The Democratization of American Christianity

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Yale University Press, Jan 23, 1991 - Religion - 326 pages

A provocative reassessment of religion and culture in the early days of the American republic


"The so-called Second Great Awakening was the shaping epoch of American Protestantism, and this book is the most important study of it ever published."—James Turner, Journal of Interdisciplinary History

 

Winner of the John Hope Franklin Publication Prize, the Society for Historians of the Early American Republic book prize, and the Albert C. Outler Prize


In this provocative reassessment of religion and culture in the early days of the American republic, Nathan O. Hatch argues that during this period American Christianity was democratized and common people became powerful actors on the religious scene. Hatch examines five distinct traditions or mass movements that emerged early in the nineteenth century—the Christian movement, Methodism, the Baptist movement, the black churches, and the Mormons—showing how all offered compelling visions of individual potential and collective aspiration to the unschooled and unsophisticated.

From inside the book

Contents

Upward Aspiration and Democratic Dissent
193
The Recurring Populist
210
A Sampling of Anticlerical
227
Notes
244
Index
305
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About the author (1991)

Nathan O. Hatch is president of Wake Forest University. 

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