Description
Book SynopsisA collection of original essays exploring the history of the various American religious traditions and the meaning of their many expressions The Blackwell Companion to American Religious History explores the key events, significant themes, and important movements in various religious traditions throughout the nation's history from pre-colonization to the present day. Original essays written by leading scholars and new voices in the field discuss how religion in America has transformed over the years, explore its many expressions and meanings, and consider religion's central role in American life. Emphasizing the integration of religion into broader cultural and historical themes, this wide-ranging volume explores the operation of religion in eras of historical change, the diversity of religious experiences, and religion's intersections with American cultural, political, social, racial, gender, and intellectual history. Each chronologically-organized chapter focuses on a specific per
Table of ContentsList of Contributors ix
1 The Centrality, Diversity, and Malleability of American Religion 1
Benjamin E. Park
Part I Colonialisms 7
2 Nemasket/Middleborough and Religious Diversity in Colonial New England 9
Richard J. Boles
3 A View from the Philadelphia Barracks: Religion in the Mid‐Atlantic 25
Rachel Wheeler
4 Africana Religions in Early America 44
Jason R. Young
Part II Establishment 57
5 The Loyalist Church of England Clergy and the Politics of Martyrdom in the American Revolution 59
Peter W. Walker
6 Freeborn Garrettson’s Revolution: Religion and the American War for Independence 71
Christopher Cannon Jones
7 The First Wall of Separation between Church and State: Slavery and Disestablishment in Late‐Eighteenth‐Century Virginia 87
Sarah Barringer Gordon
8 Abraham Remembered: An African Captivity Tale in Early America 102
Jon F. Sensbach
9 The White River Witch‐Hunt and Indigenous Peoples’ Negotiations with Missionaries in the Era of the Early Republic 114
Lori J. Daggar
10 The Shakers and the Perfecting Spirit in Early America 128
Jennifer H. Dorsey
Part III Expansion 137
11 David Walker and Black Prophetic Religion 139
Christopher Cameron
12 “Down with the Convent!”: Anti‐Catholicism and Opposition to Nuns in Antebellum America 150
Cassandra L. Yacovazzi
13 Ecclesiology and the Varieties of Romanticism in American Christianity, 1825–1850 165
Brent S. Sirota
14 Being Haudenosaunee: Seeing Indigenous Ontology Under American Settler Colonialism 179
Christian Gonzales
15 Mormons and Territorial Politics in the American Civil War Era 191
Brent M. Rogers
16 Black Christianity after Emancipation 206
Nicole Myers Turner
Part IV Imperialism 223
17 In Search of a “Working Class Religion”: Religion, Economic Reform, and Social Justice 225
Janine Giordano Drake
18 The Businessman’s Gospel: Making Business Christian 239
Nicole C. Kirk
19 The Prohibition Crusade and American Moral Politics 252
Joseph L. Locke
20 Race, Ethnicity, and Gender Among Early Pentecostals 265
Arlene M. Sanchez‐Walsh
21 Religion and US Federal Indian Policy 276
Sarah Dees
22 “For the Good of Mankind”: Atomic Exceptionalism, Religion, and United States Empire in the Postwar Pacific 287
Carleigh Beriont
Part V Modernity 299
23 The Hate That Hate Produced: Representing Black Religion in the Twentieth Century 301
Vaughn A. Booker
24 The Pentagon Exorcism: 1960s Counter‐Culture and the Occult Revival 317
Joseph P. Laycock
25 Native American Christians and the Varieties of Modern Pentecostalism 329
Angela Tarango
26 Sex, Politics, and the Rise of the New Christian Right 341
Emily Suzanne Johnson
27 Immigration and Religion Among Chinese Americans, 1965 to the Present 355
Melissa May Borja
28 Modern Judaism and the Golden Age of Television 371
Jennifer Caplan
Index 383
