Written with insight and erudition, this is the first complete story of how so many religious movements arose in America and how they affect our politics and culture. Randall Balmer looks at the rise of evangelical groups from Methodists to the Disciples of Christ, charismatic leaders from Mary Baker Eddy to Jimmy Swaggart, and the meanings of beliefs from the "ideal of femininity" to the Apocalypse. He shows us the many forms"some surprising, all illuminating" American evangelical religion has taken since the very beginning of our nation: nineteenth-century spiritualists repeating the Lord's Prayer, Christian Scientists blending Hinduism with positive thinking, and Catholics adopting New Age rituals. Here, too, is revelatory insight into how evangelical movements are always in tune with their times, taking advantage of mass communication and the charisma of their leaders.
In a nation where ninety-four percent of the people believe in God and ninety percent say they pray once a week, Balmer's fascinating book centers on the basic character of our nation - a nation with its roots in Puritan religious dissent, First Amendment protections, and a culture of creative individualism.
This impressionistic collection of essays addresses selected issues of evangelical history from colonial times to the present. Balmer, chair of the religion department at Barnard College of Columbia University, has achieved well-deserved fame for his nuanced explorations of the varieties of American Protestantism, and this book displays some of his strengths. Balmer offers several correctives to the prevailing wisdom about evangelicalism's origins, such as his argument that the European movement of Pietism had as much to do with evangelicalism's development as did English Puritanism. He is at his most provocative and convincing when he suggests that America's religious diversity, enshrined in the First Amendment, has been the source of its remarkable political stability. Unfortunately, the second half of this book is limited by omissions that are surprising given Balmer's previous work: he focuses on the most strident and conservative representatives of the tradition without acknowledging the broader evangelical firmament. It is disappointing that a book purporting to explain "evangelicalism" makes no mention of the pivotal (and politically centrist) role of the National Association of Evangelicals or such publications as Christianity Today, while devoting significant time to right-wingers Jerry Falwell, Pat Robertson and the like. Such emphases only reinforce popular prejudices about the purported ultraconservatism of evangelicals. Nonwhite expressions of evangelicalism are likewise underrepresented. While this book fails to do justice to the breadth and diversity of the evangelical tradition, readers can return to Balmer's previous work Mine Eyes Have Seen the Glory for a candid yet sympathetic representation of the varieties of American evangelicalism. (Nov.) Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.
From Library Journal
These two books together give an excellent overview of the past development, present objectives, and future possibilities of American evangelical Christianity. Balmer (Ann Whitney Olin Professor of religion, Barnard) traces the origins of evangelicalism from its beginnings (in the Second Great Awakening) to the present. He points out its broad popular appeal and sees its greatest strength as its willingness to use the latest communication techniques in each era. He also discusses current political and moral struggles. Looking toward the future, Webber attempts to reconcile evangelicalism with postmodern philosophy. Returning to the traditions of the very early church, the author attempts to show how such ancient paradigms as the "Christus Victor" concept as well as nonverbal communications through symbolism could revitalize the evangelical message in an age moving away from linear, verbal thinking. Both books are well written and readable scholarly works with some interesting insights into this important segment of religion in America. Recommended for academic and public libraries.AC. Robert Nixon, Lafayette, IN Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.
A prize-winning historian and Emmy Award nominee, Randall Balmer is professor of American religious history at Barnard College, Columbia University, and formerly a visiting professor at Yale Divinity School. He has lectured at the Chautauqua Institution, the Commonwealth Club of California and the Smithsonian Associates and to audiences around the country. He has been a visiting professor at Dartmouth College and at Rutgers, Yale, Drew, Northwestern, and Princeton universities. He is adjunct professor of church history at Union Theological Seminary, and he has also been a visiting professor in the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism.
Mr. Balmer, who earned the Ph.D. from Princeton University in 1985, has published widely both in academic and scholarly journals and in the popular press. He is an editor for Christianity Today, and his commentaries on religion in America, distributed by the New York Times Syndicate, have appeared in newspapers across the country. He has published opinion pieces in the Des Moines Register, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, the San Diego Times-Union, the Dallas Morning News, Slate, the Philadelphia Inquirer, New York Newsday, the Albany Times-Union, the Nation and the New York Times. His first book, "A Perfect Babel of Confusion: Dutch Religion and English Culture in the Middle Colonies," won several awards, and his second book, "Mine Eyes Have Seen the Glory: A Journey into the Evangelical Subculture in America," now in its fourth edition, was made into a three-part documentary for PBS. Mr. Balmer was nominated for an Emmy for his script-writing and for hosting that series.
His second documentary, "Crusade: The Life of Billy Graham," was aired on PBS and also appeared in A&E's Biography series. "'In the Beginning': The Creationist Controversy," a two-part documentary on the creation-evolution debate, was first broadcast over PBS in May 1995 and then recut and broadcast in fall 2001.
The author of a dozen books, Mr. Balmer has co-written a history of American Presbyterians, a book on mainline Protestantism, and another book, "Protestantism in America," with Lauren F. Winner. Other books include "Encyclopedia of Evangelicalism," published by Baylor University Press, and "Religion in Twentieth Century America," part of the Religion in American Life series, published by Oxford University Press. A spiritual memoir, "Growing Pains: Learning to Love My Father's Faith," published by Brazos Press in 2001, was named "book of the year" (spirituality) by Christianity Today. More recently, "God in the White House: How Faith Shaped the Presidency from John F. Kennedy to George W. Bush," was released by HarperOne in January 2008, and "The Making of Evangelicalism: From Revivalism to Politics and Beyond" was published by Baylor University Press in 2010.
This review is from: Blessed Assurance: A History of Evangelicalism in America (Hardcover)
After reading this book in one sitting, I am still unclear about its purpose. Readers expecting an historical overview will quickly become mired in long discussions about colonial ethnic politics. Readers expecting more penetrating scholarship will be put off by such gloss-overs as when Balmer writes the socially complex Salem Witch Trials off with a single word: 'misogyny' or when he repeatedly asserts that contemporary hymns inherit significant sexual imagery from the pietistic tradition but never presents an argument to support this assertion. The final two chapters strike me as thinly veiled assaults on Promise Keepers and the Christian Coalition. Justified or not, these attacks take the book out of the realm of history and into the realm of socio-political commentary, thus adding to my confusion about its ultimate purpose.
Balmer does have some interesting things to say, particularly about how American individualism and anti-institutionalism affect American politics and religion. Despite its apparent lack of focus, I enjoyed reading the book and found some useful nuggets related to my current academic project. Students of history, sociology, or religion may find the end-notes a good starting point for more serious study. Those looking for an overview (as the sub-title suggests) should look elsewhere.
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This review is from: Blessed Assurance: A History of Evangelicalism in America (Hardcover)
Maybe its because reading Balmer's "Mine Eyes Have Seen the Glory" was like reading my own mind that I found "Blessed Assurance" a dull read. I got the feeling that the author took several academic essays and made a book out of them. There is still some great information and thought in this book, so it is worth reading. I agree with the author that confessional theology and ideology in general have given way to pragmatism in evangelicalism, but I disagree with his assertion that the general dislike of Hillary Rodham Clinton among Evangelicals is simply because she is a powerful woman. Most evangelicals strongly support powerful women such as Margeret Thatcher, Jean Kirkpatrick, Elizabeth Dole and Laura Schlessinger on ideological grounds. If you've already read "Mine Eyes Have Seen the Glory" then go ahead and read this book..if not start there.
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A nice short (115 text pages!) history of Evangelicalism in America, from the First Great Awakening to the present day. Barnard professor Balmer gives an historian's perspective on different aspects of the Evangelical movement in our national life without placing undue emphasis on the personalities behind the scenes. At the heart of his discussion is the exploration of several key ironies. First, he marvels at the fact that Americans take their religion so seriously (compared to people from other industrialized societies). It is ironic that it is in the United States, with its Constitutional imperative to keep church and state separate, that religious expression is so vibrant, various, and abiding. He attributes the freedom of religion (and the absence of direct governmental support though taxation) as being key to the ability of native-born religions to prosper and grow exponentially. He also finds it ironic that the Fundamentalists who decry scientific modernism in every form have so willingly embraced the new technologies: radio, technology, and the Internet. Another irony he looks at is the current-day Evangelical rejection of feminism. Women are sidelined within Evangelicalism and assigned the sentimentalized role of guardians of morality. This is ironic in light of the important leadership roles women held in the nineteenth century and early twentieth century church-based reform movements.
This book is more handy than it is comprehensive (the endnotes direct the reader to some promising articles and books, but Balmer does not provide even a short bibliography). This book probably won't be very satisfying to serious students of American religion looking for a good introduction to the subject; but the average reader who is curious about religion and public life will find it informative. Don't skip the last chapter, "Vocabulary of Evangelicalism", in which Balmer defines the Evangelical subcategories: Fundamentalism, the Holiness Movement, Pentecostalism, and the Charismatic Movement.
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Alexis de Tocqueville may not have said it first, but he probably said it best: "Upon my arrival in the United States," he wrote in 1835, "the religious aspect of the country was the first thing that struck my attention." Read the first pageBrowse Sample Pages: Front Cover | Table of Contents | First Pages | Index | Back Cover | Surprise Me!
