418 - Religion In America

Religion In America
By Winthrop S. Hudson
447 pp. New York Charles Scribner's Sons, 1965. $7.95.

The task of synthesizing the history of religion in America is Herculean-like making a garden from cut flowers whose roots lie elsewhere. The late William W. Sweet succeeded better than his predecessors by seeking a synthesis in environmental factors, notably political and economic forces. For several decades his patterns of interpretation were extensively used and widely reproduced. But the rise of intellectual history among general historians, and of renewed theological interest among church historians, has forced the search for synthesis on a basis of cultural and theological ideas rather than of social forces alone.

How well has Professor Hudson succeeded in developing a synthesis more in accord with present ideals and needs? If this reviewer construes him correctly, he offers a "trunk-line" of American religion: Puritanism-Evangelicalism-Liberalism: Each of these three categories construed broadly and comprehensively, so that in succession they cut a central and wide swath through American history. But there are large and important elements of American religious experience-many of them extensively treated in the book-which do not fall within this organizing synthesis and could not properly be subordinated to it. Perhaps a wider basis of synthesis is needed than this Puritan-Evangelical-Liberal mainline. If Sweet's political and economic factors seem too external today to perform the synthesizing task, an answer may lie in American intellectual and cultural history, which also cuts across all religious and denominational lines. The chapters of the Princeton University volumes on Religion in American Life, though composite and necessarily fragmentary, perhaps point to a direction in which a much larger and more comprehensive synthesis than has yet been attained may be achieved.

Leaving aside the problem of synthesizing American religious history, which has never been adequately solved, Hudson has written an excellent

419 - Religion In America

book. Throughout he emphasizes the dynamism of American life. Thus among the characteristics distinctive of American religion he points to the greater influence of laymen, the weakened sense of tradition, decentralization of church polity, a disproportionate number of religious "radicals" among immigrants, a sense of great expectancy. As in his previous writings, Hudson is inclined to see the ideals of democracy (i.e., representative government) and implications of later religious liberty in the earliest Puritans. He plays down the importance of the frontier and rejects extreme contrasts between the eastern and western United States, but he extends "the era of the frontier" down to the admission of Arizona and New Mexico to the Union in 1912. The book is notably irenic in spirit and fair in judgment, but it is at times a little harsh toward High Church Anglicanism. The work of the S.P.G. is "proselytizing," but the rapid growth of Baptists, Presbyterians and other Evangelicals, even at the expense of rivals, appears highly commendable. Bishop Hobart is viewed quite unsympathetically.

Evangelicalism receives full and excellent treatment. The author, a recognized authority on the history of Puritanism, finds it impossible to document precisely the transition from Puritanism to revivalism. How the Great Awakening suddenly became widespread is a "mystery." The frontier does not explain it, nor was it, he rightly insists, a revolt against Calvinism. He suggests, as a clue, the sense of need created by the breakdown of the parish system. The "Edwardseans" supplied theological content to this emerging Evangelicalism, but the movement as a whole "was much more a mood and an emphasis than a theological system." This Evangelicalism dominated American Protestantism, reaching "a crest of influence in the latter half of the nineteenth century before it began to ebb away." The Evangelical movement increasingly emphasized human initiative, stimulated mutual understanding among Protestants, and inspired the voluntary societies, notable for their missionary outreach and reforming zeal.

The treatment of Reconstruction makes good use of the latest scholarship. The author emphasizes continuing sectional differences between North and South in the period since Reconstruction. In the volume as a whole, the South perhaps receives less than its proportionate share of treatment. One of the best of many fine strands in this work is that which deals with the religious conception of American destiny. Successive stages of the story reappear frequently and together constitute a treatment of the topic from early Puritan days to the present. The author also exposes the dangers of connection between this emphasis and culture religion, and sounds a sharp warning against perils to the church of excessive acculturation.

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The treatment of social Christianity contains useful material. More than most American church historians, Hudson repeatedly notes American indebtedness to Europe and calls attention to European forerunners of American social Christianity. He points to needed research concerning the attitude of the churches to American agrarian unrest. He calls attention to early cooperation in reform between revivalists and social gospel men. He reminds the reader that prohibition was supported by progressives and that it had urban as well as rural advocates. But the social gospel did not capture the workingman, and World War I was followed by well-known reaction against social idealism.

Excellent footnotes suggest to the reader further materials, both primary and secondary. Though there is no bibliography, an ample index includes the names of the numerous authors cited. The book has breadth of range, freshness and accuracy of scholarship, sharpness of detail, clarity and interest of writing. If the study does not offer a single synthesizing frame, it is filled with interesting and suggestive ideas. The author has placed us all in his debt by this valuable work.

Lefferts A. Loetscher
Princeton Theological Seminary
Princeton, New Jersey