From Prize-Winning Dissertation to...

Today I received a copy of Darren Dochuk's long-awaited From Bible Belt to Sunbelt: Plain-Folk Religion, Grassroots Politics, and the Rise of Evangelical Conservatism (Norton).

The book's amazon.com release date is December 13, just in time to find its places under the Christmas trees of RiAH blog readers.

Winner of the Allan Nevins Prize as a dissertation, Darren's book is an erudite and persuasive account of how southern evangelical migrants transformed California's culture and politics.

"Rather than an invention of Falwell and Robertson's Religious Right," he argues, "evangelicalism's politicization was a product of an earlier time made possible by an earlier generation, a generation that came of age on the West Coast during Roosevelt's time, not Reagan's." Until recent years, historians have paid relatively little attention to what one might call the pre-history of the Religious Right. That, however, is no longer the case, as books ranging from Lisa McGirr's Suburban Warriors, Dan Williams's God's Own Party to Bethany Moreton's To Serve God and Wal-Mart all provide careful analysis of how evangelicals gradually came to embrace conservative politics and free-market capitalism. Darren's book is a thorough culmination of this trend.

From Bible Belt to Sunbelt explores the religious and political interchange between the South and Southern California from the 1930s through 1980. "Jeffersonian Democratic" migrants quickly opposed California's version of the New Deal Coalition, constructed their own subculture of schools and organizations, and eventually helped propel Ronald Reagan to the presidency.

Several aspects of Darren's book thoroughly impress me. First, he very sensitively -- without a trace of scholarly condescension -- includes the voices of "plain folk," many of whom he interviewed for the book. Second, Darren mines untapped and rich veins of archival sources. Few historians have visited both the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library and the Pat Boone Headquarters. He also gained access to the private records of many southern California churches. Finally, the book benefits greatly from Darren's clear and eloquent prose. Both specialists and students will find From Bible Belt to Sunbelt engaging and thought-provoking.

Buy it, read it, assign it.

Presbyterians and Mormons

John Turner

For better or worse, current U.S. law and jurisprudence gives religious organizations wide latitude to engage in (ostensibly non-partisan) political activism and lobbying.

For instance, my denomination, the Presbyterian Church in the United States of America (catch it while you can), recently spent its tax-exempt dollars to compose a report calling on the U.S. government to stop sending aid to Israel until Israel stops building settlements in the occupied territories. As if the U.S. government (or even your average Presbyterian) cares what the PCUSA General Assembly thinks on matters of foreign policy. I was amazed when I attended the 2002 General Assembly that the delegates felt it was a good use of time and money for the church to pass judgment on U.S. policy toward Columbia and drilling in ANWAR. One has to admire, however, the stubborn hubris and custodial impulse of mainline Protestantism.

The Presbyterians catch little flak for their politicking because it's not especially extensive, because non-Presbyterians can't spell or pronounce the denomination's name, and because no one imagines the church might have any actual political impact.

The Mormons are not so lucky (or unlucky, if you want your efforts to be noticed). Their political activism has made a tangible difference in recent years, and everyone pays attention. The evangelical Right and the secular Left both find the church problematic, evangelicals for theological reasons and secular liberals for both theological and political reasons.

I was struck by the reaction to the Latter-day Saint effort to pass Proposition 8 in California in 2008. I consider it quite normal, though not always wise or beneficial, for churches to involve themselves in political matters. The Catholic Church does so, liberal mainline denominations do so, and evangelicals do so. Lots of non-religious tax-exempt organizations also devote themselves to political, even quasi-partisan causes. In general, I think this is good for American democracy. It introduces a broader range of opinions and ideas into our political discourse, especially if religious organizations frame their arguments in ways that appeal across religious lines. Also, as Jon Shields has argued, religious activism over "social issues" like abortion has encouraged new segments of the American population to become politically involved.

A recent documentary, 8: The Mormon Proposition, examines the church's involvement in the campaign. Religion Dispatches posted a favorable review two weeks ago. Here's a snippet of my contrary review:

Mormons do place an extraordinary emphasis on obedience to their leaders, including viewing their president as God's ordained prophet on earth. That ethic of obedience does not, however, make Mormon leaders cruel dictators or ordinary members blind automatons. While Mormons in California and elsewhere heeded their leaders' call, most probably did so not out of fear or blind obedience but because they also believed in the cause.

... Ultimately, where the film really misses the mark is in its portrayal of Mormons—less than 2% of Americans belong to the church—as a threat to fundamental American political values. At various points in U.S. history, Protestant Christian majorities persecuted Quakers, Mormons, Catholics and Jews. Until recent decades, racial majorities deprived African Americans, Chinese Americans and other groups of basic citizenship rights.

As a small, non-violent minority, the Mormons pose no such threat. The specter of Mormon money raised in the film seems like a latter-day version of older fears about Jewish financiers controlling the American economy and government. The Mormon effort made a difference only because Californians are roughly evenly divided on the issue of same-sex marriage.

I have no problem with polemics, but they need to be convincing. I found myself very suspicious watching an ex-Mormon describe Mormon theology. Couldn't the filmmakers have at least found a more neutral never-been-Mormon to discuss such matters? And I wanted to hear some articulate, kind church members discuss their decision to support the campaign. Most of the Mormons I have met are far more intelligent, reasonable, and humble than the Proposition 8 supporters showcased in the film.

A few other thoughts on the film. Reed Cowan, the director, initially intended to make a film on the pain and suffering LGBT youth in Utah encounter from family members and church leaders who reject them. That section of the documentary is very powerful, and its message certainly transcends Mormonism. Most Christian churches need to repent for their past treatment of gay and lesbian members / parishioners.

I do think the film's basic narrative is correct -- Mormon money and elbow-grease did make a difference and probably got Proposition 8 over the finish line. [I just don't think that Mormons deserve to be vilified for having done so]. The supporters of Proposition 8 -- Mormon and otherwise -- out-politicked the opponents by shifting the focus from marriage per se to the broader ramifications of gay marriage on educational policy, adoption agencies, and religious freedom. Instead of dismissing such issues as wild distortions, supporters of gay marriage might more successfully appeal to wavering voters by finding a way to straightforwardly assuage such concerns.

Coincidentally, the Presbyterians also voted to ordain gays and lesbians as pastors. That decision now heads to the church's presbyteries for ratification, which a similar measure failed to obtain a few years ago. At the same time, the PCUSA decided not to amend its own language on marriage, keeping its definition of marriage as between "a man and a woman" rather than changing it to between "two people." I think debates over issues like abortion and gay marriage are healthy for American democracy, but there won't be any more PCUSA Presbyterians left by the time we've made up our minds on questions involving homosexuality.

The Future of Unification

As I drove home from school yesterday, I listened with interest to NPR report on the wobbly state of the Unification Church in the United States.

The report, well worth a listen, is available both as text and audio here.

I was interested in the rather superficial comparisons the reporter made between the Unification Church and other American religious movements:

[By encouraging academic and financial success instead of quitting school and starting missionary work], the church is taking a page from another new religious movement: the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, or Mormons, who are growing by leaps and bounds in part because of their economic success. As to style of worship, the Unification Church is looking to yet another model: the evangelical megachurch.

I'm sure the Mormons won't appreciate being reduced to a Prosperity [Restored] Gospel, and evangelicals at least strive to be more than "bells and whistles." As the reporter rightfully suggests, though, the Unificationists have a long way to go before entering the religious mainstream.

Howard Zinn (1922-2010)

by John G. Turner

The world notices the passing of very few historians, but Howard Zinn's death yesterday made the headlines for obvious reasons. It's hard for me to think of an historian of Zinn's generation who exerted more influence on the way that Americans view their past.

For several years, I've been using a "dueling banjos" approach in my survey class (explicitly borrowed from Lendor Calder). I assign Zinn's People's History and a diametrically opposed text. Students identify and has out the differences. [I've tried Paul Johnson's History of the American People and Schweikart and Allen's Patriot's History. If anyone has a suggestion of something else to pair with Zinn, I'm all eyes].

The shortcomings of Zinn's book are obvious to me and to many students. For starters, there is hardly any sense of change over time, no recognition of the tremendous material gains for all classes of Americans over the past hundred years. If one cares about American religious history, it's a bit painful to give students a text that only touches on religion in a sympathetic manner by way of the Berrigan brothers. At the same time, I've never assigned a "textbook" that students so readily engage, whether they like Zinn's arguments or not. I am grateful to Howard Zinn for getting so many of my students to take an interest in U.S. History.

The Associated Press had this to say about Zinn on a more personal level:

Professor Zinn himself was an impressive-looking man, tall and rugged with wavy hair. An experienced public speaker, he was modest and engaging in person, more interested in persuasion than in confrontation.

I can attest to the latter. Several years ago, one of my classes noticed a rather obvious factual error in People's History. Zinn was trying too hard to make the case that many Americans opposed the Second World War.

Thus, we fired off an email to Zinn:

My undergraduate survey classes have been profitably reading your People's History this semester. We're learning to read all sources critically and have a question about a detail in your book. Can you help us resolve the following?

On p. 418 (2003 edition) you write, "Our of 10 million drafted for the armed forces during World War II, only 43,000 refused to fight. But this was three times the proportion of C.O.'s in World War I."

On p. 371 (WWI): "About 65,000 men declared themselves conscientious objectors and asked for noncombatant service."

How could 43,000 in WWII be a larger proportion than 65,000 in WWI? Our understanding is that more individuals were drafted during the Second World War. Can you help?

The then 84-year-old Zinn promptly wrote back:

Thank you for calling that to my attention. A gross error! I think my absolute figures are right, but what I say about "proportion" is wrong. I don't remember where I got that information but I'll look into it. You can use this as a lesson for your students on how historians can get things wrong!

Best wishes,
Howard Zinn

For a man who received sacks of both positive and negative mail about his work, I found the response extraordinarily gracious and a testimony to a kind and gentle spirit. May we respond similarly to our critics!

The Coming Rebirth of the Religious Right

When someone leading Barack Obama in a hypothetical if absurdly premature 2012 matchup comes to town, it's worth investigating.

Mike Huckabee spoke at an ecumenical Christian music and arts celebration at a Baptist megachurch in Mobile, Alabama, last night. The sanctuary was about two-thirds full. In fact, with Tim Tebow in town for the NFL's Senior Bowl, Huckabee was only the second-most famous evangelical visitor to the city. (In the Southeast, Tebow would surely crush Obama in a head-to-head matchup of messianic figures).

So $15 for a Huckabee speech, and -- to paraphrase Paul -- here the blog is. I asked Huck if he wanted to do an interview for Religion in American History Television, but he demurred.
Just a few years removed from liberal fears of a rising theocracy, the Religious Right seemed almost irrelevant during the 2008 election cycle. Don't worry, those who think this blog can't live without the infusion of Sarah Palin-based traffic, it'll be back. The Religious Right is the zombie of American politics.

Last time around, the most viable Republican candidates early on seemed to be Mitt Romney, John McCain, and Rudy Giuliani. Between Romney's Mormon faith, McCain's repeated expressions of loathing for the Religious Right, and Giuliani's shabby treatment of his second wife and support for abortion rights, evangelical powerbrokers didn't see a good-looking horse in the race.

Eventually, James Dobson and a few others threw their support behind Huckabee in Iowa, but that support came too late for Huckabee to build a national movement.

Next time around, things will be different. It is easy to imagine potential candidates like Huckabee, Sarah Palin, John Thune (Biola College B.A. and impeccable pro-life credentials), and Tim Pawlenty vigorously competing for evangelical votes. Look for pundits to note the renewed strength of the Christian Right. Heck, members of the Christian Reformed Church can win statewide races in Massachusetts.

I have a soft spot for Mike Huckabee because he attended Campus Crusade's Explo '72 evangelistic youth fest in Dallas nearly thirty years ago. Since that event ended with a "Jesus Music Festival," it seemed appropriate that last night Huckabee appeared after the best contemporary Christian music Mobile has to offer. Huck then played bass on a rousing rendition of "Sweet Home Alabama."

Huckabee is a busy guy, hosting a conservative variety show on FoxNews, leading trips to the Holy Land with Tim LaHaye, and publishing apolitical fare on the true meaning of Christmas. He's more of a brand than a politician. The brand is Christian, amiable, optimistic, up-to-date, and mostly non-confrontational (the brand de jour of contemporary American evangelicalism).
That brand was on display at tonight's event. Huckabee's speech wasn't especially political, though he mentioned his support for a revised No Child Left Behind law and spoke at some length about his opposition to abortion.

Mostly, Huckabee emphasized the need for Christians to see the creative love of God at work in every individual. "Look at each other through the eyes of God's grace and see what they could be," he suggested, "rather than look through the eyes of human judgment." He emphasized, very authentically to my ears, the significance of music and arts education ("weapons of mass instruction") and chided Christians who could not see beauty in "secular" forms of entertainment. Huckabee is one of those few evangelicals who do not instantly scare the bejeezus out of non-evangelicals.

Huckabee has obvious political gifts (and I can see how he was a great preacher), but I don't think the Huckabee brand is presidential material. I couldn't imagine the man playing the bass guitar at Cottage Hill Baptist Church sitting behind the Oval Office desk. Huckabee oozes everyman populism, but he doesn't exactly scream gravitas.

The wealth of potential evangelical options in the 2012 GOP field is good news for those of us who study and write about contemporary (or near-contemporary) evangelicalism. After 2008, I thought Mitt Romney had no chance to win over enough evangelical voters to ever get the Republican nomination. But that was partly because Huckabee was the only serious evangelical contender in the field -- he sucked up all the evangelical oxygen in Iowa and in southern primaries. If Huckabee, Palin, and others split the evangelical vote, perhaps Romney will have more of a fighting chance. Good news for those of us trying to write about Mormonism. In any event, these potential candidates should give us plenty of good material and keep the folks over at Religion Dispatches squirming.

Ted Haggard's New Life

by John G. Turner

Worth reading in part because of commentary from two incisive historians (Michael Hamilton and Larry Eskridge) of American evangelicalism, the Los Angeles Times observes Ted Haggard preaching to overflow crowds, albeit in his living room instead of at his former megachurch.

In American popular and political culture, we love both sin (this year's stars include Mark Ensign, Mark Sanford, and Tiger Woods) and redemption (Eliot Spitzer), thus I'm sure no one is surprised that Haggard is making a comeback. I didn't think he'd keep selling insurance for very long.

The article suggests that Haggard's prayer meetings are the beginning of a new church and includes a Focus on the Family official's criticism that Haggard would start a new fellowship or church so close to the one that he betrayed several years ago. Considering he has been attracting many current or former New Life members to the prayer meetings, the criticism seems fair.

Historians often complain about the quality of religious journalism, and the way that major newspapers write about evangelicalism often bugs me. I think it's a very encouraging sign that the Los Angeles Times found Hamilton and Eskridge, and their observations provide very helpful context:

"Sin, sorrow, repentance, conversion and trying to live out your new faith -- that's the standard evangelical way to look at one's life," he said.

But whether Haggard can achieve his previous success is questionable, said Larry Eskridge, associate director of the Institute for the Study of American Evangelicals at Wheaton College in Illinois. "The larger question is the inability to put himself under someone else's authority and whether it shows true repentance," Eskridge said.Another issue is the nature of the scandal itself.

"Even though evangelical theology doesn't make distinctions between sins," Hamilton said, "homosexuality is a hard one for evangelicals to cope with."

We'll have to send Harvey to investigate futher. Surely he can fit a prayer meeting into his advent schedule after papers and exams are graded.

UPDATE: Thanks to Chris Jones, see this more detailed portrait of the redeemed Haggard in Religion Dispatches. I particularly like the following nugget:

He [Haggard] talks now of modeling his prayer sessions on the glory days of Billy Graham and Campus Crusade for Christ founder Bill Bright before the evangelical movement took on the oppressive moralism of the 1980s and ’90s when Jerry Falwell, Pat Robertson, James Dobson and their media empires came to power.

Revelations

My copy of The Joseph Smith Papers: Revelations and Translations, volume 1, arrived in the mail a few days ago. I could hardly lift it. This is a tome one must heft. No need for a trip to the campus recreation center when one could simply do a few shoulder presses with the latest offering from the Church Historian's Press. Some will balk at the $99 price tag, but per pound it's a much better deal than most trade paperbacks. At the very least, ask your financially strapped university library to purchase these elegant reference volumes.

Revelations 1 is the second volume to emerge from the Joseph Smith Papers project. Last year, the Church released the first volume of the Journals series; the next two volumes will inaugurate the Documents and History series. (I'm looking forward to the latter's presentation of Joseph Smith's accounts of his early religious experiences).

Publishing the contents of two manuscript books, Revelations 1 presents a large majority of those items included in the church's Doctrine & Covenants (alongside the Book of Mormon and the items included in the Pearl of Great Price, a canonical Mormon Scripture). The volume includes a useful introduction, which relates the publication history of the revelations and chronicles the reaction of a November 1831 conference uncertain about the imperfect language employed by Smith's revelations. (An additional revelation helped settle the question and persuaded those elders who were skeptical). The two books also contain nine items not canonized by the church, some of which are not readily accessible elsewhere. Of these, I was struck by the "sample of pure language," discussing the names of God, the "Son," and "man" in the pure, pre-Babel heavenly language. [See Samuel Brown, "Joseph (Smith) in Egypt: Babel, Hieroglyphs, and the Pure Language of Eden," Church History 78 (March 2009): 26-65].

Perhaps most unusual for a documentary project, Revelations 1 features photographic facsimiles of every page of the two manuscript volumes (samples from the JSP website) alongside transcription. The latter include a careful recreation of additions, deletions, etc., color-coded by the scribe who made the changes. (Sometimes as many as seven different scribes amended a revelation). For a more detailed discussion of the changes, see a post by one of the volume editors at By Common Consent. These manuscript books usually represent the earliest extent copy of Joseph Smith's revelations, but they are copy books, not containing a scribe's initial copy (let alone the verbatim words as spoken from the lips of the prophet). The net result is a research treasure trove.

For someone not terribly familiar with Joseph Smith's revelations (I mostly encounter them bit-by-bit as I move through accounts of his life), however, the volume is a bit overwhelming. Should one examine these manuscripts and transcripts before quoting from one of Smith's revelations? Probably a good idea, since the editors have corrected inaccurate dates for several revelations and looking at the textual history might prove worthwhile. The volume simply presents the facsimiles and textual analysis without further annotation and commentary. For the most part, this approach helpfully lets the revelations speak for themselves, but on items like the "sample of pure language" I would have appreciated some guidance. [For the context of the canonical revelations, I would probably start with Steven Harper's recent Making Sense of the Doctrine & Covenants].

Alongside Royal Skousen's "earliest text" of the Book of Mormon, Revelations 1 heralds the arrival of mass-marketed advanced textual studies of Mormon scriptures. Reviewing Skousen's production for the Wall Street Journal, Stephen Prothero commented that "we probably know more about the production of the Book of Mormon, which is holy writ to the world's 14 million Mormons, than we do about any other scripture." Now we know at least as much about the composition and evolution of the bulk of Joseph Smith's written revelations. The full-size color facsimiles and the eye-popping sales for the first volume of the Joseph Smith Papers (upwards of 20,000 -- UPDATE: perhaps upwards of 50,000) testify to what Prothero termed the "seductive power that scripture has over human beings" and the appetite for both historical and scriptural study among contemporary Latter-day Saints.

I sometimes wonder whether this current explosion of careful textual study and recreation of the earliest Mormon scriptures says about the place of revelation in today's Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Even though the Church's last canonical revelation was received in 1978, Mormons certainly have not abandoned their belief in ongoing revelation.

Brigham Young once commented that he "would not give the ashes of a rye straw for these three books [The Bible, Book of Mormon, and Doctrine & Covenants] so far as they are efficacious for the salvation of any man that lives, without the living oracles of God." While Young quoted from and regularly alluded to the Bible and the Book of Mormon, he also characterized his own discourses as "scripture." Perhaps others can clarify this point for me, but very superficially it seems that while Mormons of Brigham Young's day honored and used the church's Scriptures, they are treated with more reverence today, symbolized not only by their use in Sunday School lessons but also by Revelations 1 and Skousen's BOM textual work. At the same time, most Mormons still revere their "living oracles," but I don't recall Presidents Hinkley and Monson presenting their sermons as "scripture."

At a time when most university presses are cutting back on documentary editing projects or publishing such editions online, the Joseph Smith Papers project represents a welcome and most unusual success. Now that the second volume has appeared, I'm much more optimistic I'll live to see the remainder published. The Mormons have been known for bold and audacious plans since the religion's first years, but as much as I'd love to utilize a Brigham Young Papers project, I trust they have enough sense not to try to scale that Everest.

Temples, Archives, and Apostates

John G. Turner

I've been meaning to blog about our nearly three months in Provo, Utah, and environs. For anyone writing Mormon History, a trip to the former Deseret means entering archival heaven (well, at least the Terrestrial portion). It's also both somewhat bizarre and exhilarating to emerge from academic isolation and suddenly meet scores of people who share research interests.

Hopefully without too much self-indulgence, here are several of my not-too-coherent summertime thoughts on Mormonism and Mormon History:

▪ Temples are important. That sounds obvious, but in general, historians of Mormonism (like historians of American religion more broadly) still do not pay nearly enough attention to religious practice (as opposed to the politics, economics, and theological / ecclesial development of the church). Granted, the sacred nature of Mormon temple ritual poses particular challenges. But it occurred to me that one gets a very limited sense of Mormon spirituality from, say, visiting sacrament meetings or watching church conferences. Serendipitously, the recently dedicated Oquirrh Mountain Temple had its months-long open house during our summer stay. We accompanied a Mormon friend and his family through the open house, saw the baptismal font, the changing rooms, the sealing room, and the endowment room. The contrast (paraphrasing another Utah friend) between the remarkably low-church sacrament meeting and the liturgical nature of the temple is striking. That contrast has certainly existed since the Nauvoo period of the church. Visiting the temple rammed home the lesson that there is an entire side of Mormon spirituality and practice that I'll never understand, but it's nevertheless good to keep in mind that it's there. If you teach or study American religion and there's ever a temple open house in your vicinity, don't miss it.

▪ The new Church History Library is a much-improved facility for research. The edifice itself testifies to the significance of the church's history for the Latter-day Saint faith. Can you imagine any other religious group in the United States unveiling a new library / archive like this in the midst of an economic downturn? You can find a thorough discussion of its virtues and shortcomings here. Biggest improvements: more light (much easier to stay awake), better technology, and evening / weekend hours. On the downside, you now have to walk across the street to obtain the cheap and tax-free LDS cafeteria lunch, but it's still worth it. The nearest coffee I could find was in a basement McDonald's just south of Temple Square. I tried to wean myself because of enforced abstinence while at BYU but gave up. The flesh is weak.

▪ We were based in Provo, the only place I've lived where the grocery featured Emergency Food Preparedness sales (my wife is taking her cues from the Saints and is stocking up in the midst of hurricane season on the Gulf Coast) and storytime for children. Strangely, though, we attended a Pioneer Day event at Pioneer Park in Provo and never heard or saw anything pertaining to Mormonism. Those weren't just any old pioneers, you know. Maybe I missed something.

▪ In terms of Mormon History publications, you can't blink without missing significant books. After a near-decade book-ended by two major books on the Mountain Meadows Massacre and centered around Richard Bushman's magisterial biography of Joseph Smith, I'm trying to figure out what's coming next. This year appears to be the year of apostasy (historiographically), with books on the subject by Polly Aird and Edward Leo Lyman. I haven't read either book yet, but I'm curious to learn more about why and how people left the church. To return to the first point above, I do think we'll see more books that foreground Mormon religious practice. For an example of innovative and diligent research on the subject, see the article on Mormon ritual healing by Jonathan Stapley and Kristine Wright in the current Journal of Mormon History (link to Table of Contents only).

Healing Waters and Streams of Joy

John Turner

Sixty-four weeks on the NYT trade paperback bestseller list and counting (#3 last time I checked). Reason enough to catch up on popular evangelicalism during an end-of-the-summer vacation.

W. Paul Young's The Shack has generated -- by my inexact estimation -- more excitement and sales than any evangelical offering since Rick Warren's The Purpose-Driven Life. It must be fun to have five million copies of one's book in print.


While The Shack certainly affirms Warren's signature "It's not about you" opening, when it comes to the church Young inhabits a very different, anti-institutional stream of American evangelicalism. Young belongs to no church, and much of his first novel rails against the regulations, responsibilities, expectations, and judgments of church-based Christianity.

Last year, several prominent evangelicals, such as Albert Mohler of Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, publicly criticized The Shack's purported heresies: a strong suggestion of universal salvation, a thoroughly equal and relational Trinity, and his depiction of God the Father ("Papa") as female. Those interested in theological discussions can find ample opportunities elsewhere in the blogosphere.

Young's book unfolds in roughly two parts. First, he begins with a tight, compelling narrative about a man emotionally stunted at the hands of an abusive father (Mackenzie "Mack" Allen Philips) who then endures the kidnapping and murder of his beloved young daughter. Theodicy, in a nutshell, the timeless question. Second, Mack travels to the scene of his daughter's murder (a shack with the bloodstains still visible) and meets God, an embodied, loving, and relational Trinity.

As a scholar of evangelicalism, it's hard to simply enjoy popular evangelical fiction (frankly, this is probably difficult for a large chunk of humanity). Moreover, The Shack generates obvious objections. The encounter with God often devolves into overly didactic theological lessons which interrupt almost any sense of narrative. Young's answer to the problem of evil is hardly original -- that God is working through human events for the ultimate good. Mack grows spiritually, and plays a role in the divine economy of redemption, by forgiving both his abusive father and his daughter's killer.

Those objections aside, The Shack is nevertheless hard to set aside. Young's imaginative portrayal of the Trinity is engaging, and his anti-institutional presentation of God appeals to a generation of evangelicals yearning for a more authentic and relational Christianity.

The veneer of machismo that graced the Promise Keeper's movement created a false sense (in my view) that evangelical men were eager and domineering patriarchs (partly put to rest by Brad Wilcox's Soft Patriarchs). Mack's conversations with God lead to divine weeping, tears that are "healing waters and a stream of joy." Regardless of complementarian niceties, evangelicalism is not moving in a patriarchal direction.

Perhaps The Shack's success augurs a shift in the mentality of American evangelicals. The Left Behind series originated in the mid-point of the Clinton presidency, a particularly beleaguered moment for evangelicals. Its apocalyptic narrative eventually ended in triumph. Rick Warren is hardly a triumphant evangelical, though both his massive institution-building and last year's presidential forum suggest a confidence about the role of contemporary evangelicals. Young, ultimately, suggests a far more quiet and subversive role for Christian believers -- agents of reconciliation seeking to heal relationships in a broken world.

Still More on Shields

John G. Turner

Thanks to Paul, we've already discussed Jon Shields's The Democratic Virtues of the Christian Right.

At the risk of some redundancy, merited by the book's significance, here are my reflections, recently posted at Books & Culture:

Why, then, does the media portray the Christian Right as a threat to American democracy when pro-life activists behave civilly, promote dialogue and debate on meaningful issues, and boost democratic participation? If anything, according to Shields, it is pro-choice activists who disproportionately act boorishly and refuse to participate in meaningful dialogue on the issue—though he acknowledges that, since pro-choice organizations seek to maintain the status quo, they have much less to gain from debating the issues. Why does the media still write about Operation Rescue-type organizations even though pregnancy counseling centers have vastly more support among pro-life activists? ... Most of the activists who appear in Shields' book are anything but incipient theocrats. They are good citizens by any objective measure.

I don't have enough experience among either pro-life or pro-choice activists to intelligently assess Shields's contrast between the respective attitudes of pro-life and pro-choice activists. Any thoughts?

I tried incorporating Shields's book into my teaching this past semester. I imagine most students not already friendly toward the Christian Right were unconvinced of its democratic virtues, but I thought it was important for students to at least encounter an academically iconoclastic view of the subject.

Ultimately, my own sense, contrary to current conventional wisdom, is that the Religious Right has been a great but not unalloyed blessing for the Republican Party. Certainly, the negative image of the Religious Right hurts the Party with moderates and independents, but it is hard for me to conceive of the quasi-ascendancy of the GOP from 1968-2004 without giving substantial credit to diffuse Christian Right movements. At the same time, as I write in Books & Culture, the Religious Right is an "albatross for American evangelicalism" and "a public relations disaster" for American Christianity more generally.

The Exorcist

John G. Turner

While watching Bobby Jindal's Republican response to the unofficial State of the Union address tonight, I was reflecting on the joys that many of us might have writing about his religiosity during the 2012 campaign (having just started to recover from Jeremiah Wright and Sarah Palin). Fortunately, it's a long way off. However, today I stumbled upon an evidently somewhat well-known piece about Jindal's early years as a Catholic convert. Since it was new to me, it might be new to you as well. It's an excerpt of an essay Jindal published in the 1994 New Oxford Review. Evidently, the entire article is only available for a small fee; however, CBN's David Brody published an extended excerpt.

In the essay, Jindal describes a prayer session for a cancer-stricken friend, Susan, who has been behaving oddly. The prayer session occurs at a meeting of University Christian Fellowship at Brown University. Here is an excerpt of the excerpt:

A senior in UCF (University Christian Fellowship) and a leader of my Bible study group had once asked me if I believed in angels, spirits, and other such apparitions ... After I related my doubts, the se­nior proceeded to describe recent incidents involv­ing mutual acquaintances -- e.g., a woman who claimed demons inflicted physical scars on her arms. I remained polite, but incredulous. The issue of spirits did not affect me, and I was thus content to leave its resolution to others. I had no opinions or feelings on the subject ...

After a period of group prayer, a student made a movement to end the meeting. Suddenly, Susan emitted some strange guttural sounds and fell to the floor. She started thrashing about, as if in some sort of seizure. Susan's sister must have recognized what was happening, for she ordered us to gather around and place our hands on Susan's prostrate body. I re­fused to budge from my position and froze in hor­ror. I will never forget the first comprehensible sound that came from Susan; she screamed my name with such an urgency that the chill still travels down my spine whenever I recall this moment.

Maybe she sensed our weariness; whether by plan or coincidence, Susan chose the perfect opportunity to attempt an escape. She suddenly leapt up and ran for the door, despite the many hands holding her down. This burst of action served to revive the tired group of students and they soon had her restrained once again, this time half kneeling and half standing. Alice, a student leader in Campus Crusade for Christ, entered the room for the first time, brandishing a crucifix ... Surely Crusade's experienced leader would be able to rescue us and reaffirm our faith in Christ, the Bible, and everything good ...

While Alice and Louise held Susan, her sister continued holding the Bible to her face. Almost taunting the evil spirit that had almost beaten us minutes before, the students dared Susan to read biblical passages. She choked on certain passages and could not finish the sentence "Jesus is Lord." Over and over, she repeated "Jesus is L..L..LL," often ending in profanities. In between her futile attempts, Susan pleaded with us to continue trying and often smiled between the grimaces that accompanied her readings of Scripture. Just as suddenly as she went into the trance, Susan suddenly reappeared and claimed "Jesus is Lord."

With an almost comical smile, Susan then looked up as if awakening from a deep sleep and asked, "Has something happened?" She did not re­member any of the past few hours and was startled to find her friends breaking out in cheers and laugh­ter, overwhelmed by sudden joy and relief...

I left that classroom with a powerful belief in Mary's intercessions and with many questions about spiritual warfare; I also learned a lasting lesson in hu­mility and the limits of human understanding. Was the purpose of that night served when so many indi­viduals were inducted into the Church? Did I witness spiritual warfare? I do not have the answers, but I do believe in the reality of spirits, angels, and other re­lated phenomena that I can neither touch nor see.

Wish I had gotten this into my Campus Crusade book, though my sense is that only a minority of Crusade leaders go about combating demons with crucifix in hand. [They usually brandish the Four Spiritual Laws]. I know the good folks at Daily Kos and Huffington Post would enjoy analyzing this sort of material during a 2012 Jindal campaign. However, I also reckon that a healthy percentage of Americans would affirm Jindal's final sentence.

Joseph Smith Papers

by John Turner

I recently obtained a copy of the long-awaited first volume of the Joseph Smith Papers: Journals (1832-1839), published by the newly created Church Historian's Press. This is a major project, projected to eventually comprise a generously annotated and illustrated forty-volume edition of Smith's journals, revelations, letters, etc. The next volume scheduled for release is the first in a series of Smith's Revelations and Translations. In terms of both staff and money, the church has invested heavily in this project.

Several things strike me as interesting about the JSP and this first volume. For starters, the market for Mormon history -- official (as in this project), semi-official (as in the Mountain Meadows Massacre project), and critical (as in recent works by Will Bagley and David Roberts) -- is astounding. The MMM book sold out its first printing and was probably 2008's best-selling book in American religious history. The first JSP volume sold out its 11,000 first printing almost immediately, and I imagine the second printing will go quickly as well. This reflects the incredible importance Latter-day Saints attach to their history and how critical it is to their faith. In that light, it is perhaps not surprising that church members rush to obtain a majestic edition of their founding prophet's first writings. I cannot imagine a similarly successful project for any other figure in American religious history, perhaps save Martin Luther King, Jr. (who most Americans revere as a political rather than a religious leader). We Presbyterians wouldn't exactly overwhelm amazon.com to purchase John Calvin's papers.

Smith's journals -- mostly kept by scribes and clerks -- have been published previously, in edited volumes by Scott Faulring and Dean Jessee, so the material presented here is not new. However, I find the new edition a significant improvement over those previous publications. Faulring's edition had very few annotations; JSP Vol. 1 contains generous background information, abundant annotations (recommending a variety of primary and secondary sources), illustrations, and maps. To give one example, on July 27, 1838, Smith's clerk George Robinson wrote "we have a company of Danites in these times," referring to a secret "paramilitary" organization that not very gently encouraged dissenters to leave the area. Needless to say, this has been a contested topic within Mormon history. The editors included a photograph of the page from the journal. Readers can see that the July 27 entry was scribbled through and obscured at some later date. The editors explain this, but it's illuminating to see the actual journal page.

Undoubtedly, as was the case with the MMM book, scholars will wonder about the ability of insiders to introduce and annotate the controversial issues of early Mormonism head-on and fairly. While those questions are unavoidable within this subfield of American religious history, these volumes -- may I live to see the release of the entire series -- will be indispensable for the next generation of scholars on Mormon history. While this first volume included journals previously published and therefore already accessible to scholars, some of the future volumes (including the upcoming Revelations) will publicize previously inaccessible sources. In an era in which many academic presses are shying away from expensive editions (it would have been difficult for the Jonathan Edwards papers to get off the ground with Yale in today's environment) or switching to online editions, I'm grateful for this project.

Call for Papers

Secularization and Revival: The Fate of Religion in Modern Intellectual History
Third Annual Baylor Symposium on Faith and Culture
Thursday, October 8-Saturday, October 10, 2009

The question of faith's place in modern intellectual life never has seemed more pressing in academia or popular culture. While specialists have abandoned simplistic versions of the "secularization thesis," which predicted that religion would crumble inexorably under the weight of advancing science and reason, best-selling atheistic critics still lament religion's influence, deny its philosophical viability, and predict its ultimate demise. Meanwhile, scholars have demonstrated the surging strength of both Christianity and Islam in non-western parts of the world, and the persistent religiosity in the United States. Accordingly, this symposium will consider religion's place in modern thought and culture from the eighteenth to the twenty-first century.

We invite papers that explore the intellectual tensions between the revival and decline of faith, not only in the Anglo-American West, but around the world. Among the confirmed plenary speakers are David Bebbington (Stirling/Baylor), Michael J. Buckley (Santa Clara), José Casanova (Georgetown), Philip Jenkins (Penn State), Rodney Stark (Baylor), and Frank Turner (Yale).

Possible themes to be explored include the following, though other paper or session proposals on specific topics, questions, or books are encouraged:

The Enlightenment and its critics
Romanticism and its implication for faith, art, politics, and culture
Evangelical, charismatic, or fundamentalist revival
Democracy and religion
Ethics and religion
The New Atheism
Resacralization vs. secularization theory
Gender, race, and class dynamics of secularization and revival
Religion as a colonial or indigenous force
Globalization and religion
Religion and the modern university
Faith and reform movements
Faith and the arts in contemporary culture

Abstracts of 500-750 words should be submitted by June 1, 2009, and should include name, affiliation, address, and e-mail address. Please submit proposals to the Institute for Faith and Learning, Baylor University, One Bear Place #97270, Waco, TX 76798-7270, or by e-mail to IFL@baylor.edu

For more information, visit http://www.baylor.edu/ifl

Matthew Sutton on Mountain Meadows

by John G. Turner

The December 30 Christian Century has Matt Sutton's review of Massacre at Mountain Meadows, which almost certainly was the 2008 bestseller in Mormon history until the appearance of the first volume of the Joseph Smith Papers. Sutton allows that Massacre provides a good narrative of the events leading up to September 11, 1857, and makes a compelling case that [Brigham] Young did not order the massacre." He laments, however, the decision of the authors (Ronald Walker, Richard Turley, and Glen Leonard) to concentrate solely on the events leading up to the massacre and the massacre itself, saving the "aftermath" for a second book:

They deal solely with the crime, ignoring what they call the punishment, which was in fact a horrifying lack of justice in Young's Mormon-dominated Utah and gravely inadequate efforts by the church in most of the decades since to deal forthrightly with the controversy.

Sutton attributes this decision to the authors' position as believing Mormon historians:

They are certainly good historians, but they are also faithful Mormons. They probably could not find any way to tell the rest of the story without sacrificing one of these two commitments—either they would compromise historical integrity or they would anger their church.

This is a huge and complex topic, and I hope some of our readers will share their thoughts and expertise. My hesitant opinions on the massacre can be found here. My response to Matt's concern in a nutshell: If the authors made a compelling case about the culpability for the massacre, why presume they could not write an equally compelling account of its aftermath?

Readers looking for a detailed discussion of Walker, Turley, and Leonard's book should investigate this post at By Common Consent. Those interested in the dynamics of faith in Mormon History may enjoy this recent discussion at Juvenile Instructor.

Prophets, Prophets Every Where

by John G. Turner

From our recent posts it strikes me that we have no shortage of prophets in American religious history. Paul's quite right to point us to Thomas Slaughter's biography of John Woolman, which I'm eager to read.

For those who prefer to get their prophecy straight from the prophet's mouth (or pen, rather, or clerk's pen), the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has just published its long-awaited first volume of the Joseph Smith Papers. Any friends or family still trying to find me a Christmas present have their problem solved. Update: I hear the first print run sold out. Still, I take belated gifts.

Speaking of prophets, I just enjoyed reading our friend Ed Blum's W.E.B. Du Bois, a very welcome diversion from the end-of-the-semester crunch. I've had a particularly soft spot for Du Bois ever since a member of one of my first classes submitted an earnest five-page essay on "W.E.B. Dubious." The spellchecker is not your friend!

I know others have discussed Ed's book here, but for those of you who have yet to savor his "religious biography" of an American Prophet, make plans over the holidays. One of the reasons this book succeeds is because of Ed's own passion (devotion, even) about Du Bois: I wrote this book as an acolyte, imagining myself sitting at Du Bois's feet, reading over his shoulder, and listening to the responses of the many he touched. I wrote this book to learn religion and spirituality from Du Bois. For certain months, I tried to live his day-to-day professional routine: morning walks, regular lunches, and evening conversation. I prayed his prayers to my students and endeavored to feel his moving in their hearts.

Blum proves a perceptive student of his seer, excoriating white American Christianity for its racist sins: As whites conflated the jig of Jim Crow with the teachings of Jesus Christ, and as they tightened the noose of Judge Lynch in the name of Jehovah Lord, the spiritual wage of whiteness sanctified the violent white supremacist America. Blum, though, doesn't end with prophetic rage. Du Bois and Blum preach from both testaments. As Du Bois prayed, "Nothing is so bad that good may not be put into it and make it better and save it from utter loss."

I learned a great deal from this book, one that will help me in the classroom, first by prompting me to assign not only Souls of Black Folk but to have students sample Du Bois's essays and short stories. I did not know that Du Bois wrote stories and poems with black Christs, mulatto Christs, and female Christs. Blum perceptively connects his prophet with later developments in black theology, liberation theology, and womanist theology.

I loved reading Du Bois's answer to "Is the civilization of the United States Christian?" He thought the question absurd. How African Americans (and, to a large extent, any historically informed and thoughtful Christian) must cringe when leaders of the Religious Right speak wistfully of returning to past Golden Ages of American Christianity that included things like slavery, lynchings, and segregation. Blum also rejects such frameworks: What makes no sense, however, is that an America of bombs and threats and red-scare witch hunts has been painted religious, while Du Bois's endorsements of peace, disarmament, economic uplift, and human brotherhood have been declared antireligious.

Prophets are never perfect. In Du Bois's case, it's still difficult for me not to be stunned at his credulous praise of the Soviet Union and China in the 1950s and early 1960s. Richard Wright and Ralph Ellison accepted the truth of communism as a "god that failed" -- Du Bois seems to have hardened his heart to the evils of Stalinist communism. When it comes to prophets in that era, I find Reinhold Niebuhr (or Wright and Ellison for that matter) to be a surer guide.

The most immediate contribution of Blum's book is his correction of a historiography that has presented Du Bois as irreligious or even antireligious. Blum easily convinced me that the truth is much more complex. Moreover, Blum sets aside the "audacious" proposition that he or anyone else could render a definitive judgment on the nature of Du Bois's belief, instead focusing on Du Bois's writings and the way that readers often received them as religious missives.

As Ed suggests in one of his recent posts, we need to be sensitive to the "destructivity of some religious forms in the United States," particularly -- I would add -- those of our own faith traditions if we have them. Blum has clearly learned that lesson well from Du Bois.

In terms of the prophetic subject of my own work, I'm certainly open to learning lessons from Brigham Young. I think I'll stop short of proclaiming myself an acolyte, however, as my wife warns against the full embrace of his lifestyle.

Scholarly Categories

by John G. Turner

I recently attended a service at a church belonging to the Anglican Mission in the Americas, which according to the movement's website is "a missionary movement of Rwanda committed to reaching the unchurched in North America."

The service featured liturgy (not surprising), praise songs, and hands being held high or waved in the air. One could fairly categorize it as evangelical, I think. Does that mean conservative? Not in terms of the worship music, which one certainly wouldn't hear at Trinity Church in Boston. Not in terms of race, as the congregation was biracial, unusual in these parts. In terms of theology? Probably, but "conservative" is a pretty imprecise term anyway.

The service got me thinking about how difficult it can be to categorize American churches and religious movements (it's hard enough for me to categorize myself sometimes). Historians like to bring order out of chaos. We hypothesize, categorize, and generalize -- how else to make sense out of the mountains of evidence we encounter?

I find it very difficult to place Mormonism on the landscape of antebellum American religion. Catherine Albanese, in A Republic of Mind and Spirit, places Mormonism within a broad stream of metaphysical religion. While I see some connections here (the Latter-day Saint emphasis on restoring family connections across the generations, for instance, was shared by many other nineteenth-century metaphysical movements), it is an imperfect fit. "Thus community among them," Albanese writes of metaphysicians, "has tended to be ad hoc and flexible, and authoritarian voices and concerns have not gotten very far." (pp. 6-7) Although particularly during the church's pre-Utah years, authoritarianism was always contested, it did get rather far in this case.

It's equally misleading to simplistically situate Mormons amidst the millenarians, the restorationists, the seekers, the hermeticists, or the radical evangelicals. Thus, for me, making sense of Mormonism is a constant challenge. The organizational hierarchy is baffling. As Richard Bushman concedes, "any effort to extract an organizational chart ends in confusion." (Rough Stone Rolling, 253) The theology is equally complex. The early Church of Christ (later renamed the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints) shared characteristics with other restorationists, sometimes reflected the vibrant spirituality and theology of radical evangelicalism, and illustrated the influence of folk magic in the Early Republic.

Brigham Young expressed a similar frustration -- wonder, really, in his case -- when describing his 1832 conversion:

When I undertook to sound the doctrine of "Mormonism," I supposed I could handle it as I could the Methodist, Presbyterian, and other creeds of Christendom, which I had paid some considerable attention to, from the first of my knowing anything about religion. When "Mormonism" was first presented to me, I had not seen one sect of religionists whose doctrines, from beginning to end, did not appear to me like the man's masonry which he had in a box, and which he exhibited for a certain sum. He opened the main box from which he took another box; he unlocked that and slipped out another, then another, and another, and thus continued to take box out of box until he came to an exceedingly small piece of wood; he then said to the spectators, "That, gentlemen and ladies, is free masonry." I found all religions comparatively like this-they were so deficient in doctrine that when I tried to tie the loose ends and fragments together, they would break in my hands. When I commenced to examine "Mormonism," I found it impossible to take hold of either end of it. (Brigham Young discourse of 17 April 1853)

Most unique was the presence of the "Golden Bible," the Book of Mormon. In the end, though, what I find most striking about the early Latter-day Saint movement is its inherent dynamism, which the new Scripture symbolized. [I'm influenced by Terryl Givens's superb analysis here]. The Saints accepted not only an open canon but a prophet who continually took them in new directions, theologically and temporally. Especially during Joseph Smith's lifetime, and to a lesser extent under Brigham Young, Latter-day Saint theology and practice remained intensely fluid and dynamic. That dynamism perplexed Smith's followers and continues to perplex historians. It's hard to take hold of either end of it.

Seeing Visions, Hearing Things, and Having Fits

John G. Turner

Thanks for the proclaimed respite, Paul. It will do us all good.

My first week in graduate school, one of my professors assigned The Social History of Truth by Steven Shapin. I spent an entire weekend carefully reading it, underlining furiously, and taking copious notes. By the time my seminar met, I realized I knew absolutely nothing about the book beyond its title. Its entire content had mysteriously eluded me.

It can be tough to visit foreign historiographical territory, even within the field of American religious history. I've been trying to get up to speed on religion in the antebellum United States to provide me with some context in my grapple with Mormonism. Therefore, I'm reading some new books and reviewing some I too loosely perused in graduate school. I found I absorbed Nathan Hatch's Democratization much more than Jon Buter's Awash in a Sea of Faith, for instance, so I've reread Butler. I love his characterization of the antebellum "spiritual hothouse."

Having mostly concentrated on evangelicalism, I find myself challenged by Catherine Albanese's insistence on the "role of metaphysics as a major player in the evolution of the national religiosity." (A Republic of Mind and Spirit) Moreover, although I've encountered histories of the occult in Butler and in various works on Mormonism, I'm staggered at Albanese's detailed and complex accounts of hermeticism, alchemy, and other forms of the occult in the United States. Unlike Butler, she doesn't think magic and the occult became relegated to the "folk" by the end of the eighteenth century. I also found her sections on Spiritualism and Theosophy very illuminating.

In seeking to further understanding these and related topics, I've turned to Ann Taves's Fits, Trances, & Visions, which traces religious and scientific accounts of involuntary movements from the awakenings of the 1740s through William James. As much a contribution to Religious Studies as history, Taves highlights the role of Methodism in American society in ways new to me, such as John Wesley's relatively open stance toward the supernatural, the development of "shouting Methodism," and the beginning healing revivals at the end of the nineteenth century. I found myself taking away insights about everything ranging from Jonathan Edwards to Joseph Smith to clairvoyant somnambules. [If there isn't a recent scholarly biography of Ellen G. White (the adventist prophetess), it needs to be written!]

I'm also very impressed with Leigh Schmidt's Hearing Things: Religion, Illusion and the American Enlightenment. Intrigued by Joseph Smith pronouncing Brigham Young's glossolalia "the pure Adamic language," I learned from Schmidt that disciples of Swedenborg, among others, sought the pure tongue of angels in nineteenth-century America.

Unfortunately, my encounter with Albanese, Taves, and Schmidt -- all very erudite monographs -- leaves me feeling slightly akin to my reading of The Social History of Truth. Although I now have some sense of Swedenborg, Spiritualism, and Theosophy, I've realized not only how influential some of these "alternative" (i.e., not strictly Protestant) movements were but also how difficult they are to understand (at least for me). Perhaps I should have stuck with what Albanese terms the "evangelical thesis." I hadn't been planning on spending time on spiritualism in my American Religious History class this spring but now feel it's essential, so I'm going to have to spend more time digesting these topics. [I'm going to read Larry Moore's book on spiritualism, which I have hitherto neglected -- his Religious Outsiders is one of my all-time favorites, not least for his chapter on Mormonism]. Any suggestions for further reading on these subjects?

Pentecostal Palin

By John Turner

TIME has a profile of Sarah Palin's religious roots with a brief primer on Pentecostalism. It's a good piece of journalism (I'm impressed with the distinction between the charismatic movement and Pentecostalism), though they should of course have interviewed our Matt Sutton and Randall Stephens.

Perhaps Palin could exorcise whatever is bewitching the financial markets?

Going Home?

BY JOHN TURNER

In the most recent Books & Culture, Lauren Winner contributes an eloquent review of our John Fea's The Way of Improvement Leads Home. Winner and Fea (with whom I'm having lunch today) describe the plight of Philip Vickers Fithian's quest to reconcile his love of his native southwest New Jersey with the universal ideals of the Enlightenment. As Winner interprets, many graduate students and faculty in far-flung corners of our land can readily commiserate with Fithian: "Fithian's problem is no less acute today for men and women whose education takes them geographically and imaginatively beyond their local communities." [I wish she'd offered a solution for this. Fea suggests that only his Revolutionary War death (serving universal ideals in his local regiment) allowed Fithian to reconcile these contradictory aims, which doesn't seem like an attractive real-world solution to me].

One non-Religion in American History thought: Perhaps we should elect Treasury Secretaries rather than presidents. The Bush administration, which curiously ended right after the 2004 election, has clearly given way to a temporary Paulson kingship.

A Jew among the Evangelicals

by John G. Turner

A few years ago, Christian Smith complained about "religiously ignorant journalists," particularly those who write about "evangelics," "evangelicalists," and "evangelists" when trying to come up with "evangelicals." [Books & Culture, January/February 2004].

If one ever feels blue about journalism on religion, especially on evangelical Christians, meet Mark Pinsky, religion writer for the Orlando Sentinel. When I was researching the history of Campus Crusade for Christ, I relied on his articles to explain Crusade's relocation from California to Orlando. He's also the author of several books, including The Gospel According to the Simpsons (Westminster / John Knox Press, Rev. Ed., 2007).

I recently read Pinsky's A Jew among the Evangelicals, which chronicles his experiences living with and reporting on the Sun Belt evangelicals of Orlando and includes some broader reflections on American evangelicalism. In his book, one can vicariously visit Orlando's Holy Land Experience, for instance.

I wish I had read A Jew among the Evangelicals and talked with Pinsky before finishing my book on Campus Crusade. First off, I love his capsule introduction to Bill Bright: "Physically unassuming -- a small, round man and a bit of a dandy -- he had a persistently beguiling way about him."

Pinsky then details an encounter with Bright in 1997. Bright had given the invocation opening a session of the Florida Senate in which he prayed in the name of "the Lord Jesus Christ ... the true God, the only God," upsetting several Jewish legislators. Troubled and embarrassed by the reaction, Bright asked Pinsky to arrange a meeting with his rabbi, Steve Engel, who was then the president of the Greater Orlando Board of Rabbis. Bright asked Engel how best to pray at public events in a manner that would be meaningful and authentic but inclusive of Jews.

Pinsky avoids simple stereotypes of evangelicals and finds evangelical leaders like Bright more complex than the caricatures that appear of them in many media outlets. Simply repeating those caricatures and stereotypes are a temptation for academics studying evangelicalism, as one can get a lot of mileage out of detailing evangelical homophobia, sexism, and hypocrisy. Evangelical leaders deserve much of the criticism they receive, but those of us who write about contemporary evangelicalism can find in Mark Pinsky a good model for sensitively writing about evangelicals in their full humanity.

For many historical topics, one of the best sources of information for historians is always newspaper reporting, especially for topics with limited archival sources. The excellent religion journalism of the Los Angeles Times was also invaluable for establishing Campus Crusade's history. It's bad news for future historians that newspapers around the country are cutting staff and that despite the general interest in stories about religion, reporters working the religion beat are finding themselves made redundant. They are anything but.