Religious Tolerance and Intolerance in Early America

Paul Harvey

Following up on my post of a few days ago, about Chris Beneke's new book Beyond Toleration: The Religious Origins of American Pluralism: Beneke and Christopher S. Grenda are in the process of completing an anthology on the interplay between religious tolerance and intolerance in early America. In reviewing Beneke's book, I mentioned that I might place more emphasis on the whiteness of the eighteenth century's proto-pluralism; and he subsequently has given me these thoughts in response:

I think that you're absolutely right about the importance of looking at the meaning of religious freedom for African Americans and Native Americans. We asked Jon Sensbach and Rick Pointer, respectively, to do just that for the anthology on tolerance and intolerance that I'm editing with Christopher Grenda. . . .As for religious "pluralism," I believe that they had it in the late 18th c., but it was more of the Charles Taylor variety, than the Diana Eck variety, and that's where some of the confusion may come in.

Chris was kind enough to send along a table of contents for the anthology that he's editing, which should come out sometime in the near future with Penn. So, here it is, and looks like it's going to be a great treat:

The First Prejudice: Religious Tolerance and Religious Intolerance in Early America
Edited by Chris Beneke and Christopher S. Grenda

Forthcoming from U. Pennsylvania Press

Table of Contents

Introduction
Chris Beneke and Christopher S. Grenda

Amalek and the Religious Rhetoric of Extermination
John Corrigan

Suffering Saints: Prejudice, Intolerance, and the Prosecution of Dissent in Early America
Susan Juster

Practicing Toleration in Dutch New Netherland
Joyce D. Goodfriend

Persecuting Quakers? Liberty and Toleration in Early Pennsylvania
Andrew R. Murphy

Reason, Faith, and Enlightenment: The Cultural Sources of Toleration in Early America
Christopher S. Grenda

Native Freedom?: Indians and Religious Tolerance in Early America
Richard W. Pointer

Slaves to Intolerance: African-American Christianity in Early America
Jon Sensbach

Parkman’s Paradigm: Catholics, Protestants, and the Clash of Civilizations in Early America
Owen Stanwood

Anti-semitism, Toleration, and Appreciation: The Changing Relations of Jews and Gentiles in Early America
William Pencak

The Episcopate, the British Union, and the Failure of Religious Settlement in Colonial British America
Ned Landsman

The “Catholic spirit prevailing in our country”: America’s Moderate Religious Revolution
Chris Beneke

The Boundaries of Toleration and Tolerance: Religious Infidelity in the Early American Republic
Christopher Grasso