Description
Book SynopsisHistorian Eric R. Schlereth places religious conflict at the center of early American political culture. He shows ordinary Americans—both faithful believers and Christianity''s staunchest critics—struggling with questions about the meaning of tolerance and the limits of religious freedom. In doing so, he casts new light on the ways Americans reconciled their varied religious beliefs with political change at a formative moment in the nation''s cultural life.
After the American Revolution, citizens of the new nation felt no guarantee that they would avoid the mire of religious and political conflict that had gripped much of Europe for three centuries. Debates thus erupted in the new United States about how or even if long-standing religious beliefs, institutions, and traditions could be accommodated within a new republican political order that encouraged suspicion of inherited traditions. Public life in the period included contentious arguments over the best way to en
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"[An Age of Infidels] offers anyone curious about the vexed relationship between American religion and politics a compelling explanation of how that relationship became established." * Journal of the Early Republic *
"[Schlereth] has lucidly described the strategies and practices through which early Americans sought to bring religious convictions, Christians and deist, to bear on politics and culture." * American Historical Review *
"Fresh and insightful. . . . [An Age of Infidels] should remain required reading on church-state relations, and religion in the early republic, for quite some time." * Journal of Church and State *
"In this important study of deism and free enquiry in the early United States, Eric Schlereth shows how religious "infidelity," whose specter had once terrified Americans, became a living, breathing-and not altogether terrifying-reality. Both broad in conception and judicious in its use of evidence, Schlereth's rigorous account of infidelity and religious controversy offers an exciting and original interpretation of early American cultural politics." * Chris Beneke, Bentley University *
Table of Contents
Introduction. Remaking Religion
Chapter 1. Boundaries
Chapter 2. America's Deist Future
Chapter 3. Citizen Deists
Chapter 4. Partisan Religious Truths
Chapter 5. America's Deist Past
Chapter 6. Free Enquiry
Chapter 7. Political Religion, Political Irreligion
Epilogue. The Origins of American Cultural Politics
Notes
Index
Acknowledgments
