History of American Religion, 1865 to Present will consider the varieties of American religious experience while keeping in mind the importance of pluralism in the U.S. context.
Growing up in cosmopolitan Beirut, Lebanon we lived in a popular neighborhood where a microcosm made up of the representatives of the officially recognized eighteen denominations lived side by side with their churches, mosques and the single synagogue of the Jewish quarter. Among this multitude, I also remember, we had a gathering place, located in [...]
Author Grant Tweed states in his introduction that the one concept that can definte the Pentecostal movement’s success, more than any other, is the “ability to hold two seemingly incompatible impulses in productive tension.” (Pg 10) Whether one calls it primative vs. pragmatic, supernatural vs. tangible, there is a difficult, yet symbiotic, tension between these [...]
My discussion prompt for the preface, introduction, and first three chapters of Grant Wacker’s Heaven Below will focus on its structure and thesis, and attempt to locate it historiographically. The book is a cultural history of a religious movement that also draws on social history. It is determinedly focused on the daily experiences [...]
The final four chapters in Grant Wacker’s “Heaven Below: Early Pentecostals and American Culture” are extraordinarily important. These final four chapters ["Society", "Nation", "War", "Destiny"] effectively illustrate how the Pentecostals evolved with the changing historical events around them, particularly in the early twentieth century with the outbreak of World War One, the Roaring Twenties [...]
Diane Winston’s book “Red Hot & Righteous”: The Urban Religion of the Salvation Army” is a well-written, thorough examination of the history (rise and transformation) of the Salvation Army, and its enduring impact upon the American landscape by pioneering a dynamic relationship between sectarian religion and a pluralistic society. [...]
As with every era in history, the period of 1885-1950 had its share of social and cultural upheavals, challenges, and changes in the
United States. The black population was beginning its tireless pursuit for equal treatment in the nation and women were beginning to debate whether they believed in the Victorian values of family and [...]
Diane Winston’s Red-Hot and Righteous: The Urban Religion of The Salvation Army illustrated the origins and evolution of the Salvation Army from a grassroots organization to becoming one of the most dominant charities in America by the 1950s. As Winston indicated in the introduction, the Salvationists transformed its own movement from a grassroots evangelical [...]
The Salvation Army was a laudable organization for its dedication, as Strong noted, to “saving the masses”(125). By the turn of the century, these masses had expanded in size and diversity through constant immigration. As an urban-focused group the Salvation Army played a key role in shaping the concepts of urban social work.
Diane Winston outlines [...]
I have interspersed three pods of questions in this blog entry. Feel free to respond to one or more of them as you see fit.
In chapter five of Red-Hot and Righteous, Diane Winston begins by explaining the cooperation between the Salvation Army, the US military, and Paramount Pictures in producing a movie, Fires of Faith. [...]
    As I read Righteous Discontent, I found it to be a compelling and useful work in that it cast light upon a little-recognized story of self-help and “uplift”. My one complaint with the book is that, in my opinion, it could have done without most of the first chapter. While the subsequent chapters were [...]