This Fall I will be teaching a course on the History of American Evangelicalism. This is my first attempt at teaching a course of this nature and I am in the process of choosing my textbooks. I know a lot of the readers of The Way of Improvement Leads Home are very familiar with the historiography of American evangelicalism so I am turning to you for some book suggestions. I am particularly interested in history (as opposed to theology or political science or sociology) books about evangelicalism and I would also like books that translate well to an undergraduate audience. I am also open to novels about American evangelicalism.
Here are a few books that I am seriously considering:
Harry Stout, The Divine Dramatist: George Whitefield and the Rise of Modern Evangelicalism
Catherine Brekus, Sarah Osborn’s World: The Rise of Evangelical Christianity in Early America
Nathan Hatch, The Democratization of American Christianity
Molly Worthen, Apostles of Reason: The Crisis of Authority in American Evangelicalism
David Swartz, Moral Minority: The Evangelical Left in an Age of Conservatism
I am looking for something good on African-American evangelicalism (in any period). I have a few things in mind, but I am not sure how accessible they will be to an undergraduate audience.
I am open to any and all suggestions. Thanks!
Matthew Bowman's The Liberal Pulpit is as good as Paul Putz said it was in his review for RinAH. And as Paul pointed out, it's as much about evangelicalism as liberal religion.
Also on urban evangelicalism, I'd suggest Peggy Bendroth's Fundamentalists in the City.
Candy Gunther Brown's The Word in the World is interesting on publishing.
And I think such a course would have to reckon with evangelicals and capitalism. Perhaps a selection from Mark Noll's edited collection God and Mammon, or Stewart Davenport's Friends of the Unrighteous Mammon might fit the bill.
On the South, I really like Erskine Clarke's writing.
I hope you'll post the syllabus once it's done!
Sorry, one more. For novels, I think Harold Frederic's The Damnation of Theron Ware would teach really well.
I second Lincoln's endorsement of Bowman's book, and think it'd work well for undergrads.
I wonder if it'd be useful to use one of the several excellent recent treatments of non-white evangelicals. Perhaps Linford Fisher's Indian Great Awakening or Edward Andrews's Apostles?
Er, that should be Edward Andrews's *Native* Apostles.
In terms of nonwhite evangelicals, I’ve used Sensbach’s Rebecca’s Revival in classes before and students find it accessible and the story very interesting.
For the 20th century, any of A.G. Miller’s articles come well recommended. His chapter on black bible colleges in African Americans and the Bible: Sacred Text and Social Texture might be usefully paired with the following articles on desegregation: Robert Priest has a chapter on Columbia Bible College in This Side of Heaven, and there’s John Oliver’s article from Fides et Historia on Malone College, desegregation, and Christianity Today. Curtis Evans’s Harvard Theological Review article on white evangelicals and the Civil Rights Movement is really good, too.
I’d also suggest looking at the recent essay collection on John Perkins (edited by Peter Heltzel, et. al.); there are some interesting historical chapters that might go nicely with the “Let Justice Roll On” documentary on Perkins’s life.
Finally, I understand that the essay collection Christians and the Color Line has some interesting chapters on race and the history of evangelicalism.
Sensbach's Rebecca's Revival sparks interesting methodological conversations, too, which might be helpful, especially if there are a lot of history majors in the class.
I'd recommend Sylvester Johnson's The Myth of Ham.
In addition to the great suggestions above…
Darren Dochuk, From Bible Belt to Sunbelt (Norton 2012). Dochuk's history reminds readers that, in addition to the regional south, the American West – LA, Pepperdine U – is a major hub of evangelicalism in the US. One of my favorites.
Kate Bowler, Blessed: A History of the American Prosperity Gospel (Oxford UP 2013). Evangelicalism and money via historical case studies – salient in terms of US / capitalism. Does, however, include a chapter re: African take-up of prosperity gospel.
For foundational US history re: America has not historically been an 'evangelical' nation, see Jon Butler, Awash in a Sea of Faith: Christianizing the American People (Harvard UP 1990).
And yes, please share the final list!
I second the recommendations of Dochuk's “From Bible Belt to Sun Belt,” Bowler's “Blessed,” and Harold Frederic's “The Damnation of Theron Ware.”
For another novel, you might try Charles Sheldon's 1896 book “In His Steps,” which his grandson repurposed in 1993 under the title “What Would Jesus Do?” Some kind of look at the two of those could provide great insights on the changes in evangelicalism over 100 years.
Sorry for chiming in late — just saw this via a more recent post.
I always teach Stout's biography of Whitefield in my American evangelicalism course — I love it, the students love it, everyone wins!
I also use Debbie Applegate's biography of Henry Ward Beecher which, in part, gets us into discussing abolition, geographical divisions, different practices of Bible readings, etc. It's quite long, though (as I remind my students) it DID win a Pulitzer …
I also have students read and compare Sarah Pierpont Edwards and Jarena Lee's conversion accounts.
Looks like a great course!