A History of Christianity in the United States and Canada

by Mark A. Noll

Overview

Broad in scope yet written from a well-defined perspective, this book provides a superb narrative survey of Christian churches, institutions, and interactions with culture in the United States and Canada from the colonial period to the present.

One of the foremost authorities on the history of Christianity in North America, Mark Noll has intentionally made this history a comprehensive, balanced one-volume work: the book covers the great variety of Christian experience throughout all of North American history, sensitively encompassing the story of many contrasting groups and regions—elite and common people, whites and blacks, Catholics and Protestants, men and women, North and South. Adding a personal dimension to the narrative, numerous biographical profiles further enrich Noll's multifaceted exploration of major movements and events.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780802806512
Publisher:	Eerdmans, William B. Publishing Company
Publication date:	08/11/1992
Pages:	592
Product dimensions:	6.25(w) x 9.25(h) x 1.23(d)

About the Author

Mark A. Noll is the Francis A. McAnaney Professor Emeritus of History at the University of Notre Dame. His other books include A History of Christianity in the United States and Canada, America's God: From Jonathan Edwards to Abraham Lincoln, and Turning Points: Decisive Moments in the History of Christianity.

Table of Contents

I. BEGINNINGS

1. European Expansion and Catholic Settlement

Roman Catholicism in New Spain
Catholic Missions in New France
The Emergence of a French-Catholic Society
Roman Catholics in Maryland

2. The English Reformation and the Puritans

Puritanism in England
New World Settlements


Virginia
Plymouth

Puritan Life and Faith in America


The Puritan Way
Troubles

Massachusetts and Virginia: A Comparison
3. Other Beginnings

Alternatives to the Puritans


Baptists in Early America
Roger Williams
Anne Hutchinson

The Mosaic Takes Shape: Protestants outside of New England


The Church of England
The Quakers and Pennsylvania
Presbyterians
The Reformed and Continental Pietists
Early Protestants in Canada

Native Americans and Slaves


Native Americans
Slaves

II. AMERICANIZATION

4. A Renewal of Piety, 1700-1750

The Early Eighteenth Century


Solomon Stoddard and Cotton Mather
Regional Developments

The Great Awakening


George Whitefield
Jonathan Edwards

In the Wake of Revivals


Regional Effects
The Great Awakening and the Baptists
From English Puritanism to American Evangelicalism
Preaching to the Under Classes

The Awakening and America
5. The Churches in the Revolution

The Christian Patriots


Republicanism
Contributions to the Cause

Loyalists


Canadian Loyalism: Quebec
Canadian Loyalism: The Maritimes
Canadian Loyalism: Upper Canada

Pacifists
The Faith of the Founders
The Religious Problem of Slavery in the American Revolution
6. The Revolution in the Churches

The Separation of Church and State


Interpreting the First Amendment

A New Era of Populist Democracy


No Creed but the Bible
The Effect of Populist Democracy

Theology in an American Key


The American Christian Enlightenment
Theological Developments

Countervailing Trends

III. THE "PROTESTANT CENTURY"

7. Evangelical Mobilization

The Second Great Awakening


The West
The East
First and Second Awakenings Compared

Exemplary Leaders


Francis Asbury and the Rise of Methodism
Charles Finney and Modern Revivalism

Mobilization of the Baptists
A New Visibility for Women


Phoebe Palmer and the Appeal of Holiness
Public Life

A Missionary Vision


The Ambiguous Mission to the Cherokees

Interpretations
8. "Outsiders"

Millerites and Mormons


The Adventism of William Miller
The New Religion of Joseph Smith

Alternative Communities
African Americans Organize Their Own Churches


Richard Allen and the African Methodist Episcopal Church
Organization North, Perseverance South

Roman Catholics


John Carroll and an American Catholic Church
Protestant Opposition
Catholic Women

Immigrant Protestants


The Lutherans

9. "Evangelical America," 1800-1865

In Foreign Eyes
Protestant Life in "Christian America"


Converting the West and the South
Mass Communications and Popular Thought

Education
A Flourishing of Protestant Theology


The Heirs of Calvinism
Mediating Theologies

Politics
10. His Dominion: "Christian Canada"

The Canadian Political Context
The Catholic Story


The Triumph of Ultramontanism in Quebec
Catholicism beyond Quebec and Protestant-Catholic Hostility
The Meaning of Catholic-Protestant Tension

The Protestant Story in the Atlantic Provinces
The Protestant Story in Ontario and the West


A Confluence of Opposites
Between Britain and America
Adjustments after 1867
The Rise and Limits of Protestant Ecclesiastical Nationalism

11. The Last Years of "Protestant America," 1865-1918

Evangelists at Home and Abroad


Dwight L. Moody
Missionary Entrepreneurs
American Protestants to the Ends of the Earth

The Moral Reform of Society


Prohibition

The Culmination of Protestant Politics


William Jennings Bryan
Woodrow Wilson

The Cities and the Social Gospel
The Ecumenical Movement and World War I

IV. THE EMERGENCE OF RELIGIOUS PLURALISM

12. The Civil War

The Civil War as a Religious War


Christian Activity during the Conflict
Abraham Lincoln

The Civil War as Turning Point


Abolition
Opening the West
Republican Virtue
Civil Religion

13. Non-White, Non-Protestant

African Americans in Control of Their Destinies


Denominational Initiatives
Other Institutions
Church and Society

The Orthodox in America
Catholics


An Immigrant Church
Journey to Rome: Isaac Hecker
"Americanism"
Growing Maturity

A Changing Landscape
14. Protestantism Shaken

Intellectual Challenges


The New University
Historical Criticism of Scripture
Moderates, Mediators, and the Unexpected

The Disruption of Protestant Theology


Modernism
Fundamentalism and the Rise of Dispensational Theology
Holiness

Fundamentalist-Modernist Controversy
Pentecostalism: A New Departure
15. Legacies of "Christian America"

A Puritan-Evangelical Politics, with Alternatives


Alternatives: Separation, Natural Law, Canada

America's Book, America's Icon: The Bible


Printing, Translating, and Distributing
A Cultural Force

A Literature Preoccupied with God


Literature of Christian Moral Purpose
Christianity in the Literary Canon

V. WILDERNESS ONCE AGAIN?

16. Turbulent Decades

Legacies of the 1920s
Hard Times, 1929-1939
War and Its Aftermath, 1939-1960
Revolutions and Counterrevolutions, 1960-1980


The Second Vatican Council
A Quiet Revolution
Charismatic Renewal
State in Church

The Reagan Era and Beyond
17. Trends

The Christian Map in the 1920s
Rises and Declines since World War II


Mostly White Denominations
Black Denominations
Canada
Regional Strengths

General Trends
18. Communities

European Ethnic Enclaves


Dutch Protestants
Lutherans

The Southern Baptist Convention
Hispanics
African Americans
19. Personalities, Leaders, Exemplars

Personalities, Leaders


Martin Luther King, Jr.
Bishop Fulton J. Sheen
Billy Graham

A Public Role for Women


Aimee Semple McPherson
Dorothy Day
Mahalia Jackson
Flannery O'Connor
Catherine Marshall

Personalities of Theology


Reinhold Niebuhr
H. Richard Niebuhr

20. American Christianity, Christianity in America

Twentieth-Century Missions
Ecumenism
Making Sense of the Story


Black and White
The United States and Canada
The Varying Pace (and Diverse Meanings) of Secularization

Wilderness Once Again?

Bibliography of General Works
Index

Editorial Reviews

The Journal of American History
"An excellent study that will help historians appreciate the importance of Christianity in the history of the United States and Canada."

From the Publisher

An excellent study that will help historians appreciate the importance of Christianity in the history of the United States and Canada.

Journal of American History

Noll has written a very readable textbook. Though dealing with all denominations, it is centered on the rise and decline of Protestant dominance in the United States. Starting from colonial pluralism, Noll shows how Christianity was Americanized by the ``great awakening,'' the Revolution, and other influences. Evangelical America, he says, began to erode during the Civil War and declined further under the influence of modernism and the social gospel. Examining various trends and leaders, Noll predicts that the 20th century will witness a return to pluralism. Though a little weak on the past 40 years, his book is an excellent overview of American church history. Space is given to minority influences, and hymns are used to show the common worshiper's viewpoint. Especially useful and unique is his section on the church in Canada, which provides great comparison value. Recommended for libraries needing a good, basic history of the American church.-- C. Robert Nixon, MLS, Lafayette, Ind.

Library Journal