American Christianity: The Continuing Revolution

by Stephen Cox

Overview

Christianity takes an astonishing variety of forms in America, from churches that cherish traditional modes of worship to evangelical churches and fellowships, Pentecostal churches, social-action churches, megachurches, and apocalyptic churches—congregations ministering to believers of diverse ethnicities, social classes, and sexual orientations. Nor is this diversity a recent phenomenon, despite many Americans’ nostalgia for an undeviating “faith of our fathers” in the days of yore. Rather, as Stephen Cox argues in this thought-provoking book, American Christianity is a revolution that is always happening, and always needs to happen. The old-time religion always has to be made new, and that is what Americans have been doing throughout their history.

American Christianity is an engaging book, wide ranging and well informed, in touch with the living reality of America’s diverse traditions and with the surprising ways in which they have developed. Radical and unpredictable change, Cox argues, is one of the few dependable features of Christianity in America. He explores how both the Catholic Church and the mainline Protestant churches have evolved in ways that would make them seem alien to their adherents in past centuries. He traces the rise of uniquely American movements, from the Mormons to the Seventh-day Adventists and Jehovah’s Witnesses, and brings to life the vivid personalities—Aimee Semple McPherson, Billy Sunday, and many others—who have taken the gospel to the masses. He sheds new light on such issues as American Christians’ intense but constantly changing political involvements, their controversial revisions in the style and substance of worship, and their chronic expectation that God is about to intervene conclusively in human life. Asserting that “a church that doesn’t promise new beginnings can never prosper in America,“ Cox demonstrates that American Christianity must be seen not as a sociological phenomenon but as the ever-changing story of individual people seeking their own connections with God, constantly reinventing their religion, making it more volatile, more colorful, and more fascinating.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780292758605
Publisher:	University of Texas Press
Publication date:	02/24/2022
Series:	Discovering America
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	270
File size:	20 MB
Note:	This product may take a few minutes to download.

About the Author

Stephen Cox is Professor of Literature and Director of the Humanities Program at the University of California, San Diego. He is the author of many books, including The New Testament and Literature and The Big House: Image and Reality of the American Prison.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments

Chapter 1. Ruins or Foundations?

Chapter 2. Finding Oil

Chapter 3. The Mainstream and the Cataracts

Chapter 4. The Making of Revival

Chapter 5. Stars That Rise and Set

Chapter 6. The Low Wall of Separation

Chapter 7. Millions Now Living Will Never Die

Chapter 8. Hierarchies and Revolutions

Chapter 9. Sermons in Stone

Chapter 10. The Mortal Word

Chapter 11. Unfinished Cathedrals

What People are Saying About This

Paul A. Cantor

"In this wide-ranging, well-written, and often witty book, Stephen Cox tells the tale of Christianity in America as a distinctively American phenomenon, and that means as a manifestation of freedom. Cox stresses the spontaneity and sheer unpredictability of religious developments in America. Refusing to explain religious phenomena in terms of non-religious causes, Cox looks at concrete examples of Christian movements and their leadership, and tries to understand them as they understood themselves. The result is an absorbing narrative, rich in anecdotal detail and enlivened by Cox’s feel for both the sublime and the ridiculous —all told in a supple and engaging prose. This book is cultural history at its best— an analysis that never deals with theoretical abstractions but instead focuses on the individual actors and actions that stand at the heart of all human history."

author of The Invisible Hand in Popular Culture Paul A. Cantor

"In this wide-ranging, well-written, and often witty book, Stephen Cox tells the tale of Christianity in America as a distinctively American phenomenon, and that means as a manifestation of freedom. Cox stresses the spontaneity and sheer unpredictability of religious developments in America. Refusing to explain religious phenomena in terms of non-religious causes, Cox looks at concrete examples of Christian movements and their leadership, and tries to understand them as they understood themselves. The result is an absorbing narrative, rich in anecdotal detail and enlivened by Cox’s feel for both the sublime and the ridiculous —all told in a supple and engaging prose. This book is cultural history at its best— an analysis that never deals with theoretical abstractions but instead focuses on the individual actors and actions that stand at the heart of all human history."

Editorial Reviews

"American Christianity is an engaging book, wide ranging and well informed. In touch with the living reality of America’s diverse traditions and with the surprising ways in which they have developed.

McCormick Messenger

"“American Christianity is an engaging book, wide ranging and well informed. In touch with the living reality of America’s diverse traditions and with the surprising ways in which they have developed.”"

McCormick Messenger - Bob Edmonds

2014-03-04
An optimistic, nonpolemical snapshot of the plethora of Christian denominations in America. "Something strange always happens" in American churches, Cox (Literature and Humanities/Univ. of California, San Diego; Changing and Remaining: A History of All Saints' Church, San Diego, 2011, etc.) writes in this broad yet colloquial study. Churches want to harken back to the past, in tradition or orthodoxy, but continually strain toward revolution and renewal—hence the vitality of both the still-unfinished largest cathedral in the world, St. John the Divine in New York City, and one of most humble structures, the Taylor Prayer Chapel, in Farmersburg, Ind., a tiny church that is also modeled after a medieval cathedral. Both churches marvelously offer "a place where Christian experience can happen." This is the spirit that Cox traces throughout his work, as messy and disorganized as it may be: Since the breakdown of the state church system in the 18th century, adherence to a church has grown from 17 percent in 1776 to 62 percent in 1980, with the gains going less to mainline Protestant denominations (Episcopal, Methodist) and more to smaller, evangelical sects like Pentecostals, Southern Baptists and "born-again believers." Socioeconomic factors can only go so deep, writes the author—e.g., explaining the huge growth of black churches after the Civil War or the devastating effects of the Depression. Cox sees the religious landscape of America inhabited by a rich history of eccentrics, inspired by the revolutionary words of Scripture, who "found oil" among legions of believers. "The wall of separation" between church and state as identified by Thomas Jefferson did not, however, keep churches from assuming a political mantle, as evidenced in their important lobbying for abolition, women's equality and prohibition. An uncomplicated, evenhanded work. From hymns to architecture to personalities, American Christianity is simply "unpredictable."

Kirkus Reviews