One of the late 20th-century’s foremost historians of New York City reviews one of the late 20th-century’s foremost religious historians. Here is a taste of Jackson’s review of Butler‘s God in Gotham: The Miracle of Religion in Modern Manhattan:
When we think of New York and history, religion is not typically the first thing that comes to mind. Organized crime perhaps, or skyscrapers, or labor disputes, or nightclubs, legitimate theaters, museums, subways, Wall Street, wealth, poverty, the list could be endless. To most people, Gotham is more associated with sin than with morality, more with prostitution than with sermons, more with sports venues than with churches.
When we think of New York and history, religion is not typically the first thing that comes to mind. Organized crime perhaps, or skyscrapers, or labor disputes, or nightclubs, legitimate theaters, museums, subways, Wall Street, wealth, poverty, the list could be endless. To most people, Gotham is more associated with sin than with morality, more with prostitution than with sermons, more with sports venues than with churches.
What we learn in this elegantly written and persuasively argued volume is that the great city (limited in this case to Manhattan between 1880 and 1960) has long been a matchless center of religious thought and controversy. Just think of the personalities involved. Henry Ward Beecher, the pastor of the Plymouth Church in Brooklyn, was the most famous preacher of the 19th century. Norman Vincent Peale, Dorothy Day, Adam Clayton Powell Sr, Harry Emerson Fosdick, Henry Sloan Coffin, and W.E.B. Du Bois are simply among the more prominent figures who populate Butler’s narrative. And think of the great religious edifices in Manhattan – St. Patrick’s Cathedral on Fifth Avenue is the most famous church in the United States; the Episcopal Cathedral of St. John the Divine (which is so big that Notre Dame in Paris and St. Patrick’s in New York would both fit inside it) is the largest church in the western hemisphere; the independent Riverside Church, a benefaction of John D. Rockefeller, is probably the temple of liberalism in America; Trinity Church Wall Street is the richest church in the world; Temple Emanu El is the most influential and powerful synagogue on Earth; and John Street United Methodist Church is the mother church of Methodism in America. The list could go on. In fact, as Butler effectively and repeatedly demonstrates, New York “sacralized” the landscape so much so that Gotham has about four times as many churches proportionately as London. And faith penetrates deeply into daily life in the vast metropolis. Gotham is not a particularly secularized city. Seattle is America’s least religious place; New York is more toward the middle of the pack.   Â
Read the rest here.