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Awash in a Sea of Faith: Christianizing the American People (Studies in Cultural History)

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Awash in a Sea of Faith is a book of its time. The intellectual and historiographical context of Jon Butler's revisionist history of religion in America is found in the camp that Jack Greene, Keith Thomas and David Hall have been preparing for some time now. This trend, which Butler perfects, is marked by a strong skepticism toward the influence of Puritanism in American culture, toward the major claims of American Protestantism, toward the basic dogmas of traditional American religious history and by a desire for historical and geographical egalitarianism. A pervasive skepticism is not the only component at the foundation of Butler's approach. His historical logic is partially guided by a continuous dialectic between the sacred and secular, elite and popular, the barren colonial landscape and the rise of sacred structures, orthodoxy and occultism. Considering the large and long religious historiographies in North America, Butler's approach starts with profoundly untraditional premises and assumptions. It should not surprise us, then, that Butler would arrive to untraditional conclusions. After all that is what revisionism is- to change the way we perceive history and to challenge some rusty assumptions. His main argument, that the Christianization of America came through a process of syncretism, would have not only alarmed Protestant leaders in the 19th century, but would also have worried religious historians in the 20th century. In his presentation of European Protestantism and its journey toward the America continent, Butler emphasizes occultism as a transforming force in religion and society. In doing this, he ignores the strength of the anti-idolatry Protestant movements that "cleaned out" many churches, the close relation between modern empiricism and Protestantism with its emphasis on the "Biblical evidence," and the influence of effective preaching on parishioners.

Considering that the word "holocaust" in the post World Wars is related with the Nazi's massacre of the Jews, Butler demonizes American Protestantism for its missionary zeal and for its emphasis on civil obedience among the African Americans. By doing this, Butler completely disregards the humanitarian impulse in their behalf, which was equally syncretic. And by assuming that African American ideology was secular before 1760 he contradicts his conclusion that "Slavery's destruction of African religious systems in America . . . . constituted cultural robbery. . . . of the most vicious sort." If we still ignore this contradiction, his analysis of the African-American mass movement into Protestant Christianity cannot explain how would the unsophisticated African religious systems could have been a match to Protestantism and to the complex life in American Slavery.

In revising the Great Awakenings Butler take luster out of these movements by emphasizing its conservatism and downplaying its egalitarianism. But here Butler's assumption falters in logic. He presumes that increase social status for the clergy and increment in church authority always meant conservatism. In the American religious context, where pluralism was the main characteristic, more leveled status to clergy, and more authority to non-state-churches (dissidents) meant egalitarianism- particularly compared with the European religious experience. Furthermore, by indicating that itinerant ministers opposed settled ministers selectively, he is not only ignoring their significance, but is also ignoring social forces that would naturally motivate the Itinerants to seek support and sympathy from some settled ministers while ignoring others. Curiously, Butler's analysis of American revivalism is distinguished by a robust defense to the Anglican Church, and a downplaying of dissent's strength and growth-, which is also a revision in traditional American religious history.

Throughout his entire book, but especially on the Antebellum Christianity, Butler always defines the practice of Alchemy, the curiosity for the gothic and the secret, and the believing in dreams and miracles as indication of spiritualism and witchcraft. Defining these religious experiences, which some orthodox leaders, have seen with suspicious eyes, may belie Butler's position of standardization-a secularized Protestant mainstream. At this point the reader would wonder why Butler includes the practice of alchemy with the believing in miracles, since science (to mention only two) was not as clearly define and not as evenly spread as it was a century later, and miracles have always been regarded as part of Christian beliefs. It may be that Butler needs this combination to highlight his point of Protestants' lack of purity and imprecision, which would have been impossible otherwise. Perhaps inexactitude is inbuilt in certain aspects of the study since Christianity is itself syncretic, thus invalidating any model of Christianity detached from "its" culture and historical setting.

Butler provides a historical view of American religion that attaches less importance to Puritanism as the major force in shaping the nation's religion. He emphasizes the influence of the role of authoritarian and coercive religious practices that established and advanced religious causes in America. Additionally, Butler follows the emergence of a religious eclecticism throughout the colonies. The movement of religious influence was confluential with political and economic developments to shape the colonies. The state-church religion that primarily shaped 17th and 18th century colonial America held power based on its coercion, territoriality and public ceremonialism. He asserts that the religion of the colonists originated primarily in Europe and is incomprehensible apart from understanding its European influences. Paradoxically, Butler writes that the most enduring patterns of American religion were also created and not merely inherited.

Butler's chapters make the points that religious practice was not an organic evolution in the colonies. The governments were actively involved in dictating religious practices of their citizens. Dissenting beliefs and behavior were not welcome to the early colonies with the exception of Rhode Island and Pennsylvania which adopted more lenient libertine laws concerning religion. Religious practice was not standard throughout the colonies nor was it universal among the residents of the colonies. Butler also elaborates on the presence of magic and the occult in the New World of North America. Christians were militant against non-Christian spirituality, occult or magic. These were deemed to occur through diabolical means and were treated as such by the young governments and were later dismissed by children of the Enlightenment.

Butler's treatment of religion and slavery reveals the contradicting tension between the doctrines of Christianity and the practice of slavery. Religion was central to the argument for or against slavery. The practices of religion in the slaveholding colonies had to deal with whether to evangelize and educate the slaves and then whether to allow whites and blacks to worship together. Butler discusses the ways that whites manipulated the Scriptures to accommodate slavery. He illustrates the effect that the slavery argument had on compromising the Christian integrity of churches, as they defended and facilitated slavery

American revivalism was not a single denominational movement that sparked Christianity in the colonies. It was but another stream of religion besides the state church tradition of the establishmentarian Anglican and Congregationalists traditions. The American Revolution brought a shift in the religious landscape as Anglican ministers who supported the crown fled and as a new patriotism competed with religion or merged with it. Following the Revolution, American church leaders renewed efforts to stamp Christian values on a new independent society as a priority for the success of the infant republic.

The religious laws in Virginia illustrate Butler's thesis that religion in the colonies was initially a government sponsored institution. This is not the religious freedom one usually associates with the New World. In the 1670's it was the church-state alliance that provided the stability and authority of the Anglican Church in Virginia. The Virginia Assembly mandated Anglican churches in every county and dictated the processes for vestry elections and taxation on behalf of the church. As a result, Anglican churches, benefiting from compulsory taxes, accounted for every one of the colony's new churches constructed between 1680 and 1720.

What also becomes apparent in Butler's writing is that it was the Deist language of the Declaration of Independence that laid the foundation of religious freedom in the United States rather than the influence of the various Christian movements. It was the secular Revolution and not the religious ties of the colonists that bound the colonies together. Butler argues against historians' claims that evangelicalism was behind the sentiments and boldness behind the revolution. He claims that the Declaration of Independence provides clear-cut evidence of the secondary and supportive role that religion and Christianity played in creating and solidifying the revolutionary struggle.

In the latter chapters of his book, Butler describes the religious movements that largely resemble what we see in the United States today. Following the American Revolution, the acts of the new country allowed for religious freedom and expression. This freedom from coercion and establishment led to new denominations and even new religions like Unitarianism and Mormonism springing up.

Butler points out a new syncretism between popular supernaturalism and Christianity. The interest in spiritualism and desire for supernatural experience led to the popularity of groups like the Swedenborgs, Freemasons, Mesmerists and other spiritualists. Butler highlights four institutional expressions of the religious climate of the new country. These were Methodism, Mormonism, Afro-American Christianity and spiritualism. Butler asserts that region, class and race all constrained the religious tendencies of Americans.

Butler also asserts that denominations gained adherents through coercion and authority. He suggests that denominations "manipulated" systems of denominational meetings to further establish power and influence. Denominations shaped evangelization and the development of new congregations, often through the use of the itinerant preacher. According to Butler, denominations used books and publications to influence and expand authority.

Butler also points to a plethora of reform societies and mostly Christian colleges as contributing to the influence of religion on the society. He assigns a coercive nature to the reform societies that also used print publication to gain audiences and influence. According to Butler, immigrants and indigenous groups contributed greatly to the religious pluralism of the country. This change along with religious renewal, revival and schism brought forth hosts of new groups and new worshippers to the landscape.

For Butler, coercion is the main ingredient of American religious tradition. He seems to think the Christian history is void of God-initiated or lay-initiated growth. This might seem a harsh assessment of his perspective, but I conclude that it is only the censored spiritual movements like occult, voodoo, African rituals and natural theology that Butler thinks are "grass-root" developments. Actual growth of Christianity is due to institutional-hierarchical manipulation and coercion. Even his treatment of the development of Black churches is clouded by Butler's assertion that these were havens of African pagan-ritual as much as Christianity. The expansion of Christianity westward seems to be deemed nothing better than an entrepreneurial movement to claim new markets; the idea of the Christian desire for evangelization for the sake of saving the lost seems foreign to Butler's historical assessment. His concluding treatment of Abraham Lincoln is indicative of his worldview revealed in this book. Lincoln could not possibly have been a sincere Christian; after all, look at what he said here or there.

Butler's book does open a new window to the religious history of American. I think he fails to look into the heart of Christianity in general but sees it from the outside and judges it according to his own worldview and inclinations. His willingness to assess the history from a view other than the normal chronological path is helpful to see the patterns of religious growth and transformations. His book definitely provides me with a more elucidated perspective of our pluralistic landscape today.

Jon Butler's Awash in a Sea of Faith turns many portions of both George M. Marsden's "Jonathan Edwards: A Life" and Perry Miller's "Errand Into the Wilderness" upside down. Instead of placing Puritanism at the center of American civilization, as both Marsden and Miller do, Butler claims that Puritanism was only one part of a complex American religious landscape. Butler also finds that American Christianity did not begin with the Puritans of New England or Virginia settlers, but rather it began in the eighteenth century and was peaking by the time of the Civil War. Butler challenges the conventional interpretations of America's religious history and gives his readers cause to reconsider what has generally been accepted.

Butler begins by describing the religious heritage that colonists brought with them from Europe. A low level of Christian understanding and practice characterized Europe. This religious apathy was then transferred to colonial America and the development of Christianity was a slow process. The Virginia and Maryland colonies experienced a lack of religious participation and in Puritan New England, Butler points out, by the 1680s the decline in church membership was real not imaginary. This is not to say that religion was nowhere to be found in colonial America, but rather colonists turned to other forms of practice. Butler treats magic and the occult seriously, using witchcraft, magic, and astrology to reveal the extent and importance of non-Christian belief in America, even though it was prohibited by law. Therefore, Butler examines a component of American religion that is frequently ignored by the mainstream, Christian only, historiography.

According to Butler, American society and religion underwent enormous change between 1680 and 1760. The state church tradition, led by Anglicans, reasserted authority to such a degree that Butler contends this period marked the beginning of American Christianity. It was visible through a surge in church construction, and dissenter established elaborate denominational institutions. Here, Butler departs from the accepted prominence of New Puritanism and transfers it to the Church of England resurgence in Virginia and elsewhere. At the same time, Butler explains, enslaved Africans were having their religious practices destroyed. The only religious alternative for slaves, therefore, was to turn to Christianity. Even though their systems were destroyed, slaves kept individual practices alive and a collective Christianity began to emerge among slaves that became more Afro-American after 1800 than it was before. Here, Butler really challenges general assumptions. As white Americans turned back to the Church of England for inspiration, slaves turned back to Africa. Butler also links the rise of slave ownership with the development of Christianity and shows how the two impacted one another. Butler shows how English Anglicans shaped the slaveholding ethic, emphasizing black obedience and white paternalism, which became important for rationalizing slavery in America.

Butler views the American Revolution as a secular event. Soldiers showed little enthusiasm for religion and indifference was common in the camps. After independence, church and denominational leaders renewed efforts to make the United States a Christian nation. This involved an attack on Deism that was "suspiciously commonplace among the new nation's political and social leaders" (p. 218). As a result, by 1800 American Christianity was expanding as it never had before. Butler explains the rise of religious pluralism by looking at Methodists, Mormons, Afro-American Christianity, and spiritualism. Religion became more voluntary. By the time of the Civil War, America was becoming a "spiritual hothouse" according to Butler, with a variety of religious traditions taking hold.

By departing from the Puritan domination in America's religious history, Butler brings relief from the Puritan stranglehold. There are advantages to this. Butler steps away from Jonathan Edwards and Ralph Waldo Emerson and gives voice to others that have been overlooked in Puritan-centered studies; such as slave narratives. Butler compares the number of churches and churchgoers and finds that the Puritans were in the minority. Butler also shows that religion continued to grow in American even after the Puritans had departed from the scene. On the other hand, there are disadvantages to this approach. Even though Puritans were in the minority, they left a formal written theology that served to influence generations that followed. The new nation borrowed ideas from the Puritans. Butler, by comparing the rise of slave ownership with that of Christianity, makes a dangerous analogy. Did Christianity cause racism or were American Christians racists? It seems that racism had other origins besides religion. Nevertheless, Butler has given us reason to look outside of Puritan culture to the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries to help explain America's religious history.

In his book Awash in a Sea of Faith: Christianizing the American People, award-winning author Jon Butler attempts to go where few scholars have before. Diving deep into the early history of the United States, Butler provides the reader with a thoroughly detailed revisionist view of what many nowadays assume was a nation founded on strict Christian principles. Beginning his time-line with the United States' pre-colonial European heritage and extending all the way to the beginnings of the post-Civil War "spiritual hothouse," the author argues that the religious history of this particular country is one not of core Christian values but of plurality, magic and "popular religion". For Butler, "the term popular religion in this context means no less and no more than the religious behavior of laypeople. It is defined by its clientele rather than by its theology, by its actors rather than by their acts" (4). Butler's narrative places less emphasis on the oft-extolled Puritanism, and more importance on what he calls "quasi-Christian or non-Christian religious beliefs" (2).

Beginning with a chapter entitled "The European Religious Heritage," Butler gives readers the historical background necessary for understanding where the religious diversity in the U.S. discussed later in the book originated. As he does in subsequent chapters, the author uses statistics and anecdotes to illustrate his point; while we like to think that it was good Christian men and women who established the United States, in reality the early settlers came from a diverse religious environment that blended church practices with the occult and saw a "fragile adherence to Christianity" among the laity (36). With that in mind, the rest of the book then goes on to present a history that many of us never knew we never knew.

The remainder of the book proceeds to analyze specific themes and occurrences in the time and space of the early United States. Butler discusses the awkward localism in belief and religious practice that arose throughout the colonies. He uses documented evidence to show that not only were the laity not models of Christian behavior, but often times the preachers themselves were found to be "wicked and profane" (46). Butler also discusses the occult, specifically accounts of witchcraft within the colonies, and later in the book the rise of spiritualism. Especially interesting is his chapter on what he calls the "African Spiritual Holocaust," discussing how the African slaves religion partially survived captivity and evolved within the context of the mostly Christian south. Butler does not completely ignore the developing Christian denominations, however, and rounds out book with a discussion of their ever-growing power and presence during this time frame.

It is an understatement to say that Awash in a Sea of Faith is full of previously unmentioned details. Perhaps it is also not an understatement to say that these details often become tedious for the reader to the extent that the main point of the book is lost. As a reference or source for a specific topic (such as astrology practiced in the colonies), Awash in a Sea of Faith is full of intellectual anecdotes that give the reader a better understanding of what was really going on. As a narrative concerning early United States religious history, the details are almost too much. Is it really necessary to spend almost four pages discussing Accomack County parish priest Thomas Teackle's personal library (48-49, 77-78), when a simple note pointing to a difference source would have sufficed? Such details are intriguing at first and serve well to prove his thesis, but a few chapters in they seem to be belaboring the point.

At the beginning of the book, Butler states that he intends to use a "substantive" definition of religion rather than a functional one. As he puts it, this definition "describes what religion is rather than what religion does" (3). However, at times Butler seems to stray from this definition as he describes the use of magic and divination as a way for individuals to (quoting Thomas Pickering) "resolve, direct and helpe" (22). It would seem that Butler is not content with just describing religious practices, instead he wants to help the reader understand why it is these people did what they did and in a way justifies these actions that break so sharply with most the narrative that most histories tell.

Butler very much accomplishes the goal he established at the beginning of Awash in a Sea of Faith. He reveals a lesser-known side of history, one that in many ways runs contrary to popular belief about the beginnings of the United States. Butler implicitly demonstrates that the religious chaos, diversity of thought and pluralism present early in the country's history do not undermine the budding democracy, but instead seem to enhance and encourage it. As other scholars have noted in reviews before me, Butler does an excellent job of revealing this lack of homogenization in early United States religious life, in many ways refuting those who wax nostalgic for the good ol' days when the U.S. was a godly, "Christian" nation.

While Awash in a Sea of Faith may contain enough statistics to keep a sociologist happy and enough amusing anecdotes to keep the non-historian entertained, it is a very dense historical book aimed towards those who have an interest in the subject. As a source for little known religious facts and practices during the time period, it is excellent find. Jon Butler's book in many ways calls for a re-opening of history, a re-investigation of those early U.S. "Christians", and a re-interpretation of the United States' slightly checkered religious past.

Jon Butler begins his book with a most inadequate definition of religion, and so the entire book starts off askew, and goes increasingly off course. He defines religion as the "belief in and resort to superhuman powers, sometimes beings, that determine the course of natural and human events." p.3 Surprisingly, Butler does not even footnote this definition, so he must have made it up out of thin air, and it shows. Christianity and Judaism are most emphatically not merely "supernatural," so Butler exhibits a fundamental lack of knowledge of religion, as opposed to his good understanding of American history. Judaism is by far mostly an ethical religion, about the do's and don't of human behavior, including a sharp social justice edge. Christianity is all about God who took on human flesh, became incarnate in Jesus Christ, so Jesus' earthly behavior can hardly be called just 'suupernatural.' Butler's definition adheres to the enlightenment/materialistic/scientific method-only bias of the last 300 years.

Many words in this book show Butler's animus against religion. Concepts and words taken together, Butler shows himself to be of the contemporary secularist party, and then projects that bias back into American history. Even the first word of the title, "awash," doesn't have a pleasant sound to it. The first paragraph of p. 1 is a litany of all that went wrong in U.S. religion in the 1980's, thereby prejudicing the reader. In the 2nd paragraph on p. 1, Butler writes of the nation's "persistent belief in miracles;" of course, persistent is a pejorative, as if that belief in miracles had no right to continue to exist. On p. 2, Butler says that he will show that a rising Christianity was key to the institution of slavery; talk about a slur! On p. 3, Butler says that he will treat Judaism and Christianity on a par with magic and the occult, another slap in the face. On p. 4, Butler writes about "much cant about lay authority," cant never has a positive connotation.

On p. 257, Butler chapter 9 "Christian power in the American Republic; such "power" is meant to sound ominous. He adds that between 1790 and 1860, Americans "witnessed the decline but not the thorough uprooting of the colonial state church pattern," with the hint that this "thorough uprooting" would have been a good thing. On p. 259, Butler states that : "Progress toward ending the colonial establishment was even slower in the northern colonies." Progress? Who says that is progress; only one who has a conclusion in mind before he writes the book. The fact that several states had and continued to have for decades established churches proves per se that no one at that time thought such an arrangement was unconstitutional, because everyone believed in the 10th amendment, which gives to the fedgov only powers expressed in the Constitution. On p. 289, Butler mockingly bashes Toqueville's thesis about America and religion. Next, he sets up Lincoln as the icon, because he seemed to have no specific denomination.

Those on the left of the political spectrum should not buy this book if they want to broaden their understanding of the origins of the USA and religion, in other words, be liberal and open minded.

Believers in Christianity and orthodox Judaism should not buy this book, unless they want a laugh.

I say 'Point & Counterpoint' because two themes play harmoniously yet irrationally in Jon Butler's treatment of Christian history. I appreciate the small amounts of 'truth' that he has exposed such as the religious pluralism of 16th-17th century England and America, the origins of occult in contemporary American culture, and man's inhumanity to man, including the hypocrisy, doubt, and unbelief among Christians at that time which resulted in some of that inhumanity. If he would have stayed with this 'melody', I would have stayed with his line of reasoning.

HOWEVER, he did not. Instead, he 'harmonized' very loudly so as to drown out the melody with a somewhat anachronistic view of culture, a strong bias against not just Christian authority, but in my opinion any authority, and his underlying, singular intent seems to be to set up Christianity as evil and the reason for all our social ills. He is a relativist who speaks absolutely. He offers judgments of Christianity, perhaps because it became 'organized' in its history; but he offers no comments on the flaws in 'unorganized' traditional religions or occult, as if these if allowed to thrive would bring everlasting peace and continuity. To that I say, "Who says??" I don't care how well he's documented his research. His treatment is so filled with his own opinions and conclusions which in my opinion are NOT universal absolutes.

If people think his is original thought, I say it is a very, very old story, that of Christian-bashing. When I reached the first paragraph of his chapter on slavery, I threw the book in the trash. I've debated whether or not to retrieve it, but it's just not worth the aggravation. He has done a great deal of mischief in writing this book. Too bad, because as I said, the melody itself was a fine one.

Thoughtful and scholarly, yet readable, history of religion in US history and its ups and downs.