-Caveat Lector-
----- Original Message -----
From: Kris Millegan <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> an excerpt from:
> The Evolution of Mass Culture In America - 1877 to the Present
> Gerald R. Baydo, Editor
> A Religion for Every Taste
> Mike Zalampas
>
> When Lee surrendered to Grant at Appomattox Court House, most Americans
> worshipped the same God, read the same Bible, hoped for the same heaven
> and feared the same hell. They differed only on theological details and
> the organizational structures of their churches. Most Americans were
> Protestants affiliated with denominations that had initially developed
> in Europe - Baptist, Methodist, Episcopalian, or Congregational. The
> catholic Christian tradition was represented by a relatively small
> Roman Catholic Church.
>
> By 1914 a series of seismic shocks had fragmented the American religious
> landscape and an astounding number of radically divergent churches,
> faiths, and movements were active in the United States. There had
> appeared "a God for every man, a religion for every taste."
This fantasy of national doctrinal orthodoxy is belied by the great
upwelling of religious ferment in upstate New York during the period
1800-1850 that gave us Mormons, Millerite Millennialists [leading to
Jehovah's Witnesses and 7th-Day Adventists and Christian Scientists],
Spiritualists, Prohibitionists, Suffragettes, Abolitionists, et al,
as documented in THE BURNED-OVER ZONE; the Quakers, Shakers and other
Nonconformists; the wildly populist Wesleyans/Methodists and Baptists,
in constant bitter struggle with each other and with the Calvinists/
Puritans and Episcopalians representing more propertied classes; and
uneasy Roman Catholic dominance of Maryland, Louisiana, Maine. Long
before Darwin, America was heterogeneous, divided along socio-regional
lines, with religious orientations aligned with those divisions. Yes,
the US became more Catholic after 1850, with the Irish Diaspora, the
conquest of Mexico Norte, and increasing immigration from Bavaria and
Italy and France. Yes, Jewish and Orthodox and Lutheran populations
swelled with immigration in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.
But the fault lines existed long before then; this was never One
Nation Under One God. That's a pipedream. Bother.
Ric "sure I believe in gods, I carved a couple this morning" Carter
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