Mission and Menace: Four Centuries of American Religious Zeal / Edition 1

by Robert Jewett

Overview

Observing that Abraham Lincoln once described the United Statesas an "almost chosen nation," Robert Jewett offers a critical surveyof the history of America's self-understanding as a nation enjoyingboth divine blessing and a God-given vocation as a "city on a hill."

From beginnings at Jamestown, Jewett shows, the Americanmythology of divine mission has decisively shaped both domesticand foreign policies of the developing nation, and it remains one ofthe most important forces affecting the United States' role in theworld today. Chapters include:

Colonial Beginnings: The City Set Upon a Hill

The Second Great Awakening, Manifest Destiny, Reform andReaction

From the Civil Rights Movement to the Vietnam War

The Political Distortion of Religion: TriumphantFundamentalism, Impeachment, and the War against Terrorismand more.

Written in the tradition of Howard Zinn's A People's History of theUnited States, the volume includes black and white illustrations.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780800662844
Publisher:	1517 Media
Publication date:	02/18/2008
Edition description:	New Edition
Pages:	384
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 1.00(d)

About the Author

Robert Jewett is theologian-in-residence at St. Mark"s United Methodist Church in Lincoln, Nebraska. Previously he served asguest professor of New Testament at the University of Heidelberg and professor of New Testament interpretation emeritus at Garrett-Evangelical Theological Seminary. He is the author of numerous books, both scholarly and popular, in New Testament studies and American religious and cultural history, including Romans: A Short Commentary (Fortress, 2013),Romans (Hermeneia; Fortress, 2008); Mission and Menace: Four Centuries of American Religious Zeal (Fortress, 2008);The Thessalonian Correspondence (Foundations and Facets; Fortress, 1986); Paul the Apostle to America: Cultural Trends and Pauline Scholarship (1994); St. Paul at the Movies: The Apostle"s Dialogue with American Culture (1993); and St. Paul Returns to the Movies: Triumph Over Shame (1998).

Table of Contents

Chronology, 1607-2007     ix
Illustrations     xiii
Acknowledgments     xv
Introduction     1
Shaping Zealous Trajectories
Colonial Beginnings: The Millennial City Set upon a Hill     11
God's New Israel: The Theocratic Experiment and Its Deflation     28
The Great Awakening: Prelude to the American Revolution     44
The Post-Millennial Republic: The "New Order of the Ages"     67
The Second Great Awakening: New Denominations, Reforms, and the Pre-Millennial Reaction     87
Millennial Crises and the Rise of Fundamentalism
The Civil War: A Conflict over the Bible and Millennial Mission     115
Reconstruction and Racial Violence: Religion in Cultural Captivity     132
The Gilded Age and Millennial Destiny: War, Colonialism, and the Social Gospel     144
New Diversity: Emerging Fundamentalism and the World's Parliament of Religion     161
Three Millennial Crusades: Disappointment, the Red Scare, and the Crisis of Fundamentalism     182
Culture over Christ: Acculturation and the Decline of Mainline Churches     203
The Menace of Triumphant Civil Religion
Depression and World War: The Rise of Religious Replacement and Escapism     225
Cold War Religion: The Celebration of One Nation under God     245
Zealous NationalismOverwhelms Prophetic Realism: Civil Rights, Vietnam, and the Conservative Backlash     267
The Political Distortion of Religion: Impeachment and the War against Terrorism     279
Conclusion     293
Notes     305
Works Cited     335
Index of Names and Events     359