Head and Heart: A History of Christianity in America

Near the beginning of RENEGERATION THROUGH VIOLENCE: THE MYTHOLOGY OF THE AMERICA FRONTIER 1600-1860, the first volume of Richard Slotkin's monumental three-volume work, he writes of the paradox that America was founded by secular deists who envisioned a future America that embraced the principles of Jeffersonian democracy, but that instead within a few decades we had become a nation that rejected Jefferson's rationalism to embrace a distinctly emotional form of religion epitomized by Jacksonian democracy. I've yet to work through Slotkin's depiction of the shift, but there are obvious parallels with Wills's subject matter. As Wills points out, American religious history has consisted largely of a tension between religious traditions that are rational and those that are far more emotional. Our national religious history is that of the struggle between the head and heart. There is a wealth of information in this book and although I've read fairly extensively on American religious history in the past I learned a great deal. Wills illumines nearly every religious epoch that he discusses, from the Puritans to the Enlightenment Deists who founded the country to the crucial figures of the Second Great Awakening to the Transcendentalists to the Civil War to the beginnings of the evangelical movement to the Social Gospel to today's religious right. My own position to all this is complex. While Wills is a Roman Catholic who seems, to my Protestant eyes, indistinguishable from any mainstream Protestant in his religious belief, I am a former Southern Baptist (I left the Convention when they started approving such absurdities as insisting that women be subservient to men) who still believes in traditional Baptist beliefs (including separation of Church and State, something that Baptists have traditionally been avid supporters of), though I also am leery of emotionalism in religion (I find it is generally effective for evangelists in the short run, but bad for churches in the long run). I'm a paradox, a member of a religious tradition that emphasizes the heart, while I personally see more value in a religion of the head, orthodox theologically but rational about my spirituality. But I suppose in a way that this typifies many of the tensions in American history. I think this book will be of enormous help to anyone wanting to understand many of the stresses in American religious and political life. For instance, he helps us understand why evangelicals are today politically conservative, even though historically they were quite progressive. His sections on William Jennings Bryan are instructive, a political progressive, unquestionably one of the most left-leaning presidential candidates in history, yet remembered today as a right-winger due to his involvement in the Scopes trial. In the short run I hope his book has some influence on the ongoing nonsense generated by many fundamentalists (including, alas, many of my former fellow Southern Baptists, who hav

A man with an encyclopedic knowledge of history, theology, politics and the craziness of humankind, Gary Wills is an author on whose next book I always wait, wonder what it's going to be about. Head and Heart chronicles the intricate interplay between religion and politics from the time our nation was founded. He debunks the mistaken notion that the United States was founded as a Christian nation, when, in fact, our founders were very careful to ensure ours would be a nation in which a specific religion would neither be established nor gain control. Unfortunately, as Wills shows, this "wall of separation" desired by Washington, Jefferson, Adams and Madison, has been seriously eroded in the era in which we now live, seriously threatening the careful balance desired by our founders - a balance that has been of enormous benefit not only to the operation of our government - but to American religion itself. In no country where religion is supported by the state has religion flourished as it does in the United States. Equally, in no country where religion dominates the government has freedom flourished as it does in the United States. Rev. Dr. David Sammons, Visiting Professor of Unitarian Universalist Heritage and Ministry Starr King School for the Ministry

Without question one of the most important books published this year, "Head and Heart: American Christianities" is an important, often insightful, history on the importance of religion to American life. Garry Wills has written a mesmerizing account of that history, and one that deserves as wide a readership as possible. For some it may be infuriating, simply because he reminds us - at a time in which we need such reminding - that the United States of America was founded, not as a Christian nation, but instead, as a democratic republic by Enlightenment Deists such as Jefferson, Adams, Franklin and Washington, who, while recognizing the importance of religion in American life, also realized the importance of a strict separation between church and state; a realization borne out of decades-old religious intolerance and persecution here, in the New World, itself. Indeed, Wills argues persuasively that this strict separation fostered the growth of devout religious belief in the United States during the first half of the 19th Century, by allowing religious liberty to thrive unfettered in a "free market" atmosphere of ideas. He also contends that American religious life has been dominated by two "poles", by "head and heart", or rather, by reason and emotion, throughout its history, and has seen its greatest success when it has used both to their fullest possible extent (For example, in the case of the Abolitionist crusade against slavery, which combined both Fundamentalist Protestant Christian religious fervor with a more rational religious outlook from the likes of Unitarians and Quakers.). Wills demonstrates that the rise of religious tolerance in colonial America was not a foregone conclusion that we can gleam from our history textbooks. Instead, he demonstrates that Puritan America was a despotic theocracy in its infancy, relying upon expulsion and execution, to rid Massachusetts of religious dissenters, well into the 17th Century. Even Roger Williams is shown in a completely different, quite unflattering, light, as demonstrated by his own religious intolerance towards Quakers. Ironically, true religious intolerance didn't emerge in British North America unless it was imposed directly from London. The first colony that truly offered religious tolerance wasn't established for decades, until the formation of Pennsylvania by William Penn and his fellow Quakers. Ironically, by the mid 18th Century, religious life in the United States would be at its lowest ebb, despite a "Great Awakening" of the 1740s; this was due to the widespread embrace of the ideals of the Scottish Enlightenment by those who would become our Founding Fathers; men like Franklin, Adams, Washington, Jefferson and Madison (The only truly tangible "fruits" of that "Great Awakening" would be the establishment of Princeton, Columbia and Brown universities, among others, by those ministers who had been positively influenced by it.). Wills concludes the book with a searing indictment of

I am currently reading RENEGERATION THROUGH VIOLENCE: THE MYTHOLOGY OF THE AMERICA FRONTIER 1600-1860, the first volume of Richard Slotkin's monumental three-volume. In the earliest pages of this work Slotkin writes of the dilemma that America was founded by secular deists who envisioned a future America that embraced the principles of Jeffersonian democracy, but that we instead within a few decades had become a nation that rejected Jefferson's rationalism to embrace a distinctly emotional form of religion epitomized by Jacksonian democracy. I've yet to work through Slotkin's depiction of the shift, but there are obvious parallels with Wills's subject matter. As Wills points out, American religious history has consisted largely of a tension between religious traditions that are rational and those that are far more emotional. Our national religious history is that of the struggle between the head and heart. There is a wealth of information in this book and although I've read fairly extensively on American religious history in the past I learned a great deal. Wills illumines nearly every religious epoch that he discusses, from the Puritans to the Enlightenment Deists who founded the country to the crucial figures of the Second Great Awakening to the Transcendentalists to the Civil War to the beginnings of the evangelical movement to the Social Gospel to today's religious right. My own position to all this is complex. While Wills is a Roman Catholic who seems, to my Protestant eyes, indistinguishable from any mainstream Protestant in his religious belief, I am a former Southern Baptist (I left the Convention when they started approving such absurdities as insisting that women be subservient to men) who still believes in traditional Baptist beliefs (including separation of Church and State, something that Baptists have traditionally been avid supporters of), though I also am leery of emotionalism in religion (I find it is generally effective for evangelists in the short run, but bad for churches in the long run). I'm a paradox, a member of a religious tradition that emphasizes the heart, while I personally see more value in a religion of the head, orthodox theologically but rational about my spirituality. But I suppose in a way that this typifies many of the tensions in American history. I think this book will be of enormous help to anyone wanting to understand many of the stresses in American religious and political life. For instance, he helps us understand why evangelicals are today politically conservative, even though historically they were quite progressive. His sections on William Jennings Bryan are instructive, a political progressive, unquestionably one of the most left-leaning presidential candidates in history, yet remembered today as a right-winger due to his involvement in the Scopes trial. In the short run I hope his book has some influence on the ongoing nonsense generated by many fundamentalists (including, alas, man

Garry Wills is one of my favorite writers on religion. He is himself a practicing Catholic, but he has not shrunk from criticizing the church when he feels it has gone over the edge, as in the abuse scandals of recent times. He has a certain fair-mindedness that is lacking in much religious writing. It was thus with some anticipation that I read through his recent book "Head and Heart: American Christianities." This is a very important document which follows the history of the two main streams of Christian religious thought in America - the Enlightened Religion (that of the Founders of our country) and Evangelical Religion (the mainly emotional appeal of being "saved"). Indeed, Wills thinks that we need both and that their avowed antagonism is to some extent overblown, but perhaps necessary to maintain some sort of balance. For full disclosure I must note that I am a member of the Religious Society of Friends (Quakers) who considers himself agnostic on religion. I am, however, sympathetic to Buddhism, as well as the more compassionate streams of thought in all religions. I have had some contact as a representative of my Meeting with a number of other religious groups. Finally I am also a professional biological scientist. My background does in no way give me special insight to review this book, but it does warn the reader of my own possible biases. It is, in fact, hard to review this over 600 page book with its many notes and do justice to its depth. Wills has researched his subject thoroughly and gives us the whole panoply of religious thought from the Puritans to the recent ascendancy of the televangelists and talk show ministers. The Puritans did not come to America (as is sometimes reported) to foster religious freedom, but to impose their brand of "purified" Anglican faith onto the people living around them, including the Native Americans. Wills speaks favorably of the later colonists, the Quakers (in fact dedicating his book to Anthony Benezet, an anti-slavery Quaker who worked with the more well known John Woolman), in their founding of Pennsylvania and their views on religious freedom. It has also been said that Quakers came to the New World to do good and did very well indeed - meaning that some became very wealthy. It is true that the Quakers, although often slave-holders themselves, were among the first to disavow the practice and were heavily involved in the underground railroad that helped runaway slaves reach the North. The Founders of the United States were mostly Deists who, none the less, understood that religious freedom was necessary to the ultimate health of the new country. They (perhaps especially Madison) believed in a "free market" for religious ideas, thinking that in such an atmosphere the best religion would prevail without government aid. In fact, despite many opinions to the contrary, it is obvious that the United States was not founded as a Christian Nation, but as a society with respect and tolera