From Publishers Weekly
This "social history of theology" in America, from the colonial era through the Civil War, promises to reshape the way we think about American religion, and, indeed, American history. Noll, who teaches history at evangelicalism's premier liberal arts college, Wheaton, charts the changes and developments in American theology, but he does not approach this potentially technical and narrow topic from the fusty perspective of old-fashioned intellectual history. Rather, he embeds theology in American society, showing how, inter alia, printing presses, legislatures and war shaped, and were shaped by, theology. His gauntlet-throwing argument is that American theology (by which he means primarily Protestant theology) is markedly different from European theology. A specifically American evangelicalism, he contends, was forged during the Revolution and early Republic. Noll's story ends with the Civil War, which he claims reveals a "theological tragedy": the contradictions and complications of this distinctly American religion were exposed when, in war, the American project proved wanting. Noll's hints of the "post-Protestant, even post-Christian" post-bellum America will leave readers hoping for a sequel. Although this magnum opus will be of interest primarily to scholars, it could certainly be appreciated by a larger audience. Noll's trademark clarity-both in analysis and in prose-is in evidence here; unlike many academics, he does not make the reader hunt and strain to find (and follow) his argument. Equally obvious is Noll's erudite mastery of everything from Puritan ecclesiology to Scottish moral philosophy. This is, finally, the magisterial work that has long been expected from one of our leading historians.Copyright 2002 Reed Business Information, Inc.


From Library Journal
Noll (Christian thought, Wheaton Coll.) is a well-recognized historian and author of American religious history. Here, he closely examines pre-Civil War American religion, showing that it was a unique synthesis of republicanism, commonsense moral reasoning, and evangelical Christianity. The antebellum United States was a society uniquely preoccupied with biblical religion, but American religion also reflected the prevailing sentiments and political preoccupations of secular society. Noll brings to light some lesser-known theological thinkers while also reexamining the more famous figures of the time, including Harriet Beecher Stowe, Thomas Jefferson, and Jonathan Edwards. Carefully documented and including an excellent bibliography, this insightful volume makes a useful contribution to the study of religion in America. It is not aimed at the general public but is unusually readable for such a scholarly book. Recommended for academic and large public libraries.C. Robert Nixon, M.L.S., Lafayette, INCopyright 2002 Reed Business Information, Inc.


Book Description
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. In the 125 years preceding the outbreak of the Civil War, theology played an extraordinarily important role in American public and private life. Its evolution had a profound impact on America's self-definition. The changes taking place in American theology during this period were marked by heightened spiritual inwardness, a new confidence in individual reason, and an attentiveness to the economic and market realities of Western life. Vividly set in the social and political events of the age, America's God is replete with the figures who made up the early American intellectual landscape, from theologians such as Jonathan Edwards, Nathaniel W. Taylor, William Ellery Channing, and Charles Hodge and religiously inspired writers such as Harriet Beecher Stowe and Catherine Stowe to dominant political leaders of the day like Washington, Jefferson, and Lincoln. The contributions of these thinkers combined with the religious revival of the 1740s, colonial warfare with France, the consuming struggle for independence, and the rise of evangelical Protestantism to form a common intellectual coinage based on a rising republicanism and commonsense principles. As this Christian republicanism affirmed itself, it imbued in dedicated Christians a conviction that the Bible supported their beliefs over those of all others. Tragically, this sense of religious purpose set the stage for the Civil War, as the conviction of Christians both North and South that God was on their side served to deepen a schism that would soon rend the young nation asunder. Mark Noll has given us the definitive history of Christian theology in America from the time of Jonathan Edwards to the presidency of Abraham Lincoln. It is a story of a flexible and creative theological energy that over time forged a guiding national ideology the legacies of which remain with us to this day.

FROM THE PUBLISHER

Often, religious thought in early America is simply equated with the severe Puritanism of Cotton Mather, or it is assumed to be some other product of European church life imported to North America. Yet, by the middle of the nineteenth century, theology in the United States had shifted dramatically away from European traditions associated with the Reformation and had become distinctively American. In America's God, Mark Noll has provided a masterly account of this transition and what it signified for the meaning of Christian theology itself. In the decades preceding the outbreak of the Civil War, American theologians mastered the conceptual languages of republican political thought and commonsense moral reasoning. Because religious thinkers learned to speak these languages so well, Christian theology came to play an extraordinarily important role in American public life. Theology contributed profoundly to the new nation's self-definition and in turn, American ideologies exerted a profound impact on religion. Public thought and religious thought moved together, with a stress on individual freedom, a new confidence in intuitive reasoning capacity, and attention to the market realities of the opening American economy. By setting the era's leading religious figures in their broader political, intellectual, and social contexts, Noll is able to offer fresh interpretations of the era's most significant clerical theologians like Jonathan Edwards, Nathaniel W. Taylor, William Ellery Channing, and Charles Hodge, as well as important lay religious thinkers like Thomas Jefferson, Harriet Beecher Stowe, Catherine Beecher, and Abraham Lincoln. Noll's integrated narrative explains how religious revival in the 1740s, colonial war with France, the struggle for national independence, the tremendous growth of evangelical denominations in the early republic, and rising conflict between North and South all affected the outlook of such intellectual leaders.

While the nation's religious thinkers contributed powerfully to the construction of national culture by asserting a commonsense republicanism informed by Christian faith, this influence also had unintended consequences. In particular, the theologians' deep sense of religious purpose set the stage for the Civil War, as Christians both North and South avowed with great assurance that the Bible could be interpreted only to support their own side in the conflict. The triumph of Christian reasoning in early America was thus also its tragedy. Mark Noll has provided a definitive history of Christian theology from the time of Edwards through the presidency of Lincoln. It is not only a story of flexible and creative theological energy that helped forge a national ideology, but it is also a story of how that ideology worked its influence on American theology, as it continues to do even today.

FROM THE CRITICS

Publishers Weekly

This "social history of theology" in America, from the colonial era through the Civil War, promises to reshape the way we think about American religion, and, indeed, American history. Noll, who teaches history at evangelicalism's premier liberal arts college, Wheaton, charts the changes and developments in American theology, but he does not approach this potentially technical and narrow topic from the fusty perspective of old-fashioned intellectual history. Rather, he embeds theology in American society, showing how, inter alia, printing presses, legislatures and war shaped, and were shaped by, theology. His gauntlet-throwing argument is that American theology (by which he means primarily Protestant theology) is markedly different from European theology. A specifically American evangelicalism, he contends, was forged during the Revolution and early Republic. Noll's story ends with the Civil War, which he claims reveals a "theological tragedy": the contradictions and complications of this distinctly American religion were exposed when, in war, the American project proved wanting. Noll's hints of the "post-Protestant, even post-Christian" post-bellum America will leave readers hoping for a sequel. Although this magnum opus will be of interest primarily to scholars, it could certainly be appreciated by a larger audience. Noll's trademark clarity-both in analysis and in prose-is in evidence here; unlike many academics, he does not make the reader hunt and strain to find (and follow) his argument. Equally obvious is Noll's erudite mastery of everything from Puritan ecclesiology to Scottish moral philosophy. This is, finally, the magisterial work that has long been expected from one of our leading historians. (Oct.)

Library Journal