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Practicing Protestants: Histories of Christian Life in America, 1630--1965 (Lived Religions) PDF

376 Pages·2006·4.53 MB·English
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Practicing Protestants l i v e d r e l i g i o n s Series Editors David D. Hall and Robert A. Orsi Practicing Protestants Histories of Christian Life in America, 1630–1965 Edited by l a u r i e f . m a f f l y - k i p p l e i g h e . s c h m i d t m a r k va l e r i The Johns Hopkins University Press Baltimore This book has been brought to publication with the generous assistance of the Lilly Endowment. © 2006 The Johns Hopkins University Press All rights reserved. Published 2006 Printed in the United States of America on acid-free paper 2 4 6 8 9 7 5 3 1 The Johns Hopkins University Press 2715 North Charles Street Baltimore, Maryland 21218-4363 www.press.jhu.edu Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Practicing Protestants : histories of Christian life in America, 1630–1965 / edited by Laurie F. Maffly-Kipp, Leigh E. Schmidt, and Mark Valeri. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. isbn 0-8018-8361-X (hardcover : alk. paper) — isbn 0-8018-8362-8 (pbk. : alk. paper) 1. United States—Church history. 2. Christianity and culture—United States—History. I. Maffly-Kipp, Laurie F., 1960– II. Schmidt, Leigh Eric. III. Valeri, Mark R. br515.p76 2006 280⬘.40973—dc22 2005032063 A catalog record for this book is available from the British Library. c o n t e n t s Preface vii Acknowledgments ix Introduction 1 part i puritan and evangelical practice in new england, 1630–1800 1 Writing as a Protestant Practice: Devotional Diaries in Early New England 19 catherine a. brekus 2 Forgiveness: From the Puritans to Jonathan Edwards 35 mark valeri part i i mission, nation, and christian practice, 1820–1940 3 Assembling Bodies and Souls: Missionary Practices on the Pacific Frontier 51 laurie f. maffly-kipp 4 Honoring Elders: Practices of Sagacity and Deference in Ojibwe Christianity 77 michael d. mcnally 5 Nurturing Religious Nationalism: Korean Americans in Hawaii 100 david k. yoo 6 Re-Forming the Church: Preservation, Renewal, and Restoration in American Christian Architecture in California 118 roberto lint sagarena vi Contents part i i i devotional practices and modern predicaments, 1880–1920 7 “Acting Faith”: Practices of Religious Healing in Late-Nineteenth-Century Protestantism 137 heather d. curtis 8 Observing the Lives of the Saints: Sanctification as Practice in the Church of God in Christ 159 anthea d. butler 9 The Practice of Prayer in a Modern Age: Liberals, Fundamentalists, and Prayer in the Early Twentieth Century 177 rick ostrander part iv liberal protestants and universalizing practices, 1850–1965 10 Cosmopolitan Piety: Sympathy, Comparative Religions, and Nineteenth-Century Liberalism 199 leigh e. schmidt 11 The Practice of Dance for the Future of Christianity: “Eurythmic Worship” in New York’s Roaring Twenties 222 tisa j. wenger 12 Taste Cultures: The Visual Practice of Liberal Protestantism, 1940–1965 250 sally m. promey Notes 295 List of Contributors 351 Index 353 p r e f a c e The History of American Christian Practice Project, a three-year collaborative en- terprise under the sponsorship of the Lilly Endowment, set out to confront Christian practice as an aspect of American religious history. The twelve principal researchers for the project faced far more knots than we could ever hope to untangle in a single volume of essays, and there seemed to be no end of loops and twists in the threads we were following. Take one example: Jonathan Edwards’s congregants in the early 1730s thought they knew, quite concretely, what Christian forgiveness meant. Forgiveness, in the Puritan mode, entailed a specific set of social obligations enacted within the context of a local church community. One was to forgive debts, to acknowledge faults, and to speak cordially. Adopting those practices, it was believed, eventually would in- still the appropriate feelings of love within the heart of the individual. By the mid- eighteenth century, as colonial congregations increasingly came into contact with a world of transatlantic mercantile, cultural, and intellectual exchange that expanded their social and economic relations, understanding forgiveness as a discrete set of ob- ligations to the local community became less viable. How could one forgive those be- yond the bounds of the congregation—say, the native captors of women taken in war- fare? Did God’s imperative to forgive extend to those who were outside the immediate church, and, if so, how could such actions be demonstrated to others? If forgiveness appears likely to be a particularly wooly element of Christian prac- tice, consider the dilemmas involved in the seemingly more precise practice of prayer. In the early twentieth century, Protestant liberals and conservatives alike grappled with the “problem” of prayer: when, where, and how to do it. People did not seem to be praying as much as they once had, lamented Reuben Torrey and other leaders; and when they did pray, they altered the familiar evangelical forms in favor of ones more congruent with “modern” life. Prayer meetings were being shuffled off to more con- venient hours, and families did not have the time they once had to engage in collec- tive morning and evening prayers. Could people instead pray on their own during the viii Preface commute to work or find a spare moment amid the bustle of a hectic office? In turn, did those sorts of prayers, timed for modern efficiency, necessarily demonstrate an at- tenuation of religious feeling or a decline of family piety? Christian practice in America has always presented a series of quandaries rather than a stable set of ingredients. As these opening examples suggest, even those actions often considered quintessentially a part of the Christian life—sacrament, prayer, rec- onciliation—open up a host of questions, concerns, conflicts, and anxieties. These cases also suggest the importance of exploring practice and practices as historical is- sues. Were people really praying less in the 1920s, or was the practice of prayer taking different forms? Did self-help maxims, daily affirmations, and meditative techniques replace more familiar habits of petitionary prayer? Except for the obviously impor- tant historical work of exploring the continuities and discontinuities of religious practice, American historians have only occasionally made this province their own. With the notable exceptions of collections edited by David Hall, Colleen McDannell, and James M. O’Toole, there has thus far been only scattered attention to the con- 1 ception of practice in the historiography of American religion. The History of Amer- ican Christian Practice Project brings questions about practice into more sustained historical and theoretical focus. This collection of essays represents the central publishing venture of a larger col- laborative enterprise that has involved more than twenty historians of American re- ligion, practical theologians, and pastors in an exploration of the significance and use- fulness of “practice talk”as a tool for understanding American Protestant life. The core working group of twelve historians, whose essays compose this volume, met five times between June 2002 and October 2004. In two of those meetings, we added to our group three practical theologians and pastors, Kathleen Cahalan, Robert Langworthy, and Craig Townsend. At various points along the way, we enjoyed the careful advice and formal commentary of Dorothy Bass, Richard Wightman Fox, Charles Ham- brick-Stowe, and Albert Raboteau. At our first group meeting, in June 2002, we ben- efited from the presence of Edwin Gaustad; and at our third, in June 2003, from the participation of David Hall.At every meeting we had the assistance of Kathryn Lofton, at the time a doctoral student in American religious history, who added another crit- ical voice to our discussions. Almost all of these scholars participated in our culmi- nating conference, held at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in October 2004, where Grant Wacker served as the keynote speaker. Thus, the volume is the fruit of an extended series of conversations, reflections, and debates—an exchange that we hope proves to be ongoing and of widening reach. a c k n o w l e d g m e n t s This book would not have been possible without the generous support of the Lilly Endowment, Inc., as well as the sage counsel of those associated with it, particularly Christopher Coble, who shepherded the project from start to finish. Also, our home institutions—Princeton University, the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and Union Theological Seminary of Virginia—supported our cross-institutional col- laboration, as did numerous people at each school, including Louis Weeks and Daryl Sasser at Union, Anita Kline and Barbara Bermel at Princeton, and Hope Toscher at Chapel Hill. The acumen and energy of Kathryn Lofton, the chief coordinator of our meetings and exchanges, kept us moving and lifted our spirits at every turn. Crucial to the shaping of our group endeavor were several senior historians who advised us at various points and in different capacities along the way: Dorothy Bass, Richard Wightman Fox, David D. Hall, Charles Hambrick-Stowe, Albert Raboteau, Ann Taves, and Grant Wacker. In our effort to forge a larger exchange between histo- rians of American religion and theologians of Christian practice, we found wonder- ful interlocutors in Kathleen Cahalan, Robert Langworthy, and Craig Townsend. We have been very fortunate to work with Henry Tom, Juliana McCarthy, and Anne Whitmore, our editors at Johns Hopkins University Press. We are also grateful to have David Hall and Robert Orsi as editors of the larger series in which this vol- ume appears. Above all, we are appreciative of the rich collegiality that this project has fostered. It has been a source of great satisfaction for us to work over the last four years with such a fine group of scholars, all of whom we now count as good friends. We trust that at least one practice has been fully vindicated by our research: namely, the practice of convening scholars to think collaboratively about their shared areas of inquiry.

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Most books are stored in the elastic cloud where traffic is expensive. For this reason, we have a limit on daily download.