and your knowledge/understanding of this topic will grow exponentially.
January 15, 2020
This book is an academic force, which makes the conclusions of each chapter very compelling and just as difficult to trudge through the book to get there. I really had to make myself get through this book, but I’ve gained a lot on the other side. I understand why my professor called it “dense” and also why he had me read it as an exemplary work on historical theology in America.
April 18, 2023
Ok, so I haven't read this cover-to-cover, but I've read about half of it (3 times over) and 1/4 of it (7 times) for a couple projects I was working on. This is so good for helping not only understand the history of America's view of God but also for helping to understand the present American religious scene.
June 11, 2025
An incredibly detailed book of the theological movement in America from before the War of Independence to the Civil War. Some parts were dryer than others. It is absolutely academic in nature, I am not sure if everyone would find it accessible or easy reading. But, I appreciate the scholarly work which went into it.
June 12, 2018
Comprehensive, incisive, and authoritative. If you are looking for a scholarly treatment of the mutually transformative relationship between Christianity and the United States (until the Civil War), this is THE book. But be warned—it is DENSE!
July 4, 2019
A scholarly work! Interesting, but an exhaustive treatise and exhausting read. I would recommend Noll's "Civil War as a Theological Crisis" over this work to history buffs interested in religion's influence on period history.
November 27, 2025
A monumental work tackling American religious belief and experience from the mid eighteenth century to the mid nineteenth century. While I have certain quibbles about Noll's breakdown of movements and groups and how he associates them, his conclusions are even handed and worth reckoning with.
March 29, 2018
In which Mark Noll makes many interesting and useful observations and provides a thought-provoking argument.
July 25, 2020
Difficult but essential.
December 14, 2022
Not simply the content, but the painstakingly careful approach to an unbelievably complex story, that’s what makes this book so remarkable. Easy five stars.
July 26, 2019
I loved that the entire novel was really a letter, in a way. There’s a mystery at the center so I can’t say too much more. But this YA book was short and sweet. I really liked it.
May 18, 2019
I'd heard that this book was Noll's opus magnum. Having read most everything he's written, I'd concur. 150 pages are nothing but footnotes and bibliography. He has synthesized and substantiated the thesis that has dominated his life, in brief: how Christian theology has shaped the nation at the expense of the nation shaping Christian theology.
Put positively, theology adapted to the republic spirit of independence so well that it "translated the historic Christian message into the dominant cultural languages of politics and intellectual life so successfully that these languages were themselves converted and then enlisted religious purposes of evangelism, church formation, moral reform, and theological conservatism."
Put negatively, "the theologians may have been too successful....If in a great surge of evangelization and moral reform, American Protestants almost converted the nation, so too did the nation mold the Christian gospel in the contours of its own shape."
Noll makes a convincing case for the influence of three factors having a profound shape on Christian theology in America prior to Civil War: (a) commonsense moral reasoning which placed more confidence in individual human reasoning than established church tradition or authority such as creeds; (b) republican liberation making the freedom to follow one's conscience an unquestioned trust and the opposition of traditional authorities to that conscience an unquestioned tyranny; and (c) the Bible viewed from a Reformed literal hermeneutic; the sole authority that can be simply understood by all when read in it's plain (literal) sense.
The Civil War became the theatre on which this reshaped American theology played out. Ironically, Lincoln, and not the great theologians of the North or South put it best: "The will of God prevails. In great contests each party claims to act in accordance with the will of God. Both may be, and one must be wrong. God can not be for, and against the same thing at the same time. In the present civil war it is quite possible that God's purpose is something different from the purpose of either party..."
This Biblical theology, reshaped by our dramatic national beginnings, is so pervasive today that it's unimaginable to hear or read God's Word without it affecting our outcomes. It has been a shift, Noll labels, as "contemplative theocentricism to activistic anthropocentricism."
Mark Gali, editor-in-chief for Christianity Today, looking back over his 50 years at, perhaps, the center of Christian theology in America, reflected recently:
"For some decades now, as evidenced in my writing, I’ve believed that American Christianity has been less and less interested in God as such, and more and more at doing good things for God. We’ve learned how to be effective for him, to the point that we don’t really need him any longer.
Still, contemporary evangelicalism is in serious trouble. Actually, its crisis is the same one that afflicts all Christianity in America. At the risk of hubris, and the risk of merely adding one more item to the seemingly endless list of crises, I believe that the crisis lies at the heart of what ails large swaths of the American church. Alexander Solzhenitsyn named it in his speech upon receiving the Templeton Prize in Religion in 1968. He was talking about Western culture when he used it. I apply it to the American church, evangelical and not:
We have forgotten God."
Put positively, theology adapted to the republic spirit of independence so well that it "translated the historic Christian message into the dominant cultural languages of politics and intellectual life so successfully that these languages were themselves converted and then enlisted religious purposes of evangelism, church formation, moral reform, and theological conservatism."
Put negatively, "the theologians may have been too successful....If in a great surge of evangelization and moral reform, American Protestants almost converted the nation, so too did the nation mold the Christian gospel in the contours of its own shape."
Noll makes a convincing case for the influence of three factors having a profound shape on Christian theology in America prior to Civil War: (a) commonsense moral reasoning which placed more confidence in individual human reasoning than established church tradition or authority such as creeds; (b) republican liberation making the freedom to follow one's conscience an unquestioned trust and the opposition of traditional authorities to that conscience an unquestioned tyranny; and (c) the Bible viewed from a Reformed literal hermeneutic; the sole authority that can be simply understood by all when read in it's plain (literal) sense.
The Civil War became the theatre on which this reshaped American theology played out. Ironically, Lincoln, and not the great theologians of the North or South put it best: "The will of God prevails. In great contests each party claims to act in accordance with the will of God. Both may be, and one must be wrong. God can not be for, and against the same thing at the same time. In the present civil war it is quite possible that God's purpose is something different from the purpose of either party..."
This Biblical theology, reshaped by our dramatic national beginnings, is so pervasive today that it's unimaginable to hear or read God's Word without it affecting our outcomes. It has been a shift, Noll labels, as "contemplative theocentricism to activistic anthropocentricism."
Mark Gali, editor-in-chief for Christianity Today, looking back over his 50 years at, perhaps, the center of Christian theology in America, reflected recently:
"For some decades now, as evidenced in my writing, I’ve believed that American Christianity has been less and less interested in God as such, and more and more at doing good things for God. We’ve learned how to be effective for him, to the point that we don’t really need him any longer.
Still, contemporary evangelicalism is in serious trouble. Actually, its crisis is the same one that afflicts all Christianity in America. At the risk of hubris, and the risk of merely adding one more item to the seemingly endless list of crises, I believe that the crisis lies at the heart of what ails large swaths of the American church. Alexander Solzhenitsyn named it in his speech upon receiving the Templeton Prize in Religion in 1968. He was talking about Western culture when he used it. I apply it to the American church, evangelical and not:
We have forgotten God."
December 7, 2015
This book explores trends in theological thought between the 1740s and the 1860s and the interactions between theological and political ideas that influenced the course of our nation's history.
In other parts of Christendom, the Catholic doctrin of original sin and the Calvinistic doctrine of total hereditary depravity resulted in opposition to republican ideas. At the extremes, the implication of these doctrines was that people were incapable of any moral or ethical good without the intervention of the Holy Spirit and were therefore incapable of self regulation, needing some degree of authoritarian rule. Sadly, the excesses of the French Revolution gave support for this concept. However, in the thirteen colonies and the early U.S., theologians began to turn from this idea and to embrace republican ideas. One effect of this was the insistence of the masses that they could read the Bible and think for themselves without reliance on Old World creeds and confessions.
When different people of different backgrounds read the Bible, they don't always come to the same conclusions. One stark example of this was slavery. The proponents of slavery rightly noted that the Bible doesn't condemn slavery as sinful. Instead, it regulates it to make the practice more humane, and the southern slave owners would have done well to heed its guidance. The proponents of slavery also confused slavery with race, relying on the curse of Ham for justification of negro slavery. Perhaps they should have read the Bible more closely because the curse was actually on Ham's son Canaan, whose descendants were displaced by the Israelites when they conquered the land of Canaan.
Sadly, the differences of opinion regarding the Bible and slavery were not resolved in civil debate. Instead, resolution was achieved by means of bullets and bayonets. This was a blow to the independent thinking hermeneutic of early America, and it undoubtedly impacted theological thought after the Civil War. I would find interesting a study on theological thought patterns in the U.S. since the Civil War.
In other parts of Christendom, the Catholic doctrin of original sin and the Calvinistic doctrine of total hereditary depravity resulted in opposition to republican ideas. At the extremes, the implication of these doctrines was that people were incapable of any moral or ethical good without the intervention of the Holy Spirit and were therefore incapable of self regulation, needing some degree of authoritarian rule. Sadly, the excesses of the French Revolution gave support for this concept. However, in the thirteen colonies and the early U.S., theologians began to turn from this idea and to embrace republican ideas. One effect of this was the insistence of the masses that they could read the Bible and think for themselves without reliance on Old World creeds and confessions.
When different people of different backgrounds read the Bible, they don't always come to the same conclusions. One stark example of this was slavery. The proponents of slavery rightly noted that the Bible doesn't condemn slavery as sinful. Instead, it regulates it to make the practice more humane, and the southern slave owners would have done well to heed its guidance. The proponents of slavery also confused slavery with race, relying on the curse of Ham for justification of negro slavery. Perhaps they should have read the Bible more closely because the curse was actually on Ham's son Canaan, whose descendants were displaced by the Israelites when they conquered the land of Canaan.
Sadly, the differences of opinion regarding the Bible and slavery were not resolved in civil debate. Instead, resolution was achieved by means of bullets and bayonets. This was a blow to the independent thinking hermeneutic of early America, and it undoubtedly impacted theological thought after the Civil War. I would find interesting a study on theological thought patterns in the U.S. since the Civil War.
June 25, 2010
For understanding the current upheavals of politics in the US, especially in the large chasm of understanding in the visions that spawned this nation, Noll's opus here is probably the most important book to read this election season. He has done a thorough job in dissecting and laying out the various influences and trajectories concerning the confluence of politics, religion, and world-views from pre-Revolutionary times to the climax of the Civil War. For those who are comfortable with viewing the theopolitical fusing of Scottish commonsense morality with puritanism as part-and-parcel since time immemorial, Noll shows how the synthesis of such mindsets were only brought together uniquely in the early life of the US. Noll also shows how republicanism fits into the picture.
For those wanting to put a blanket depiction over all forms of Protestant flirtations with New World manifestations of theopolitics, Noll does well in distinguishing the difference between the English Protestants, the Presbyterians, and the Methodists. From Old School to New School, Old Spirit to New Spirit, sub-movements also get particular treatment. The differences between certain figures such as Jonathan Edwards and Whitefield are also presented for the significance each person played in the unique blend of Neo-Calvinist mutations of Christianity played out in the Americas.
While Noll doesn't dwell so much on the role that New World Protestantism played in the life of economic systems a la Max Weber, America's God provides a great interlude of the political and philosophical shifts experienced between white culture in Europe and then in the US. So before a Tea Party member tells you what this nation was really founded on, you can use Noll's work to present more of a polyphonic history of the visions that forged this country. (Just don't expect their minds to be changed too much).
For those wanting to put a blanket depiction over all forms of Protestant flirtations with New World manifestations of theopolitics, Noll does well in distinguishing the difference between the English Protestants, the Presbyterians, and the Methodists. From Old School to New School, Old Spirit to New Spirit, sub-movements also get particular treatment. The differences between certain figures such as Jonathan Edwards and Whitefield are also presented for the significance each person played in the unique blend of Neo-Calvinist mutations of Christianity played out in the Americas.
While Noll doesn't dwell so much on the role that New World Protestantism played in the life of economic systems a la Max Weber, America's God provides a great interlude of the political and philosophical shifts experienced between white culture in Europe and then in the US. So before a Tea Party member tells you what this nation was really founded on, you can use Noll's work to present more of a polyphonic history of the visions that forged this country. (Just don't expect their minds to be changed too much).
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