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| Titre : | Revivalism & Social Reform : American Protestantism on the Eve of the Civil War |
| Auteurs : | Timothy L. Smith, Auteur |
| Type de document : | texte imprimé |
| Editeur : | New York [USA] : Harper Torchbooks, 1965 |
| Format : | 253 p. |
| Note générale : | 1st edition by Abingdon Press (1957) |
| Langues: | Anglais |
| Index. décimale : | JR/C (Réveils en Amérique du Nord) |
| Résumé : | “So many historians have tracked the trail of the American revivalists that it is difficult for anyone to discover something new about that trail. Timothy Smith claimed to discover that they were more oriented towards social reform than their critics saw them to be. He backed up, with solid documentation, his claim that they were, in their own way, fathers of the Social Gospel. His book represented one of those rare moments in the study of American church history: the development of an original thesis, one worthy of the argument which it has during the past decade inspired and survived.”— Martin E. Marty |
| Note de contenu : |
- I. The Inner Structure of American Protestantism: A careful distinction of the various sects and an appreciation of their size, geographical distribution, and inner divisions is essential to the study of American religion. - II. The Social Influence of the Churches: Despite the absence of a legally established faith, foreign travelers and thoughtful Americans believed that evangelical Protestantism had made itself the religion of the land and that its clergymen were the arbiters of public morals. - III. The Resurgence of Revivalism - 1840-57: Although professional evangelists like Jacob Knapp and Charles G. Finney suffered temporary eclipse, revival measures won wider acceptance each year, particularly among urban pastors, in Baptist, Congregational, Lutheran, Presbyterian, and Methodist communions. - IV. Annus Mirabilis -1858: The Awakening of 1858 spread from New York to every city in the North by means of daily interdenominational prayer meetings. It drew serious support from all denominations—including even the most liberal and liturgical ones—and stamped devotion to evangelistic measures deep on the Protestant mind. - V. The Fruits of Fervor: Revivalism’s triumph brought about an enlarged role for lay leadership in the American churches, undergirded Protestantism’s first ecumenical movement, created a widespread new ethical seriousness, and gave Arminian doctrines pre-eminence over Orthodox Calvinism in all but the Old School Presbyterian and a few minor sects. - VI. Evangelical Unitarianism : A powerful drive toward evangelical doctrines dominated the Unitarian fold, an event made possible because revivals had undermined the old orthodoxy and popularized a faith which shared Unitarian-ism’s historic ethical, spiritual, and antisectarian concerns. - VII. The Holiness Revival at Oberlin: The Oberlin preachers spread doctrines of Christian perfection which, though at times resembling and at others differing from the Wesleyan view, expressed in dramatic fashion the hunger for a higher, holier life which was sweeping through all of American Christendom. - VIII. Sanctification in American Methodism: The greatest intellectual and ecclesiastical leaders of the Methodist Episcopal Church, North, joined Mrs. Phoebe Palmer and a host of popular preachers in restoring the experience of “perfect love” to a central place in Wesleyan religion. - IX. Revivalism and Perfectionism: In the revivals of 1858 and following years, the holiness movement gained wide favor because it embodied in radical fashion the ideals and practices of the new evangelism. It also reflected on a popular level the social and spiritual strivings of Emerson’s transcendentalist philosophy and fulfilled a typically American urge to make Christianity work. - X. The Evangelical Origins of Social Christianity: The preoccupation with social problems which later dominated American Protestantism stems from the zeal and compassion which the mid-century revivalists awakened for sinning and suffering men. And it rests in large measure upon social theories which they originated. - XI. The Churches Help the Poor: Evangelists and perfectionists led the way in both expounding and applying the doctrine of Christian responsibility toward the impoverished, through scores of city missions, the settlement project at Five Points, New York City, and the social services of the Y.M.C.A. and the United States Christian Commission. - XII. Christian Liberty and Human Bondage: the Paradox of Slavery: The attack on slavery, in which radical liberals and evangelicals at first freely united, soon raised questions which went to the heart of the relations between gospel, church, and world, tearing apart the antislavery organizations and creating inner dilemmas which the churches largely failed to overcome. - XIII. The Spiritual Warfare Against Slavery: Within the churches revival men and holiness advocates, except for Mrs. Palmer’s circle, most readily broke through the barriers which held others-back from antislavery agitation; in the process they adopted a liberal approach to the interpretation of Scripture and replaced the Orthodox Calvinists as champions of theocracy. - XIV. The Gospel of the Kingdom: The hope for Christ’s early reign on earth, reflected in the zeal with which William Miller’s Adventists prepared for His return in 1843, exerted a far more important social influence through the identification of post-millennial doctrines with the patriotic idea that America’s destiny is to establish democracy and drive poverty and injustice from the earth. - Critical Essay on the Sources of Information - Index |
Exemplaires (1)
| Code-barres | Cote | Support | Localisation | Section | Disponibilité |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| JR/C 014 | JR/C 014 | Livre | Bibliothèque principale | Livres empruntables | Prêt possible Disponible |
