A City Upon a Hill: How Sermons Changed the Course of American History [Hardcover]

Larry Witham (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: August 7, 2007

Pivotal moments in U.S. history are indelibly marked by the sermons of the nation's greatest orators. America's Puritan founder John Winthrop preached about "a city upon a hill", a phrase echoed more than three centuries later by President Ronald Reagan in his farewell address to the nation; Abraham Lincoln's two greatest speeches have been called "sermons on the mount"; and Martin Luther King Jr.'s "I Have a Dream" oration influenced a generation and changed history. From colonial times to the present, the sermon has motivated Americans to fight wars as well as fight for peace. Mighty speeches have called for the abolition of slavery and for the prohibition of alcohol. They have stirred conscientious objectors and demonstrators for the rights of the unborn. Sermons have provoked the mob mentality of witch hunts and blacklists, but they have also stirred activists in the women's and civil rights movements. The sermon has defined America at every step of its history, inspiring great acts of courage and comforting us in times of terror. A City Upon a Hill tells the story of these powerful words and how they shaped the destiny of a nation.

A City Upon a Hill includes the story of Robert Hunt, the first preacher to brave the dangerous sea voyage to Jamestown; Jonathan Mayhew's "most seditious sermon ever delivered," which incited Boston's Stamp Act riots in 1765; early calls for abolition and "Captain-Preacher Nat" Turner's bloody slave revolt of 1831; Henry Ward Beecher's sermon at Fort Sumter on the day of Lincoln's assassination; tent revivalist/prohibitionist Billy Sunday's "booze sermon"; the challenging words of Martin Luther King Jr., which inspired the civil rights movement; Billy Graham's moving speeches as "America's pastor" and spiritual advisor to multiple U.S. presidents; and Jerry Falwell's legacy of changing the way America does politics.

A City Upon a Hill provides a history of the United States as seen through the lens of the preached words—Protestant, Catholic, and Jewish—that inspired independence, constitutional amendments, and mili-tary victories, and also stirred our worst prejudices, selfish materialism, and stubborn divisiveness—all in the name of God.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

It takes a nonspecialist to write this sort of history nowadays. Journalist Witham has most recently been writing popular studies of science, Darwinism and creationism in the U.S. Here he narrates the history of preaching in America, taking as his title John Winthrop's famous sermonic description to his fellow Puritans on their way to New England. Except, as Witham points out, no Puritan thought it remarkable to describe the desired commonwealth in biblical terms at the time. Witham knows when to pick up the narrative pace and when to slow down for delicious detail: for example, evangelist George Whitefield was the colonies' first celebrity, and the last few decades have been marked by activist preaching across the ideological spectrum. Historians and theologians will find points with which to quibble. Yet Witham succeeds in lifting up Roman Catholic, women, evangelical and black preachers alongside the mainstay white males. He also resists the temptation to sermonize himself until the last few pages, where he asks whether American preachers' longstanding comfort with assigning good to our motives and evil to others' is more dualistic and Manichaean than Christian. But by then he's done the good historical work necessary for the one hard question to linger with the reader. (Aug.)
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From Booklist

Witham's highly readable history of the American sermon strongly bolsters the contention that words change minds and alter the course of events. He discusses the great sermons, from John Winthrop's "city on a hill" homily to the Gettysburg Address to Martin Luther King Jr.'s "I have a dream" speech. He persuasively argues that sermons and religious rhetoric have accompanied turning points in American history and that the Bible is fundamental to understanding American culture. He discusses great preachers through the ages—Jonathan Edwards, George Whitefield, Henry Ward Beecher, Dwight L. Moody, Billy Graham—and their impact on America; the Great Awakening and subsequent religious revivals; presidential addresses; radio and TV preachers, such as Charles Coughlin, Fulton J. Sheen, and Norman Vincent Peale; and the present-day role of the sermon as a vehicle of American civil religion. Although church and state have gone their separate ways in the modern era, Witham asserts that the sermon continues to resonate with and to shape the nation today. Sawyers, June

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Product Details

• Reading level: Ages 18 and up
  
• Hardcover: 336 pages
• Publisher: HarperOne; First Edition edition (August 7, 2007)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0060854278
• ISBN-13: 978-0060854270
• Product Dimensions: 12 x 9.1 x 1.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,684,870 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Who Influences Whom?, March 19, 2009

By 

James Drake "Pastor Jim" (WV) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: A City Upon a Hill: How Sermons Changed the Course of American History (Paperback)

Have sermons really changed the course of American history? That is the thesis Larry Witham attempts to prove in this book.

It is a fascinating study as he moves the reader from colonial times through the 20th century. In less than 300 pages, the author justly encapsulates sermonic trends from Robert Hunt, proclaimed as Jamestown's "good pastor" by Captain John Smith, to Martin Luther King, Jr. and Jerry Falwell. Each defining period of American history is marked by new preachers and their new messages. The question is; did the sermons change the culture, or did the culture change the messages? Who influenced whom?

Witham attempts to make the case that the sermons influenced culture enough to induce change. I was struck with the opposite impression. Other than the period extending from the colonial Puritans to the Great Awakening, each preacher cited seemed to either be responding to or a product of the zeitgeist.

Revolutionary preachers fomented the masses as America prepared to gain independence from England. Preachers used their pulpits to equate America's western frontier with the Old Testament Promised Land during the days of Manifest Destiny. Preachers from the North and the South preached conflicting messages of abolition and justification of slavery. The industrial age, sweat shops and urban squalor saw pulpits proclaiming the social gospel and movements for civic change. Wartime brought with it patriotic preaching while peacetime saw the prosperity gospel being proclaimed.

Despite the author's attempt to the contrary, I see each as an example of preachers being carried away with the spirit of the age. Rather than influencing culture, each was driven by the circumstances around them.

As a pastor, I recommend this book, not as a way to point out how influential the pulpit can be--but to remind us of how influential the world can be on our preaching. The fact remains that the Word of God, illumined by the Spirit of God is the only instrument that can truly impact history in the right way. As preachers, we fall into a trap when we use the pulpit to influence politics, drive movements and direct societal change. This book unintentionally illustrates that when those things become our focus, we are swept along with the cursed world in which we live.

The solution is to stay focused on the type of preaching in which our earliest American forefathers specialized. That is not to say our sermons should be two hours long and have 20 or more points, but they can have the basic puritanical traits.

Witham lists those traits in his first chapter as he quotes The Art of Prophesying, by English Puritan William Perkins.

1. To read the Text distinctly out of the canonical Scripture
2. To give the sense and understanding of it being read by the Scripture itself
3. To collect a few and profitable points of doctrine out of the natural sense
4. To apply (if he have the gift) the doctrine rightly collected to the manners of men in a simple and plain speech

With the Text as guide and primary interpreter, the preacher can resist the temptation to be swept away in the zeitgeist. As he is faithful to resist, his sermons will truly change the course of history--eternally, if not temporally.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A great history of Christianity in America, July 4, 2008

By 

AZGospel (Phoenix, AZ) - See all my reviews

This review is from: A City Upon a Hill: How Sermons Changed the Course of American History (Hardcover)

I thought this would be a anthology of American preaching, but it is much more than that. It is an engaging and very readable history of the Christianity in the United States. I wish I had had it in seminary!

5 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A CITY UPON A HILL reveals the political, philosophical and military changes affecting both church and state, October 19, 2007

By 

Midwest Book Review (Oregon, WI USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: A City Upon a Hill: How Sermons Changed the Course of American History (Hardcover)

The sermon has shaped America's religious foundations and has always served as points of debate, so A CITY UPON A HILL: HOW THE SERMON CHANGED THE COURSE OF AMERICAN HISTORY examines not just religious history but an intrinsic part of American culture. History's most powerful sermons are examined in a survey that reveals how they are linked to important events in American history. By using the sermon as a foundation for analysis, A CITY UPON A HILL reveals the political, philosophical and military changes affecting both church and state, making it a top for both spirituality and historical libraries alike.

Diane C. Donovan
California Bookwatch