The Lost Soul of American Protestantism
I have continued reading books concerning the history of Christianity; namely Christianity in America. Mostly for my own personal curiosity, secondly so that I might have some sort of contextualization concerning the faith which embraced me when I embraced it. Lastly, because I see myself someday as possibly functioning in a role which would require significant understanding of American Christianity.
After just finishing Marsden's Understanding Fundamentalism and Evangelicalism I have, under the recommendation of a Lutheran Pastor whom I don't even know, begun reading D. G. Hart's The Lost Soul of American Protestantism.
He begins with a lengthy introduction laying out the thesis of the book. Here Hart begins to make his case for the inadequate view of American Christianity's history as simply being traced as the typical double vein of Fundamentalists/Conservative Evangelicals pitted against Liberal/Mainline Denominational Protestants. No doubt this view of American Christianity is legitimate to a degree, but Hart is going to argue it is unsatisfactory since it ignores the "confessional" types who were neither Fundamentalist or Liberal, nor were they evangelical. Typical American Christian history deals only with the happenings of what Hart calls "Conversionists/Pietists/Evangelicals". These are the ones, beginning with Jonathan Edwards and ending with Billy Graham, who are responsible in part for developing a specifically "American" Christianity in which Christianity in only valid because of its practicality to life. The "confessional" type differs from the "conversionist" type on several levels however, since conversionism won out in the playing field, much historical inquiry has ignored those who were neither "liberals," "fundamentalists," nor "evangelicals."
The thesis of his book is stated generally as such: To recover "the history of confessional Protestantism and examining its significance for American religion and society." (pg. xxix)
I have continued reading books concerning the history of Christianity; namely Christianity in America. Mostly for my own personal curiosity, secondly so that I might have some sort of contextualization concerning the faith which embraced me when I embraced it. Lastly, because I see myself someday as possibly functioning in a role which would require significant understanding of American Christianity.
After just finishing Marsden's Understanding Fundamentalism and Evangelicalism I have, under the recommendation of a Lutheran Pastor whom I don't even know, begun reading D. G. Hart's The Lost Soul of American Protestantism.
He begins with a lengthy introduction laying out the thesis of the book. Here Hart begins to make his case for the inadequate view of American Christianity's history as simply being traced as the typical double vein of Fundamentalists/Conservative Evangelicals pitted against Liberal/Mainline Denominational Protestants. No doubt this view of American Christianity is legitimate to a degree, but Hart is going to argue it is unsatisfactory since it ignores the "confessional" types who were neither Fundamentalist or Liberal, nor were they evangelical. Typical American Christian history deals only with the happenings of what Hart calls "Conversionists/Pietists/Evangelicals". These are the ones, beginning with Jonathan Edwards and ending with Billy Graham, who are responsible in part for developing a specifically "American" Christianity in which Christianity in only valid because of its practicality to life. The "confessional" type differs from the "conversionist" type on several levels however, since conversionism won out in the playing field, much historical inquiry has ignored those who were neither "liberals," "fundamentalists," nor "evangelicals."
The thesis of his book is stated generally as such: To recover "the history of confessional Protestantism and examining its significance for American religion and society." (pg. xxix)