From the Back Cover
Home and family are key, yet relatively unexplored, dimensions of religion in the contemporary United States. American cultural lore is replete with images of saintly nineteenth-century mothers and their children. In the twentieth century, form and function of the American family changed radically, and religious beliefs evolved in response to the challenges of modernization. How did religion manage to "fit" into modern family life as these transformations took place?
Margaret Lamberts Bendroth examines the lives and beliefs of white, middle-class mainline Protestants (principally northern Presbyterians, Baptists, Methodists, and Congregationalists) who are theologically moderate or liberal. These liberal mainliners were preoccupied with family issues for most of the twentieth century, churning out hundreds of works on Christian childrearing. Bendroth explores the role of family within this religious tradition, one that sees itself as America's cultural center. Her balanced analysis traces the evolution of mainliners' roles in middle-class American culture and sharpens our awareness of the ways in which this Protestant experience has actually shaped and reflected the American sense of self.
About the Author
Margaret Lamberts Bendroth is a professor of history at Calvin College in Michigan. She is the author of Fundamentalism and Gender, 1875 to the Present, and coauthor of several other books on American religion.
