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John Calvin's American Legacy explores the ways Calvin and the Calvinist tradition have influenced American life. Though there are books that trace the role Calvin and Calvinism have played in the national narrative, they tend to focus, as books, on particular topics and time periods. This work, divided into three sections, is the first to present studies that, taken together, represent the breadth of Calvinism's impact in the United States. In addition, each section moves chronologically, ranging from colonial times to the twenty-first century. After a brief introduction focused on the life of Calvin and some of the problems involved in how he is viewed and studied, the volume moves into the first section - <"Calvin, Calvinism, and American Society>" - which looks at the economics of the Colonial period, Calvin and the American identity, and the evidence for Calvin's influence on American democracy. The book's second section examines theology, addressing the relationship between Jonathan Edwards's church practice and Calvin's, the Calvinist theological tradition in the nineteenth century, how Calvin came to be understood in the historiography of Williston Walker and Perry Miller, and Calvin's influence on some of the theologies of the twentieth century. The third section, <"John Calvin, Calvinism, and American Letters,>" looks at Calvinism's influence on such writers as Samson Occom, Harriet Beecher Stowe, Max Weber, Mark Twain, and John Updike. Altogether, this volume demonstrates the wide-ranging impact of Calvin's thinking throughout American history and society.
Show moreJohn Calvin's American Legacy explores the ways Calvin and the Calvinist tradition have influenced American life. Though there are books that trace the role Calvin and Calvinism have played in the national narrative, they tend to focus, as books, on particular topics and time periods. This work, divided into three sections, is the first to present studies that, taken together, represent the breadth of Calvinism's impact in the United States. In addition, each section moves chronologically, ranging from colonial times to the twenty-first century. After a brief introduction focused on the life of Calvin and some of the problems involved in how he is viewed and studied, the volume moves into the first section - <"Calvin, Calvinism, and American Society>" - which looks at the economics of the Colonial period, Calvin and the American identity, and the evidence for Calvin's influence on American democracy. The book's second section examines theology, addressing the relationship between Jonathan Edwards's church practice and Calvin's, the Calvinist theological tradition in the nineteenth century, how Calvin came to be understood in the historiography of Williston Walker and Perry Miller, and Calvin's influence on some of the theologies of the twentieth century. The third section, <"John Calvin, Calvinism, and American Letters,>" looks at Calvinism's influence on such writers as Samson Occom, Harriet Beecher Stowe, Max Weber, Mark Twain, and John Updike. Altogether, this volume demonstrates the wide-ranging impact of Calvin's thinking throughout American history and society.
Show moreIntroduction, by Thomas J. Davis
Section I John Calvin, Calvinism, and American Society
Chapter 1 Calvin and the Social Order in Early America: Moral
Ideals and Transatlantic Empire, by Mark Valeri
Chapter 2 Calvinism and American National Identity, by David
Little
Chapter 3 Implausible: Calvinism and American Politics, by D. G.
Hart
Section II John Calvin, Calvinism, and American Theology
Chapter 4 Practical Ecclesiology in John Calvin and Jonathan
Edwards, by Amy Plantinga Pauw
Chapter 5 "Falling Away from the General Faith of the Reformation"?
The Contest over Calvinism in Nineteenth-Century America, by
Douglas A. Sweeney
Chapter 6 Calvin and Calvinism within Congregational and Unitarian
Discourse in Nineteenth-Century America, by David D. Hall
Chapter 7 Whose Calvin, Which Calvinism? John Calvin and the
Development of Twentieth-Century American Theology, by Stephen D.
Crocco
Section III John Calvin, Calvinism, and American Letters
Chapter 8 "Strange Providence": Indigenist Calvinism in the
Writings of Mohegan Minister Samson Occom (1723-1792), by Denise T.
Askin
Chapter 9 Geneva's Crystalline Clarity: Harriet Beecher Stowe and
Max Weber on Calvinism and the American Character, by Peter J.
Thuesen
Chapter 10 "Jonathan Edwards, Calvin, Baxter & Co.": Mark Twain and
the Comedy of Calvinism, by Joe B. Fulton
Chapter 11 Cold Comforts: John Updike, Protestant Thought and the
Semantics of Paradox, by Kyle A. Pasewark
Conclusion John Calvin at "Home" in American Culture
Professor and Chair, Department of Religious Studies, and Thomas H. Lake Scholar in Religion and Philanthropy, Indiana University-Purdue University
"The authors of these provocative and insightful essays are prone
neither to grandiose claims nor to cavalier dismissals. Instead,
they skillfully explore ambiguities. Ranging in their scope from
politics and economics to religious practice, ethics, and fiction,
they reveal the persisting relevance of a sixteenth-century Genevan
theologian for anyone who hopes to understand American culture.
They also prove that reading about Calvin can be genuinely
entertaining."
--E. Brooks Holifield, author of God's Ambassadors: A History of
the Christian Clergy in America
"Calvinism is deeply 'at home in the American consciousness,' and
fully deserves another round of new and mature
reflection."--Margaret Bendroth, Congregational Library
"Thomas Davis supplies the missing voice in this volume in an
all-too-brief but beautifully wrought discussion...."--Margaret
Bendroth, Congregational Library
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