Summary
Title: The Transformation of American Religion: The Story of a Late Twentieth-Century Awakening
Author: Amanda Porterfield
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0195131371
Pro:
• Covers wide variety of religious beliefs and religions
• Explains how very "American" and "Protestant" attitudes converge
Con:
• None
Description:
• Argues that religious diversity in America is very much a product of Christian Protestantism
• Explores the connections between radical individualism, religious diversity, and Protestant theology
• Discusses the tension between adherence to tradition and dissent from authority
Book Review
Why should this interest nonbelievers and skeptics? For one thing, religion is a powerful force in American culture and politics, such that any major changes in it will eventually impact all of us. But perhaps more interestingly, it should be clear to most observers that the power of traditional American Protestantism has declined since the beginning of the twentieth century.
As Porterfield describes, the positive results of this trend include things like an increased respect for other religions and recognition of spiritual commonalities and an increase in religious diversity in America. But what is most interesting is one of the chief origins of this tend: Protestantism itself.
Yes, one of the ironic conclusions a reader of this book can draw is that the decline of organized Protestantism is, in part, a result of the triumph of important Protestant ideals:
- “Liberal Protestant’s presumption to cultural authority was discovered, questioned, and dissolved even as the vitality of ideas rooted in that tradition persisted and flourished.”
Perhaps the most fundamental and relevant ideal here is the authority of individual experience and testimony to religious matters. Whereas the Roman Catholic Church has supported the authority of traditions, institutions, and religious mediators, Protestantism was developed in opposition to this. Individuals themselves were thought to be the final authority for their own religious conclusion, even if in opposition to tradition and institutions.
In America, this has resulted in a large proliferation of Christians sects — portions of a church or denomination break away from larger groups on an almost regular basis. This has created a multitude of Christian voices, rarely speaking in harmony.
