Content

Nathan O. Hatch makes sure that every reader knows his purpose for this book after the first sentence. “This book is about the cultural and religious history of the early American Republic and the enduring structures of American Christianity. It argues both that the theme of democratization is central to understanding the development of American Christianity, and that the years of the early Republic are the most crucial in revealing that process.”

Hatch’s entire argument hinges on the acceptance on one point. The point is that the American revolution provided not only independence from England, but also independence from a social hierarchy. By this he means that the abolishment of the control of the English throne also abolished the controlling forces in the church, such as the pope or church traditions as well. This lead to a mass movement of unorthodox denominations and churches rising from out of the ground. It was, in a sense, a new reformation not of theology of the church, but the structure of the church.

What Hatch tries to prove in the first couple chapters is that the era in which this second great awakening happened was the perfect time for all these new denominations to be springing out. It was a time when people were more interested in experience rather than orthodoxy. They were moving towards a life of Christianity rather than the words of it. He points out that Barton Stone was more interested in actions than words. He also points out another note that could be considered tangential, but it is a fundamental key of this entire era. The country during this time period was splitting and fracturing as the country was trying to find it’s identity, and what this democratization of Christianity brought was a sense of unity and morality to an chaotic time. It was a combination of the American spirit with church. Because of this, it created a passion that united people, even if they were not of the same denomination.

For his examples, Hatch looks at five distinct movements: the Christian movement, the Methodists, the Baptists, the black churches, and the Mormons. Throughout these different movements shows the spirit of America during the turn of the nineteenth century. A spirit where people scorned tradition and reveled novelty This ultimate effect on the church of this new desire was the replacement of orthodoxy with public opinion.

All of this change coincided with a time when print was exploding and people were trying to read as much as possible for the purpose of elevating themselves. Even though classes had seemed to have been eradicated in terms of it’s power in society over others, there was still a sense that education was a more nobler form of existence. This belief created an explosion in print and music as well.

Form and Function

The biggest strength of this book is it’s author. He understands what he is trying to do, and is explicit both in that intent as well as in what is not his intent. This provides clear guidelines not only for what he is trying to do, but what he can not be judged on for not doing. He carries this strength over into the organization of the book which is incredibly well organized and well presented. It’s basic formula is to tell what happened, then to give examples of how it happened, followed by who it happened to and how, and lastly how it had an impact on history.

This book is filled with example after example of him trying to illustrate his point, and he does so exceedingly well. The only issue I can find with the book is that sometimes his narrowness of view misses larger overall pictures. I think that he misses some of the influences of expansion into the western frontier and it’s effect on this mindset. The American attitude of “I can do anything” is derived from the pioneers who were forced to be able to do anything or else die. While that is not explicitly talked about, I could see hints of it in his writings. Whether or not he was cognizant of these allusions I am not sure, it just seems like there is another side of this story that was ignored.

Getting completely picky to find one negative, I would have to point out that Hatch also states that the greatest example of the Democratization of American Christianity was the ability for a African American to become a preacher. This is one of the few statements I find in this book that I find to be faulty. The truth of the matter is that African Americans were always the head of their own churches because they were the only ones in their churches. For true democratization to occur, the boundary lines of race would have had to have been crossed where an African American was preaching at a white congregation.

This book overall is impeccably well written with very straightforward goals and ambitions. Hatch does a remarkable job of achieving the goals that he sets out to do and he does it in a manner that is clear and concise while project a lot of information at the same time.

Nathan O. Hatch uses the second sentence of The Democratization of American Christianity to inform the reader that the book argues "both that the theme of democratization is central to understanding the development of American Christianity, and that the years of the early republic are the most crucial in revealing that process" (3). To this end, Hatch focuses on the diffusion of the Methodists, Baptists, Mormons, Disciples of Christ, and African-American Christians across post-revolutionary America as a challenge to more established denominations, like the New England Congregationalists and Virginia Anglicans, and political elites.

The brilliance of Hatch's argument lies in its illustration of a confluence of Protestant growth with the expansion of democratic thought and application in the country. The book's most central contribution to the study of American Christianity is the concept of "religious populism" in the early republic, which at once speaks to the American Christianity's innovative ability to reach out to various populations, and to the loyalty to American religion that such outreach efforts endeared among its adherents. In some sense, a demand for less-elitist, more-egalitarian forms of worship and congregational life existed, and the predominantly unlettered, zealous, "bold intruders" (aka ministers) of faith adapted preach styles and techniques to meet that demand.

The book begins to fill a gap in our understanding of religious life in 1780s and 1790s America. In the historiographical section--a must-read for any scholar--"Redefining the Second Great Awakening: A Note on the Study of Christianity in the Early Republic," Hatch confronts the question of difficulties surrounding the religious history of the early national period. "There are more generalizations and less solid data on the dynamics of American religion in this period than in any other in our history" (p. 220). Though he cannot single-handedly erase this deficiency, Hatch, for his part, has crafted a needed work that illumines the power of popular religious movements through the actions and travels of their dynamic leaders.

The stars of The Democratization of American Christianity are Lorenzo Dow, Alexander Campbell, Richard Allen, Francis Asbury, Joseph Smith, John Leland, and other religious leaders. Hatch builds his case for a popularizing religion on the backs of deft religious leadership and their success at movement-building. Although these Christian "insurgents" held differing beliefs and employed various techniques, these men excelled at popular written and verbal communication, triggered a revolt against Christian tradition, and inaugurated a new era of religious life in America. Hatch's portrayal of early America's religious leaders presents them as revolutionaries, not wholly unlike the colonials in Philadelphia who laid an ideological foundation for the Revolution.

Christian adherents and secular historians alike will benefit from this excellent account of Christianity's democratic and westward shift in the early republic. The Democratization of American Christianity is neither dogmatic nor apologetic. Well-researched and brilliantly-conceived, the book locates the spread of American Christianity within a post-Revolutionary context marked by less paternalistic and more populist ideas. To that end, "the most striking evidence of the democratization of Christianity in the early republic was that black preachers successfully laid claim to 'the sacred desk'" (p. 112). Hatch's book and Gordon Woods' Pulitzer-Prize winning The Radicalism of the American Revolution demonstrate the fertility within the first generations of American nationals for popular democracy and religious zeal.

Hatch's emphasis on movement-making and the management of revivals distorts his analysis of Christianity's spread across America by limiting or excluding any discussion of spiritual renewal. The fault, however, is now entirely his. The historical profession remains largely incapable of documenting and validating the role of spiritual activity within the human condition. Historians are much more comfortable attributing mass religious conversions and life-changing ideals to marketing techniques and popular political environments. Yet, when the eighteenth-century camp meetings and preachers awakened "spiritual convulsions" in revival participants, it seems incumbent upon scholars to more fully examine and evaluate peoples' interaction with God in religion. That said, Nathan O. Hatch's The Democratization of American Christianity is a bold step in a constructive direction; a step that the current and future field of historian would do well to follow.

Good book, very fact filled and well researched. The author was very knowledgeable about the subject, however it was a little more detailed than I wanted. It was written at a higher level than I would have liked. I believe the author was aiming for a more academic crowed, and I'm just a dabbler in this subject. I knew nothing about the subject and now I know a whole lot more.

However, since I knew nothing to start with, I was very fascinated by the whole idea of the spirit of democracy of the time being manifest in the church of the time. Whether it was good or bad I will not give an opinion and the author did a good job of sticking to the facts and leaving his opinion out of the copy as much as possible.

If this area of study interests you, I would recommend the book. If it's only a passing fancy of a possible interesting read, you might want to think twice.

At the beginning of his book The Democratization of American History, Nathan Hatch makes his subject and purpose absolutely clear:

"This book is about the cultural and religious history of the early American republic and the enduring structures of American Christianity. It argues both that the theme of democratization is central to understanding the development of American Christianity, and that the years of the early republic are the most crucial in revealing that process" (3).

He says that his work focuses on "five distinct traditions, or mass movements, that developed early in the nineteenth century: the Christian movement, the Methodists, the Baptists, the black churches, and the Mormons" (4). He concludes that the expansion of conservative Protestantism in America "did not proceed primarily from the nimble response of religious elites meeting the challenge before them. Rather, Christianity was effectively reshaped by common people who molded it in their own image and who threw themselves into expanding its influence" (9).

How did the popular religious movements of the early republic express a deeply democratic spirit? Hatch says they did it in three distinct ways. First, they swept away a couple aspects of tradition. They rejected the distinction between clergy and laity, nullifying the authority of religious elites. And, like the Jeffersonian Republicans, they "rejected the past as a repository of wisdom" (9-10). Second, these movements "empowered ordinary people by taking their deepest spiritual impulses at face value rather than subjecting them to the scrutiny of orthodox doctrine and the frowns of respectable clergymen" (10). Third, they believed "that a new age of religious and social harmony would naturally spring up out of their efforts to overthrow coercive and authoritarian structures" (10-11). But something else came along that these reformers and their movements did not expect: "The quest for unity that drove people to discard formal theology for the Scriptures drove them further asunder" (16). Consequently, ever since the time of the early republic a huge segment of American Christianity has been thoroughly-democratic and diverse.

As the back cover of my copy relates, The Democratization of American Christianity has won at least three impressive awards. Reading the book explains why. In an entertaining way, which includes many direct quotes from primary sources, Hatch helps the reader to see why American Christianity is not only vital but also incredibly diverse. He does a good job of making his case that the first forty years or so of the United States was such a critical time.

I believe the weakest, most questionable part of the book is the "Epilogue," where Hatch moves forward in time. For example, his discussion of the rise and meaning of the Fundamentalist movement in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries leaves something to be desired. He writes:

"Even when Fundamentalists set out to defend the truth, their temptation was to rally large constituencies to the cause rather than to prepare for scholarly exchange. . . . It seemed more important to the project's backers to distribute three hundred thousand copies of The Fundamentals free of charge than to meet the liberals on their own ground in theological debate" (215).

There is an element of truth in what Hatch says here. At the same time, it is worth pointing out that The Fundamentals were merely part of a significant quantity of distinctly-conservative literature, both popular and more-academic, that appeared around this time. During the last thirty years or so of the nineteenth century, for instance, both Charles A. Hodge and A.H. Strong produced traditional systematic theologies. James Orr guided the production of the original International Standard Bible Encyclopedia, of which the first edition appeared in 1915. Of course, most significant of all, between 1910 and 1915 a definitive series of twelve booklets entitled The Fundamentals was published and mailed to as many Christian leaders as possible in the United States, Canada, and England. And in 1923, the conservative Princeton professor J. Gresham Machen published his book, Christianity and Liberalism, which declared that the liberalism of the day and historic Christianity were essentially two different religions.

These publications represent a formidable constellation of conservative literature. Significantly, they were produced in decades following the American Civil War, which had had the effect of breaking America's theological certainty and opening the door to newer philosophical, political, and religious trends.

Such quibbling aside, it's important to point out that The Democratization of American Christianity is one of several books that always shows up on PhD reading lists in the field of American Religious History. This book is that significant.

Nathan Hatch, in his book, The Democratization of American Christianity, argues “both that the theme of democratization is central to understanding the development of American Christianity, and that the years of the early republic are the most crucial in revealing that process.” Hatch examines the democratizing effect of new, non-institutionalized religious groups, which he calls insurgents, including the Christian Movement, Francis Asbury’s Methodists, John Leland’s Baptists, African-American churches, and the Mormons. While all five of these groups were as different from each other as they were to the more traditional mainstream religions, they all shared in a distrust of traditional authority and the belief that any layperson could interpret the Bible and the teachings of Jesus for themselves. Though many of these religious movements have either become mainstream on their own or joined with more respectable orders, they all represent the archetype from which all later evangelical American religious movements descended.

Hatch divides his book into four sections: Context, Mass Movements, Audience, and Legacy. In the first, he outlines the manner in which the new religious movements represented Jeffersonian democratic ideas. Hatch writes, “They denied the age-old distinction that set the clergy apart as a separate order of men,” the movements “empowered ordinary people by taking their deepest spiritual impulses at face value,” and the “upsurge of democratic hope…led to a welter of diverse and competing forms.” In flaunting traditional authority and empowering their followers to examine their religious experiences for themselves, the new religions upheld the Jeffersonian ideals. In his second section, Hatch examines each of the five religious movements in detail, explaining how they fit his mold. The Christian Movement, for example, “was laced with the language of politics” and espoused Jeffersonian values. Francis Asbury “warned of the growing evil of preachers, elders, and bishops.” John Leland echoed this when he “confessed that his calling had been ‘to watch and check clerical hierarchy, which assumes as many shades as a chameleon.’” African-American churches, by their very nature, rejected traditional white authority and allowed blacks to experience religion without white society controlling their experiences. Finally, the Mormon message “is intensely populist in its rejection of the religious conventions of [its] day and in its hostility to the orthodox clergy.” In his third section, Hatch argues, “the insurgents considered people’s common sense more reliable, even in theology, than the judgement [sic] of an educated few.” This concept led to an increase in the number of religious pamphlets and tracts written by untrained clergy or laypeople, allowing the public to have a voice in religion. Hatch concludes his book by arguing in his final section that modern evangelical Christianity in America is the result of this process that began in the nineteenth century.

Hatch provides a compelling argument that insurgent religions, having adopted the populist language of Jeffersonian politics, redefined the American religious landscape. Moreover, he demonstrates that the Second Great Awakening, rather than being the conservative religious movement that many historians have portrayed it to be, served to divorce “religious leadership from social position,” thereby ensuring the democratizing of American Christianity. Hatch admits in his post-epilogue section on the Second Great Awakening that there is more work remaining, but he lays out a solid foundation for future analyses to build upon.

Nathan Hatch leaves little ambiguity as to what his seminal work is about as he opens with the line, "This book is about the cultural and religious history of the early American republic and the enduring structures of American Christianity." Hatch focuses the years between 1780 and 1830, a time he sees as a transitional period during which foundations for the future structures of American Christianity were established. Hatch follows five mass religious movements that developed during this time.

As Hatch develops the stories of these mass movements within an American atmosphere saturated with revival and revolution, he argues that "the theme of democratization is central to understanding the development of American Christianity." Readers discover that this shift towards democratization was greatly influenced by the politics of the time and ultimately led people to eschew religious authority in almost all its forms, emphasize the liberty of the individual Christian in matters of faith and conscience.

The main points of Hatch's argument are revealed early on and are fleshed out as he engages various organizing themes. While this approach could bore the reader, his focus upon defined groups within one historical period leads the book to move forward with ease. Overall, I felt Hatch was persuasive. However, I believe he could improve his work by connecting the section headings he used to organize the book with greater clarity to each chapter's argument and by including more stories of women during this era given its equalizing impulse.

Well written historical account of the populist tendency in American history. This book focuses on the religious populism but political populism is intertwined with it

"No creed but the Bible" seems to be a distinctly American creed. It stems not from a careful read of the scriptures themselves, but from the egalitarian, democratic notions that began in American politics and were only later extended to the religious sphere.

Hatch traces the decline of the robust Calvinism characterizing the early American Republic into the crass, anti-intellectual, democratic form so familiar to us today. The 20th century's fundamentalists, Baptists, pentacostals, and (later in the century) evangelicals all trace their roots to the second great awakening and the democratic movements that preceded it.

A little academic in nature, this book goes into great detail regarding the lives of the fire-breathing preachers that shaped American Christianity into the democratized version we know today.

Hatch . one of the very few Americans who has grasped this important aspect of U.S.History