Customer Reviews

America's God: From Jonathan Edwards to Abraham Lincoln

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What we have here is a remarkably comprehensive examination of the role formal religion played in the United States from the Colonial period through the Civil War. For various reasons, those who formulated the Constitution insisted on a separation of church and state as well as certain checks and balances within the federal government. What I found most interesting in Noll's book is his analysis of the transition from European Puritanism (after almost 200 years) to what could be called American Evangelism (emerging in the late-1790s) which not only allowed but indeed celebrated freedom of religion. Noll's primary subject is the evolution of American theology. He necessarily examines the historical context within which that process occurred. My only quarrel with him, probably more an honest difference of opinion than a complaint, is that he suggests -- or at least assumes -- a homogeneity in America's religious life which seems to be contradicted by what the separation of church and state made possible: religious heterogeneity protected by the Constitution and sustained by the checks and balances. Nonetheless, Noll succeeds brilliantly in explaining how and why religion was central to early-American history.

I came to the book at a result of reading _Jonathan Edwards: A life_ by Marsden. M.Noll like G.Marsden has made my short list of i-must-read-them authors. This is perhaps my 5th book by him i've run across and looked at during my year's study of the issues in the creation-evolution-design(CED) debate. It is, to me, a rather important book for it puts together several issues i have been thinking about but had not related, in particular slavery and evolution being, in the conservative Christian community, similiar issues revolving around the interpretation of Scripture, i intend to follow up this idea. Furthermore, the very systematic way he goes about building a case for the influences of republican ideals on Reformed theology interests me as a very concrete example of the way the cultural matrix determines religious thought. Noll doesn't use the term "American captivity of the Christian Church" but the critical ideas are presented to make such a case.

It's a rather long (450pages) book, with a complex structure and at times detailed arguments, so i find myself wondering to whom to recommend it. Because of it's historical nature and subject material, simply reading the chapters that most interest you is not as good an option as it would be in reading a collection of essays. So if you simply want to get a taste of the book i would read the first 20 or so pages which are the introduction to both the book, how Noll approaches his subject and what he intends to show with this scholarly research. I found chapters 18 and 19 the most interesting: chapter 18 "The 'Bible Alone' and a Reformed, Literal Hermeneutic", and
chapter 19 "The Bible and Slavery", i have several long quotes from these chapters on my extended review at: www.livejournal.com/users/rmwilliamsjr/84610.html
. I think if someone is adequately motivated that the book is accessible to anyone with an interest in history but if your knowledge of the time period or of the theologies discussed is inadequate you will wonder what the fuss is all about, perhaps many secular people will wonder that in any case.

The theme of the book is not hard to summarize. It is that forces of the political life of the US, in particular, republicanism, Whiggery, the demand for equality, had a very important influence on the evolution of each American Christian theology. So too did several cultural influences in the philosophic sphere: common sense moral reasoning via the Scottish enlightenment, an anti-authoritarianism that reached out to all authorities-kings, priests, intellectuals, elites, these too influenced the evolving theology. But the influence was not just a one-way street, but rather in the search for converts the churches became a dominant influence in the culture, not just themselves but the myriad voluntary organizations they gave rise to. So by the Civil War we have a voluntary church, disestablished where those in Europe were not, filled with republicans, certain that their common sense will rightly interpret the Bible, and their morality derived thusly will support a glorious city-on-the-hill that they envisioned for the US. But the devil is in the details, and this is where the book gets really interesting. How do these forces relate? How does theology evolve, why and who is doing what thinking and writing? All done with a scholarly professor's mind, tying together the years of research with a joy and exuberance that is catching. Thanks M. Noll for another most excellent read.......

Noll argues that American Protestantism developed a unique religious perspective due to the combining of three historical idea forces: 1) the theology of the Protestant Reformation, 2) the philosophy of republicanism that arose from and was animated by the American revolution, and 3) the thought of the Scottish common-sense Enlightenment.

Protestantism's ability or willingness to speak the language of these three strands of thought made it the religion of choice and influence in the early republic, as its apologetic and evangelistic discourse echoed contemporary political assumptions and commitments.

But, Noll argues, there was a down-side to this success. The theology of Protestantism was itself changed by the use of this republican and common-sense language. These changes led to a literalistic, individualistic Biblical hermeneutic that made American Protestantism unable to speak definitively on the issue of slavery. North and South used the American Protestant hermeneutic to come to radically different conclusions on the morality of slavery.

This intractability ended in the civil war, which was not just a political crisis, but a theological one as well. The failure of the American Protestant synthesis to resolve the great moral issue of slavery, Noll argues, caused it to lose its social force, and opened the way for the modern era.

Noll's argument is almost overwhelming. He lays an exhaustive groundwork of 18th century religious/philosophical/political thought, moves into early 19th century theological evolution of Calvinism and Methodism, and then builds to a civil-war-era climax of heated, yet impotent, theological dispute. Each section is so rich and deep that challenging Noll on his intermediate conclusions is a daunting task. Yet, Noll's ultimate conclusion is so breathtaking in its implications for non-Calvinist theologies, that a closer look is warranted. A few key observations can be made.

Noll has a tendency to so broadly define his key terms that their essential meaning becomes vague, obscure and highly malleable. The most obvious example of this is his use of the word "republicanism," which Noll uses to cover concepts such as virtu (common good), anti-aristocracy, rule of law, proper use of power, separation of powers, representative government, and most largely, the belief in the reciprocity of personal morality and social-well being. (55-57).

He later adds to this mélange of meaning by distinguishing between civic-humanism republicanism, which was concerned with the public good and order, and liberal republicanism, which emphasized individual self-determination and, according to Noll, economic rights. (210-211). Noll himself acknowledges that "republicanism" was a "multivalent, plastic and often extraordinarily imprecise term." (447) Yet he frequently cites historical writers and speakers in support of his "republicanism" thesis, without attempting to determine which particular meaning of republicanism the historical thinker had in mind.

Noll is also guilty of this in dealing with the "common-sense" Enlightenment. Every reference to human reason, intuition, insight or other source of knowledge other than scripture becomes an example of common sense philosophy, whether the reference is before or after Hutcheson and Reid. The great flexibility of terms is significant, as it gives Noll enormous latitude in his argument to sweep in or out thinkers, ideas and theologies, depending on how they relate to his main thesis.
Perhaps the single most important argument against Noll's larger thesis is Methodism. Pre-revolutionary Methodism had the literalistic, individualistic hermeneutic, along with the "reasonable" view of God, sinners and salvation that Calvinism only moved towards as it was tempered by post-revolution republicanism and common-sense philosophy. (333-334).

To his credit, Noll himself acknowledges the "sting" of the Methodist argument, agreeing that Methodism contained the elements of "American Protestantism" before it actually came to America. (334, 340-41).

But acknowledging the sting is one thing; removing it is another. Noll does not do this, nor really try to. Methodism does seem to raise an unanswered challenge to the charge that it was the "corruptions" of republicanism and common-sense thought that caused Protestant America to turn literalistic, individualistic, and arminian, and to be unable to cope with slavery. Methodism was all these things without republican and common-sense reasoning, and it was, at least initially, forcefully anti-slavery.

Thus, an alternate interpretation to Noll's is that: Biblical protestant Christianity contained the seeds of individuality, freedom and common-sense echoed in republicanism and common-sense thinking, that the intractable nature of the slavery dispute had to do with flawed constitutional rather than theological compromises, and that Southern religious' views were shaped more by the commercial impulses of their founding than by faithfulness to a Biblically-derived hermeneutic. This view is supported, at least in part, by Noll's tracing of the process of theological development: the insights of general revelation (general human experience) interact with, clarify, and even modify, understandings of special revelation (Biblical interpretation), and vice versa.

But further discussion of this would lengthen an already over-long review. Suffice it to say that the majority of American Christian's today would claim allegiance not to Edward's God, or Lincoln's God, or Noll's God-but to the Bible's God, as they read about and understand Him in the Bible for themselves. Which is not a bad legacy for a "permanently damaged" theology. (445).

Noll's comprehensive, even magisterial work, is clearly going to be required reading for everyone on both sides of almost any discussion of religion in the early republic.

Mark Noll wrote this book with the goal of describing how Christian theology gradually became more comfortable using the catchwords and ideas of the American political scene (liberty, freedom, virtue, rights, common sense, reason). Noll shows that even though Calvinist and Arminian and Wesleyan thought may not have radically changed because of American republicanism, the way they were packaged and presented were.

In this book, we begin with the traditional Reformed ideas of Jonathan Edwards. We see how Calvinists in America were quick to side with the colonies in the years leading up to the Revolutionary War. We see how even George Whitefield was somewhat sympathetic toward the colonial cause, though he tended to shy away from preaching politics.

We read of John Wesley's opposition to the American form of government, as he reveals that he has not met one republican who was a good Christian.

We see how Thomas Paine's writings were very influential in promoting reason and common sense, and how this influenced preachers of the faith, such as Timothy Dwight, the new President of Yale, who rumor has it spend six months in 1795 challenging his students to a debate on whether or not the Bible was the Word of God.

We see how Charles Finney incorporated populist American jargon into his revival sermons. We also see his ardent opposition to the American slavery system.

Speaking of slavery, the last 100 pages of the book deals with how people of differings theological persuasions dealt with this divisive issue. Noll seems sorry to report that the pro slavery people did a better job of supporting their view from scripture than the abolitionists did.

Noll also seems ready to blame the Reformed Literal Method of interpreting scripture for influencing people to support the institution of slavery.

There is also an interesting discussion about the theological reflections of Abraham Lincoln. Noll notes that the 16th President of the United States was no evangelical and that he wasn't an active member of any organized church.

In fact, Noll contends that none of the notable founding fathers of the United States were evangelicals.

I recommend this book to history students and those who are interested in the history of Christianity in America. This book is a nice complement to Noll's earlier "History of Christianity in the US and Canada."

But the reason why I give this book 4 stars instead of five is that most of the time, it makes for tedious reading. The sections on the development of Holiness theology after Asbury was engaging, and the section about slavery held my attention as well.

But the bulk of the book is tough, academic reading. You may want to read instead Noll's more accessible book "The Rise of Evangelicalism."

Rev. Marc Axelrod

Mark Noll is quickly becoming one of my favorite authors in the area of American history, and American religious history in particular. America's God would appear to be Noll's magnum opus in this field, and is indeed the culmination of a career's worth of study and scholarly inquiry. In this work, Noll presents a contextual history of American theology in which he argues that by the end of the American Civil War, distinctly American religious, social, and political factors had all worked together to create a distinctly American theology that was much different from anything that had developed in over 1800 years of Christian history.

This theology is the result of synthesizing forces through which the rise of American evangelical Protestantism became aligned with the rise of republican thinking, along with the influence of commonsense moral reasoning that was characteristic of the Scottish school of philosophy. To show how this synthesis works itself out, Noll begins by explaining the ins and outs of theology in Colonial America, particularly as championed by the man who is arguably America's greatest theologian, Jonathan Edwards. Edwards is a worthy starting place because, as Noll describes, he held fast to the old, rigorous Calvinist theology of the American Puritans, while at the same time doing much toward theological innovation and acceptance of the new revivalism that would spread like wildfire through the American colonies. Unfortunately, Edwards would die much too early, and no one of equal caliber would arise to be the balancing voice of a new republic in which thought was opened to "a subtle, yet powerful, move from theology to politics, and intellectual leadership to a shift from the clergy to men of state" (50).

From Edwards and the "collapse of the Puritan canopy," Noll moves on to flesh out the synthesis he introduced in his thesis. In so doing he discusses the rise of republican thought in the American colonies, the close ties that formed between that republicanism and the developing American Christianity, the fascination with commonsense moral philosophy especially among the clergy, and state of American theological development in the era of the American Revolution.

With the synthesis firmly established in American politics and society, Noll describes the evangelization of that synthesis and its growth in the early American republic, and then turns to the Americanization of theology in light of the synthesis. In accomplishing this, he looks at theological developments among American Calvinists, particularly of the Congregational flavor, and the Americanization of Methodism. Theological development then reaches a crisis point in the Civil War with both Northern and Southern Christians using a similar hermeneutic, or framework for biblical interpretation, yet coming to diametrically opposed conclusions in regard to slavery.

Noll concludes the work by retracing his steps and showing how shifts and developments in key terms--justice, virtue, and liberty--proved that American society had forged new ground in linking traditional Protestant Christianity with new ideas of republicanism and commonsense moral reasoning.

Although the argument can get tedious and repetitive at points, this book is carefully argued, thoroughly researched, and extraordinarily comprehensive in its reach. It is sure to be a standard of scholarship in any debate dealing with the place and development of religion in early American society.

This very ambitious and enlightening book is an effort to write a "social history of theology" for American religion between the mid-18th century and the Civil War. Noll chose this starting point and this terminus quite logically. The mid-18th century sees the work of the last and greatest of Puritan theologians, the tremendous Jonathan Edwards, while the Civil War was caused by and ushered in forces that produced a real discontinuity in American life. This book is primarily an effort at synthesis. While Noll has read deeply and productively in a large range of primary sources, it draws even more on a large and impressive array of secondary work in American political, social, intellectual, and religious history. Indeed, some of the pleasures of this book are the excellent footnotes and superb bibliography.
Noll's goal is to set the development of American theology in the broad context of the development of American society in this period. This is far from intelleuctual history construed narrowly. Noll argues convincingly that this historical study of theology will be broadly informative about the ways Americans thought about religion and American life in general. He begins with a nice summary of Puritan thought and other aspects of American Protestant theology, particularly the work of Edwards, as a the background to a century of enormous change. The discussion of Edwards himself is enlightening, particularly as Noll shows the ways in which this essentially backward looking intellectual unexpectedly opened routes to major changes in American theology and religious practice.
Noll then moves on the Revolutionary period and its aftermath. The intellectual and social forces causing and unleashed by the Revolution produce a major change in the nature of American Protestant theology. In contrast to the hierarchial and integralist Reformed thinking dominated by ideas of human sinfullness, American theologians incorporate ideas of republicanism, the Whig dissenting tradition, increased valuation of human moral capacity, and emerging democratic values inspired by the success of the American Revolution. Many, if not all of these ideas come from outside the Reformed tradition, primarily from the dissident Republican tradition of English Whiggery and the Scottish Enlightenment, particularly the writings of the 'Commonsense' school of Scottish thought. By the early Republican period, what emerges is a new and distinctively American theological approach that stresses attachment to republicanism, increased faith in human moral capacity, emphasis on individual experience of holiness, intense emphasis on literal (and 'commonsense') interpretations of scripture, and a sense of Americans as being involved in a new religious and moral experiment.
While the intellectual traffic Noll describes is largely one-way, he is careful not to describe American theologians and religious leaders as passive recipients of new ideas. Quite the opposite, Noll argues very well that during the initial decades of the 19th century, the emergence of a distinctly American form of theology and religious practices played a very large role in the development of a common American identity. For Noll, and this is a very convincing argument, this style of religion was crucial for the development of an American nation. As he points out, the first half of the 19th century was the apogee of American piety and this was accompanied by a strong sense of America as a uniquely religious society, as American institutions as divinely inspired, and Americans as a chosen people.
Noll concludes with an examination of how this consensus faced the great problem of slavery and sectional conflict in the decades prior to the Civil War. Not very successfully is Noll's answer. The emphasis on Biblical literalism in particular confronted many with a choice between condoning slavery or rejecting biblicism as a source of ultimate values. A few radicals, like the abolitionist Garrison, were willing to reject biblicism, but it appears that many more were driven into defense of slavery (particularly Southern theologians) and others (mainly Northern theologians) seem to have suffered a form of intellectual paralysis. Noll asserts as well that the 'commonsense' epistemology that was part of the religious consensus prevented a critical examination the pervasive racism that underlay the debates on slavery and the status of African-Americans. In Noll's view, the 19th century religious consensus did not equip American theologians with the intellectual tools to make sense of the problem. At the same time, the identification of America with the Christian mission and the insistence of both sides that their positions were based on divine sanction increased the intransigence of both sides.
Noll also argues that the early 19th century concensus prepared American theologians poorly to confront the religious and moral implications of the Civil War and by implication, prepared them equally poorly for the intellectual (the impact of Darwin, for example) and social challenges (urbanization, non-Protestant immigrants) that would come with and after the war. Noll describes this accurately as a "theological tragedy."

This is an outstanding work on the development of the American
theocratic tradition from colonial times up through the
Civil War and President Abraham Lincoln. The author develops
the concept of individual freedom and intuitive reasoning.
He traces the Shakers of the 1750s and their need for
Divine Action. The colonists were classic preachers- they
educated large audiences of believers. There were some divisions
in the early American religious tradition. Presbyterian
conservatives feared the theology of the Northeast. The 1850s
brought about a period of intellectual fragmentation.
This period preceeded the Civil War and came just after the
political discourses of Karl Marx. The work develops an
American Methodism consisting of an Apostolic Church as
the engine to salvation through God. Religionists of the
period held important beliefs and convictions which were
debated against the intellectual relevancy of the Civil War
political theorists. This period saw an explosion in the
printing of new Bibles. Lincoln deferred to the will of God.
This work is an important exploration into the American
Religious traditions. As such, it provides entertaining
literature for a wide constituency of readers. i.e.
historians, religious educators, American history enthusiasts
and a host of scholars in many related disciplines

Noll is truly a treasured Christian historian of our times, documenting with his many writings the tracing out of theological influences in our country's development.

Since there is much being said currently concering "the Americanization of Christianity," this massive historical work will add much to that discussion.

Noll's careful trip down memory's lane of the time between the Revolution and the Civil War (Edwards to Lincoln) is thorough, and concentrates on primary sources. This is supplemented of course with secondary sources including the author's opinions sprinkled about.

What he concludes fits the proponderance of historical stream which he has presented, namely that in bringing Christianity to this country, America molded "American Christianity" in the doing.

This is well worth the careful read, then re-read. And has Noll proclaims: read Edwards!

I found AMERICA'S GOD to be excellent scholarship but very heavy reading. You really need to know the subject area from other authors or some of Dr. Noll's other texts before you try to wade through all the detail here. I am working on a history of Christian faith before and during the American Civil War, and I found his chapters on the practice of biblical interpretation during this era added to my knowledge. He also has some sweeping summaries near the end of his text that highlight all the major trends of the era. Worth the time and the cost of reading.

I knew what I wanted in this book and that was primarily as a reference.It is not bedtime reading but with charts and tables of the relevant historical events it is ideal to turn to in order to fill in the blanks in my knowledge and understanding. I was a bit disappointed that my copy arrived without the dustcover shown in the display.However well worth the $11.00. Noll is a trusted historian.Any chance of a dust cover?