This book provides a fresh, in-depth examination of the Revival of 1857-58, a widespread religious awakening most famous for urban prayer meetings in major metropolitan centers across the United States. Often mentioned in religious history texts and articles but overshadowed by scholarly attention to the first and second "Great Awakenings," the revival has lacked a critical, book-length analysis. This study will help to fill this gap and to place the event within the context of Protestant revival traditions in America. The Revival of 1857-58 was a multifaceted religious movement that Long suggests may have been the closest thing to a truly national revival in American history. The awakening marked the coming together of formalist and populist evangelical groups, particularly in urban areas, and helped to create the beginnings of a transdenominational religious identity among middle-class American evangelicals. Long explores the revival from various angles, emphasizing the importance of historiography and examining the way Calvinist clergy and the editors of the daily press canonized particular versions of the revival story, most notably its role in the history of great awakenings and its character as a masculine "businessmen's revival." She gives attention to grassroots perspectives on the awakening and also pursues wider social and cultural questions, including whether the revival actually affected evangelical involvement in social reform. The book combines insights from contemporary scholarship concerning revivals, women's history, and nineteenth-century mass print with extensive primary source research. The result is a clearly written study that blends careful description with nuanced analysis.

This collection of essays by leading historians offers a close look at the connections between American Protestants and money in the Antebellum period. During the first decades of the new American nation, money was everywhere on the minds of church leaders and many of their followers. Economic questions figured regularly in preaching and pamphleteering, and convictions about money contributed greatly to perceptions of morality both public and private. In fact, money was always a religious question. For this reason, argue the authors of these essays, it is impossible to understand broader cultural developments of the period--including political developments--without considering religion and economics together. In God and Mammon, several essays examine the ways in which the churches raised money after the end of establishment put a stop to state funding, such as the collection of pew rents and lotteries. Free-will offerings only came later and at first were used only for special causes, not operating expenses. Other essays look at the role of money and markets in the rise of Christian voluntary societies. Still others examine inter-denominational strife, documenting frequent accusations that theological error led to the misuse of money and the arrogance of wealth. Taken together, the essays provide essential background to a relationship that continues to loom large and generate controversy in American religious communities.

White male spirituality and the Christian man -- The dutiful patriarch -- The gentleman entrepreneur -- The courageous adventurer -- The efficient businessman -- The positive thinker -- The faithful leader -- Male spirituality in white Protestant America.

"This book will appeal to scholars and students of popular religion as well as to general readers interested in the subject."--BOOK JACKET.

Most forms of religion are best understood in the con- text of their relationship with the surrounding culture. This may be particularly true in the United States. Certainly immigrant Catholicism became Americanized; mainstream Protestantism accommodated itself to the modern world; and Reform Judaism is at home in American society. In Evangelicalism, Richard Kyle explores paradoxical adjustments and transformations in the relationship between conservative Protestant Evangelicalism and contemporary American culture. Evangelicals have resisted many aspects of the modern world, but Kyle focuses on what he considers their romance with popular culture. Kyle sees this as an Americanized Christianity rather than a Christian America, but the two are so intertwined that it is difficult to discern the difference between them. Instead, in what has become a vicious self-serving cycle, Evangelicals have baptized and sanctified secular culture in order to be considered culturally relevant, thus increasing their numbers and success within abundantly populous and populist-driven American society. In doing so, Evangelicalism has become a middle-class movement, one that dominates America's culture, and unabashedly populist. Many Evangelicals view America as God's chosen nation, thus sanctifying American culture, consumerism, and middle-class values. Kyle believes Evangelicals have served themselves well in consciously and deliberately adjusting their faith to popular culture. Yet he also thinks Evangelicals may have compromised themselves and their future in the process, so heavily borrowing from the popular culture that in many respects the Evangelical subculture has become secularism with a light gilding of Christianity. If so, he asks, can Evangelicalism survive its own popularity and reaffirm its religious origins, or will it assimilate and be absorbed into what was once known as the Great American Melting Pot of religions and cultures? Will the Gospel of the American dream ultimately engulf and destroy the Gospel of Evangelical success in America? This thoughtful and thought-provoking volume will interest anyone concerned with the modern-day success of the Evangelical movement in America and the aspirations and fate of its faithful.