A collection of original essays exploring the history of the various American religious traditions and the meaning of their many expressions

The Blackwell Companion to American Religious History explores the key events, significant themes, and important movements in various religious traditions throughout the nation's history from pre-colonization to the present day. Original essays written by leading scholars and new voices in the field discuss how religion in America has transformed over the years, explore its many expressions and meanings, and consider religion's central role in American life.

Emphasizing the integration of religion into broader cultural and historical themes, this wide-ranging volume explores the operation of religion in eras of historical change, the diversity of religious experiences, and religion's intersections with American cultural, political, social, racial, gender, and intellectual history. Each chronologically-organized chapter focuses on a specific period or event, such as the interactions between Moravian and Indigenous communities, the origins of African-American religious institutions, Mormon settlement in Utah, social reform movements during the twentieth century, the growth of ethnic religious communities, and the rise of the Religious Right. An innovative historical genealogy of American religious traditions, the Companion:

• Highlights broader historical themes using clear and compelling narrative Helps teachers expose their students to the significance and variety of America's religious past


• Explains new and revisionist interpretations of American religious history


• Surveys current and emerging historiographical trends


• Traces historical themes to contemporary issues surrounding civil rights and social justice movements, modern capitalism, and debates over religious liberties

Making the lessons of American religious history relevant to a broad range of readers, The Blackwell Companion to American Religious History is the perfect book for advanced undergraduate and graduate students in American history courses, and a valuable resource for graduate students and scholars wanting to keep pace with current historiographical trends and recent developments in the field.

List of Contributors ix

1 The Centrality, Diversity, and Malleability of American Religion 1
Benjamin E. Park

Part I Colonialisms 7

2 Nemasket/Middleborough and Religious Diversity in Colonial New England 9
Richard J. Boles

3 A View from the Philadelphia Barracks: Religion in the Mid-Atlantic 25
Rachel Wheeler

4 Africana Religions in Early America 44
Jason R. Young

Part II Establishment 57

5 The Loyalist Church of England Clergy and the Politics of Martyrdom in the American Revolution 59
Peter W. Walker

6 Freeborn Garrettson's Revolution: Religion and the American War for Independence 71
Christopher Cannon Jones

7 The First Wall of Separation between Church and State: Slavery and Disestablishment in Late-Eighteenth-Century Virginia 87
Sarah Barringer Gordon

8 Abraham Remembered: An African Captivity Tale in Early America 102
Jon F. Sensbach

9 The White River Witch-Hunt and Indigenous Peoples' Negotiations with Missionaries in the Era of the Early Republic 114
Lori J. Daggar

10 The Shakers and the Perfecting Spirit in Early America 128
Jennifer H. Dorsey

Part III Expansion 137

11 David Walker and Black Prophetic Religion 139
Christopher Cameron

12 "Down with the Convent!": Anti-Catholicism and Opposition to Nuns in Antebellum America 150
Cassandra L. Yacovazzi

13 Ecclesiology and the Varieties of Romanticism in American Christianity, 1825-1850 165
Brent S. Sirota

14 Being Haudenosaunee: Seeing Indigenous Ontology Under American Settler Colonialism 179
Christian Gonzales

15 Mormons and Territorial Politics in the American Civil War Era 191
Brent M. Rogers

16 Black Christianity after Emancipation 206
Nicole Myers Turner

Part IV Imperialism 223

17 In Search of a "Working Class Religion": Religion, Economic Reform, and Social Justice 225
Janine Giordano Drake

18 The Businessman's Gospel: Making Business Christian 239
Nicole C. Kirk

19 The Prohibition Crusade and American Moral Politics 252
Joseph L. Locke

20 Race, Ethnicity, and Gender Among Early Pentecostals 265
Arlene M. Sanchez-Walsh

21 Religion and US Federal Indian Policy 276
Sarah Dees

22 "For the Good of Mankind": Atomic Exceptionalism, Religion, and United States Empire in the Postwar Pacific 287
Carleigh Beriont

Part V Modernity 299

23 The Hate That Hate Produced: Representing Black Religion in the Twentieth Century 301
Vaughn A. Booker

24 The Pentagon Exorcism: 1960s Counter-Culture and the Occult Revival 317
Joseph P. Laycock

25 Native American Christians and the Varieties of Modern Pentecostalism 329
Angela Tarango

26 Sex, Politics, and the Rise of the New Christian Right 341
Emily Suzanne Johnson

27 Immigration and Religion Among Chinese Americans, 1965 to the Present 355
Melissa May Borja

28 Modern Judaism and the Golden Age of Television 371
Jennifer Caplan

Index 383