Religion in the Modern American West

Religion in the Modern American West
Author :
Publisher : University of Arizona Press
Total Pages : 276
Release :
ISBN-10 : 0816522456
ISBN-13 : 9780816522453
Rating : 4/5 (56 Downloads)

Synopsis Religion in the Modern American West by : Ferenc Morton Szasz

When Americans migrated west, they carried with them not only their hopes for better lives but their religious traditions as well. Yet the importance of religion in the forging of a western identity has seldom been examined. In this first historical overview of religion in the modern American West, Ferenc Szasz shows the important role that organized religion played in the shaping of the region from the late-nineteenth to late-twentieth century. He traces the major faiths over that time span, analyzes the distinctive response of western religious institutions to national events, and shows how western cities became homes to a variety of organized faiths that cast only faint shadows back east. While many historians have minimized the importance of religion for the region, Szasz maintains that it lies at the very heart of the western experience. From the 1890s to the 1920s, churches and synagogues created institutions such as schools and hospitals that shaped their local communities; during the Great Depression, the Latter-day Saints introduced their innovative social welfare system; and in later years, Pentecostal groups carried their traditions to the Pacific coast and Southern Baptists (among others) set out in earnest to evangelize the Far West. Beginning in the 1960s, the arrival of Asian faiths, the revitalization of evangelical Protestantism, the ferment of post-Vatican II Catholicism, the rediscovery of Native American spirituality, and the emergence of New Age sects combined to make western cities such as Los Angeles and San Francisco among the most religiously pluralistic in the world. Examining the careers of key figures in western religion, from Rabbi William Friedman to Reverend Robert H. Schuller, Szasz balances specific and general trends to weave the story of religion into a wider social and cultural context. Religion in the Modern American West calls attention to an often overlooked facet of regional history and broadens our understanding of the American experience.

Americanism:The Fourth Great Western Religion

Americanism:The Fourth Great Western Religion
Author :
Publisher : Doubleday
Total Pages : 182
Release :
ISBN-10 : 9780385522953
ISBN-13 : 0385522959
Rating : 4/5 (53 Downloads)

Synopsis Americanism:The Fourth Great Western Religion by : David Gelernter

What does it mean to “believe” in America? Why do we always speak of our country as having a mission or purpose that is higher than other nations? Modern liberals have invested a great deal in the notion that America was founded as a secular state, with religion relegated to the private sphere. David Gelernter argues that America is not secular at all, but a powerful religious idea—indeed, a religion in its own right. Gelernter argues that what we have come to call “Americanism” is in fact a secular version of Zionism. Not the Zionism of the ancient Hebrews, but that of the Puritan founders who saw themselves as the new children of Israel, creating a new Jerusalem in a new world. Their faith-based ideals of liberty, equality, and democratic governance had a greater influence on the nation’s founders than the Enlightenment. Gelernter traces the development of the American religion from its roots in the Puritan Zionism of seventeenth-century New England to the idealistic fighting faith it has become, a militant creed dedicated to spreading freedom around the world. The central figures in this process were Abraham Lincoln, Teddy Roosevelt, and Woodrow Wilson, who presided over the secularization of the American Zionist idea into the form we now know as Americanism. If America is a religion, it is a religion without a god, and it is a global religion. People who believe in America live all over the world. Its adherents have included oppressed and freedom-loving peoples everywhere—from the patriots of the Greek and Hungarian revolutions to the martyred Chinese dissidents of Tiananmen Square. Gelernter also shows that anti-Americanism, particularly the virulent kind that is found today in Europe, is a reaction against this religious conception of America on the part of those who adhere to a rival religion of pacifism and appeasement. A startlingly original argument about the religious meaning of America and why it is loved—and hated—with so much passion at home and abroad.

Religion in the Modern American West

Religion in the Modern American West
Author :
Publisher : University of Arizona Press
Total Pages : 269
Release :
ISBN-10 : 9780816543526
ISBN-13 : 0816543526
Rating : 4/5 (26 Downloads)

Synopsis Religion in the Modern American West by : Ferenc Morton Szasz

When Americans migrated west, they carried with them not only their hopes for better lives but their religious traditions as well. Yet the importance of religion in the forging of a western identity has seldom been examined. In this first historical overview of religion in the modern American West, Ferenc Szasz shows the important role that organized religion played in the shaping of the region from the late-nineteenth to late-twentieth century. He traces the major faiths over that time span, analyzes the distinctive response of western religious institutions to national events, and shows how western cities became homes to a variety of organized faiths that cast only faint shadows back east. While many historians have minimized the importance of religion for the region, Szasz maintains that it lies at the very heart of the western experience. From the 1890s to the 1920s, churches and synagogues created institutions such as schools and hospitals that shaped their local communities; during the Great Depression, the Latter-day Saints introduced their innovative social welfare system; and in later years, Pentecostal groups carried their traditions to the Pacific coast and Southern Baptists (among others) set out in earnest to evangelize the Far West. Beginning in the 1960s, the arrival of Asian faiths, the revitalization of evangelical Protestantism, the ferment of post-Vatican II Catholicism, the rediscovery of Native American spirituality, and the emergence of New Age sects combined to make western cities such as Los Angeles and San Francisco among the most religiously pluralistic in the world. Examining the careers of key figures in western religion, from Rabbi William Friedman to Reverend Robert H. Schuller, Szasz balances specific and general trends to weave the story of religion into a wider social and cultural context. Religion in the Modern American West calls attention to an often-overlooked facet of regional history and broadens our understanding of the American experience.

Before Religion

Before Religion
Author :
Publisher : Yale University Press
Total Pages : 315
Release :
ISBN-10 : 9780300154177
ISBN-13 : 0300154178
Rating : 4/5 (77 Downloads)

Synopsis Before Religion by : Brent Nongbri

Examining a wide array of ancient writings, Brent Nongbri dispels the commonly held idea that there is such a thing as ancient religion. Nongbri shows how misleading it is to speak as though religion was a concept native to pre-modern cultures.

God's Red Son

God's Red Son
Author :
Publisher : Basic Books
Total Pages : 477
Release :
ISBN-10 : 9780465098682
ISBN-13 : 0465098681
Rating : 4/5 (82 Downloads)

Synopsis God's Red Son by : Louis S. Warren

The definitive account of the Ghost Dance religion, which led to the infamous massacre at Wounded Knee in 1890 Winner of the Bancroft Prize in American History In 1890, on Indian reservations across the West, followers of a new religion danced in circles until they collapsed into trances. In an attempt to suppress this new faith, the US Army killed over two hundred Lakota Sioux at Wounded Knee Creek. In God's Red Son, historian Louis Warren offers a startling new view of the religion known as the Ghost Dance, from its origins in the visions of a Northern Paiute named Wovoka to the tragedy in South Dakota. To this day, the Ghost Dance remains widely mischaracterized as a primitive and failed effort by Indian militants to resist American conquest and return to traditional ways. In fact, followers of the Ghost Dance sought to thrive in modern America by working for wages, farming the land, and educating their children, tenets that helped the religion endure for decades after Wounded Knee. God's Red Son powerfully reveals how Ghost Dance teachings helped Indians retain their identity and reshape the modern world.

Mormon Visual Culture and the American West

Mormon Visual Culture and the American West
Author :
Publisher : Routledge
Total Pages : 215
Release :
ISBN-10 : 9781000349795
ISBN-13 : 1000349799
Rating : 4/5 (95 Downloads)

Synopsis Mormon Visual Culture and the American West by : Nathan Rees

This book explores the place of art in Latter-day Saint society during the first 50 years of the Utah settlement, beginning in 1847. Nathan Rees uncovers the critical role that images played in nineteenth-century Mormon religion, politics, and social practice. These artists not only represented, but actively participated in debates about theology, politics, race, gender, and sexuality at a time when Latter-day Saints were grappling with evolving doctrine, conflict with Native Americans, and political turmoil resulting from their practice of polygamy. The book makes an important contribution to art history, Mormon studies, American studies, and religious studies.

Re-imagining the Modern American West

Re-imagining the Modern American West
Author :
Publisher : University of Arizona Press
Total Pages : 276
Release :
ISBN-10 : 0816516839
ISBN-13 : 9780816516834
Rating : 4/5 (39 Downloads)

Synopsis Re-imagining the Modern American West by : Richard W. Etulain

Describes changes in how the West has been seen, from a male-dominated frontier, to a region with a powerful sense of place, to a modern center of both genders, ethnic groups, and environmental interests

American Heathens

American Heathens
Author :
Publisher : Univ of California Press
Total Pages : 280
Release :
ISBN-10 : 9780520289055
ISBN-13 : 0520289056
Rating : 4/5 (55 Downloads)

Synopsis American Heathens by : Joshua Paddison

In the 19th-century debate over whether the United States should be an explicitly Christian nation, California emerged as a central battleground. Racial groups that were perceived as godless and uncivilized were excluded from suffrage, and evangelism among Indians and the Chinese was seen as a politically incendiary act. Joshua Paddison sheds light on ReconstructionÕs impact on Indians and Asian Americans by illustrating how marginalized groups fought for a political voice, refuting racist assumptions with their lives, words, and faith. Reconstruction, he argues, was not merely a remaking of the South, but rather a multiracial and multiregional process of reimagining the nation.

Peyote Religion

Peyote Religion
Author :
Publisher : University of Oklahoma Press
Total Pages : 476
Release :
ISBN-10 : 0806124571
ISBN-13 : 9780806124575
Rating : 4/5 (71 Downloads)

Synopsis Peyote Religion by : Omer Call Stewart

Describes the peyote plant, the birth of peyotism in western Oklahoma, its spread from Indian Territory to Mexico, the High Plains, and the Far West, its role among such tribes as the Comanche, Kiowa, Kiowa-Apache, Caddo, Wichita, Delaware, and Navajo Indians, its conflicts with the law, and the history of the Native American Church.

The North American West in the Twenty-First Century

The North American West in the Twenty-First Century
Author :
Publisher : U of Nebraska Press
Total Pages : 418
Release :
ISBN-10 : 9781496230430
ISBN-13 : 1496230434
Rating : 4/5 (30 Downloads)

Synopsis The North American West in the Twenty-First Century by : Brenden W. Rensink

This edited volume takes stories from the "modern West" of the late twentieth century and carefully pulls them toward the present--explicitly tracing continuity with and unexpected divergence from trajectories established in the 1980s and 1990s.