Ralph Wood on G.K. Chesterton

Ralph Wood, Professor of Theology and Literature at Baylor University, gave the thirtieth annual C.S. Lewis Lecture at UTC on "Rum, Romanism, and the Sacramental Imagination: G. K. Chesterton as Defender of the Faith." The lecture was held at the Bentwood Auditorium, which seats over three hundred people. There were some empty seats, but not very many.

Wood seems like an interesting guy. In his informal talk, he identified himself as an evangelical Christian, which probably made many of the conservative, church-going folks in attendance happy. However, during the question and answer period, he stirred the pot by claiming that Adam and Eve were not historical figures, by arguing that personal faith in Jesus did not mean that a person was an authentic Christian, and by claiming that Jesus Christ is actually present in the bread and wine at communion.

My favorite moment in the Q &A was when a middle-aged man in the front row raised his hand to ask why Wood thought that it was "silly" that Adam and Eve were not historical figures. Within seconds of returning the microphone, the man asking the question received the following question from Wood: "Tell me why it isn't silly that Adam and Eve were actual human beings." The middle-aged man hesitated before somehow managing to say that he had no idea where to begin, but the fact that the Bible talks about Adam and Eve as real people is significant. Wood responded by asking another question: "Then, where did the children of Cain, and Seth come from?" The man in the audience suggested that they must have married their sisters. "That would be incest... You see, you open up all kinds of problems when you try to interpret the Bible too literally," was Wood's followup remark.

Reading between the lines, it seemed that Wood purposely tried to mimic how he imagined Chesterton would have responded to these kinds of questions. As Wood pointed out in his lecture, Chesterton strongly avoided extremes, such as alcoholism or teetotalism. Alcohol, according to Chesterton, was useful for "convivial" gatherings. Too much of it was clearly a problem, but avoidance of drinking was also not the ideal. With regard to the Christianity, Chesterton saw over-rationalization as problematic while also despising the extreme emotionalism sometimes associated with faith. Rather than a precise journey that can be calculated, Chesterton described the Christian pilgrimage as a wandering road that meandered in several directions before arriving at its destination.

Wood's lecture on Chesterton reminds us that there is a mystery to Christianity. But rather than see this as a problem, we should rejoice that we believe in a God who is dynamic and cannot be contained within our feeble minds.

Interview with Patrick Mason

In the current course I am teaching on "Religion in Southern Culture" at UTC, the class is reading Patrick Mason's new book, The Mormon Menace: Violence and Anti-Mormonism in the Postbellum South. There are about thirty students in the class and we read one chapter for each session and discuss various broad questions that come from the reading.

Dr. Mason was gracious enough to answer some of the questions that the class and I had about Mormonism in general, and the book more specifically. Below are the questions and responses by Mason.

1) How has Mormonism evolved as a religion, and does it currently reflect the traditions originally established?

This is a huge—and excellent—question, and would take a book to answer! The short answer is that yes, Mormonism has evolved significantly, but that much of its core theology and practice does reflect the original revelations given to Joseph Smith. The notion of historical change (which occurs in any institution, religious or otherwise) is lost on many rank-and-file Latter-day Saints, as there is a common perception that the church is the same in all ages. I could point to all kinds of things that would reflect both continuity and change within the tradition. One aspect of change that you might find surprising is that the current LDS Church's emphasis on the Book of Mormon is a relatively new development. Although the Book of Mormon was in many ways the foundational scripture of Mormonism, its actual content was relatively neglected by Latter-day Saints until the 1980s — it existed more as a sign of Joseph Smith's prophetic calling than a significant source of theology. Now the Book of Mormon is better known and more frequently cited than any other Mormon book of scripture.

2) What would a Mormon theocratic government look like in nineteenth-century America?

A full-fledged Mormon theocracy never really took root. There were leanings in that direction in Nauvoo, Illinois (early 1840s), and then again in the early years of Utah settlement (1847-mid 1850s). In Utah, Brigham Young was originally both prophet and territorial governor, and virtually all important decisions for the territory were made by Young and the other leaders of the church. Their explicitly political power was diminished somewhat by the late 1850s, when Young was removed as governor. In short, I don't think there was ever much of a chance for a Mormon theocracy in America, with its traditions of democratic governance and pluralism. The Mormons maintained a remarkably closed society in late 19th-c. Utah, but they had to exercise power in ways other than just politically.

3) What do Mormons believe regarding the divinity of individual persons--both men and women?

All human beings, male and female, are children of God and thus potential inheritors of God's glory. Mormons take very seriously—and literally—this notion that we are all children of God, with the potential to grow up to be like our Father. This leads to the Mormon doctrine of theosis (although Mormons don't call it that — they use terms like eternal progression), namely that human beings can become divine, even gods and goddesses, in the next life. That, in fact, is the end goal for righteous Mormons. Not in the sense of supplanting God, but inheriting all that God has and having the kind of glorified existence that God does.

4) What do Mormons believe regarding Jesus Christ, including his divinity?

Mormons firmly believe in the divinity of Christ, seeing him as the Son of God and Savior of the world. This is reinforced by not only their fairly conservative reading of the New Testament but also the Book of Mormon and other Mormon scriptures and prophetic teachings, which are unflinching in proclaiming Christ's divinity. Perhaps the one claim that annoys Mormons the most is the false claim that they are not Christians — they will immediately react that the full name of the church is the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, and that Christ is the central focus of their worship. With that said, Mormon Christology is different from other Christians' (who disagree among themselves on many key points), and Mormons reject many of the historic creeds of Christianity, including Nicea, Chalcedon, etc. But to say anything other than that Mormons worship Christ as the Son of God and the only path to salvation would be false.

5) What inspired you to write this book, on such a specific topic?

This came out of my dissertation, which was about violence against religious minorities in the late 19th-c. South, including Jews, Catholics, black Christians, and Mormons. I didn't expect it, but it turned out that the Mormon material was by far the most original and compelling, and so I decided to devote the book entirely to the topic. Originally the project came out of my desire to look at the intersections of religion, race, and violence in American history — Mormonism (or rather, anti-Mormonism) just kind of crept in through the back door, you could say. But I'm happy with the direction that it went.

6) What was your methodology for constucting your argument in the book?

As I said, this began as a dissertation that was essentially a project in comparative religious violence. If you ever read the dissertation (and I don't wish such a fate even on my enemies), you'll see that there exist some of the seeds of the arguments I eventually make in the book. But actually what it took was me stepping away from the project for a couple of years and giving it time to "breathe." Then, when I had decided to focus just on anti-Mormonism and lose some of the comparative focus (though I wanted to keep it in the last chapter), I went back to the archives and did more research. It was only then that some of the more important arguments in the book — for instance, the role of anti-Mormonism as an early step in the reunion of the sections after Reconstruction — began to crystallize.

7) Is not practicing polygamy (currently) being faithful to the original beliefs of Mormonism?

This is an excellent, and vexing, question, that relates to the earlier question about continuity and change in Mormonism. This is a complicated issue that I think would garner different responses from different scholars. I'll give you my take. I think that Mormon theology, even in its most robust form, can stand completely independent of polygamy. That is to say, polygamy is not essential to Mormon cosmology, let alone practice. (This is where others might disagree with me — certainly 19th-c. Mormon leaders said that polygamy was a central — if not the central — doctrine and social arrangement of Mormonism, both in this life and in the hereafter.) Marriage—and probably heterosexual marriage—is essential to Mormon theology, but I don't think it has to be polygamous marriage. No doubt, the current church's repudiation of polygamy is a departure from the late 19th century. But we need to remember that the polygamous experience in Mormon history is the minority experience. Joseph Smith revealed it to only a small cadre of his followers in the early 1840s, it wasn't openly announced until 1852, and then was suspended in 1890 (and then really in 1904) -- meaning that a full two-thirds of Mormon history has transpired after the 1890 ban. And not all Mormons practiced it in the meantime.

8) In which region in the South was there the most persecution of Mormon missionaries?

This was a pretty straightforward finding of my research — violence followed the missionaries where they went. Where there were more missionaries, there was more violence. Tennessee, Alabama, and the Carolinas were the main sites of anti-Mormon violence, because those were the states where the most missionaries were stationed. I don't fully know why missionaries were sent to some areas rather than others, but violence followed them almost everywhere they went.

9) Compared to the 19th c., what is your impression of how Mormons are treated in the American South today?

It's a completely different world. Certainly there remains anti-Mormon prejudice — not just in the South, but across America and around the world. The fact is that the majority of Americans still don't personally know a Mormon, and ignorance is the breeding ground of prejudice. Mormonism has grown tremendously in the South; as I say in my concluding pages, "Twelve of fourteen southern states (excepting only Louisiana and West Virginia) saw the number of LDS adherents increase by at least 70 percent from 1980 to 2000; in six of those states the LDS population more than doubled. . . . At the dawn of the new millennium, over half a million Latter-day Saints—approximately one in eight of all American Mormons—lived in the South." Most Mormons I know who have lived in the South report a kind of low-level prejudice, the kind that exists for anyone who is considered "different." Some of this prejudice is still perpetuated by certain evangelical churches that have formal anti-Mormon programming. But it is not violent anymore, and most Mormons report feeling quite comfortable living in the South, in part because they share a conservative moral and political outlook that is common to the region.

10) How accurate is the television series "Big Love"?

As accurate as any piece of fiction, I suppose. Of course, it doesn't document life in a Latter-day Saint family, since Mormons gave up polygamy over a century ago. I think one of the reasons for the show's success is that it dramatizes some of the struggles that any marriage and family relationship has, but it's just exacerbated by the fact of plurality within the marriage. One thing that it, and the show "Sister Wives," has done is humanizing polygamists, which I think has taken some of the edge off the traditional antipathy toward the practice. I know lots of women, both Mormons and non-Mormons, who have watched those shows and came away saying, "You know, I kind of like the idea of having sister wives," although they're quick to say they're not real thrilled of sharing their husband.

We thank Dr. Mason once again for this service to our class on religion in the South.

Grant Wacker and the Shaping of Billy Graham

Last evening Grant Wacker delivered the final LeRoy Martin Lecture at UTC on "Billy Graham and the Shaping of America."

This was a big event for the philosophy and religion department at UTC. We placed ads in the Chattanooga Times Free Press and on the local NPR station, WUTC. We also hosted a dinner for thirty people before the lecture that included some of the local clergy, faculty at outside institutions, and distinguished guests from the community. I would estimate that over 200 people attended the lecture, which was the largest crowd that we have had to date for any one particular lecture.

Wacker is a very good speaker. He presented a balanced approach of Graham and an explanation for why such an evangelist could have gained the hearts of Americans in the latter half of the twentieth century. Wacker suggested that Graham was likeable because of his rural, "genteel" southern background, his good looks, and moral values. Graham grew up liking baseball, fast cars, and socializing with girls. He represented a person who had experienced a typical male adolescent upbringing and therefore was appealing to heartland America. As Graham got older he followed the trajectory of many Americans who changed their mind as the years passed on issues like communism, racial segregation, and partisan politics. Graham was not free from controversy. He had his critics on the far left and extreme right. He has been called a bigot by Christopher Hitchens for a racially inappropriate comment regarding Jews that he had made at one time to Richard Nixon. The fundamentalist Bob Jones disowned Graham for associating with mainline Protestants. But Graham emerged at the end of the century as a religious figure who had gained the respect of most American Christians. His mark can be seen in a host of para-church organizations that he founded including Young Life, Youth for Christ, and the flagship evangelical magazine, Christianity Today.

As I listened to Dr. Wacker's excellent talk, I was struck with how appealing Graham was to a variety of people--conservative evangelicals as well as liberal Protestants and Catholics. Graham seemed to have a gift for avoiding controversy and maintained his integrity as a man of God by steering clear of sexual sins and shady business deals. Regardless of whether a person believes what Graham preached, it would be impossible to ignore the influence that he has had on religion, particularly in America. Graham is a reminder to evangelicals that it is possible to adhere to traditional doctrines without becoming a separatist.

New Review of Enlightened Evangelicalism

There is a new review of Enlightened Evangelicalism, written by Andrew Atherstone and published in the Journal of Theological Studies. I only recently learned of the review when I coincidentally contacted Dr. Atherstone a few weeks ago to introduce myself and ask if he would look over the introduction and excerpt of the Anglican divine Charles Simeon that I had written for my forthcoming evangelical reader.

Below are some of the highlights of the review:

"Yeager’s major argument is that Erskine was a consistent proponent of ‘the reasonableness of Christianity’ or ‘enlightened orthodoxy’ (pp. 20–1)... This portrait of Erskine is significant as shedding new light on the relationship between evangelicalism and the Enlightenment, which are often assumed to be antithetical movements. The eighteenth-century Scottish Enlightenment is most commonly associated with the scepticism of David Hume, but Yeager presents Erskine as a prominent counter-example...

Yeager argues that Erskine’s greatest significance was not in fact as a preacher and theologian in his own right, but as a disseminator of evangelical literature. In particular he nurtured transatlantic friendships. He was a close ally of Jonathan Edwards in Northampton, Massachusetts and became Edwards’s champion and editor after the New Englander’s unexpected death in 1758...

Erskine was a bibliophile and adviser to the book trade, convinced that the best way to propagate and defend evangelicalism was the circulation of inexpensive texts from able theologians. Many American ministers received regular gifts of books from Edinburgh, as did the colony’s new Puritan colleges like Harvard and Yale. Erskine was Scotland’s most prominent American sympathizer, which brought accusations of treason and sedition during the American Revolution, but he saw evangelicalism’s
potential as a global movement...

Erskine’s significance for the development of evangelical theology is not in doubt and this monograph is a valuable contribution to our understanding of wider eighteenth-century religious thought.”

Billy Graham and the Shaping of Modern America

Next Thursday (March 1) Grant Wacker of Duke Divinity School be giving the final LeRoy Martin Lecture on "Billy Graham and the Shaping of Modern America." The lecture will be at the UTC Auditorium at 7pm. It should be a large turnout, and I am hoping that the Times Free Press will print an article on Graham's former visits to Chattanooga and Tennessee as a whole.

F.R.Hist.S.

Yesterday, I found out I was elected a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society (FRHistS). It was an honor just to be nominated!

Lights, Camera, Action!

Last evening closed out our "Religion in Early America: From the Great Awakening to the Revolution," series in the LeRoy Martin Distinguished Lecturer Series at UTC. All the lectures were videoed and will be available for sale on DVD. It was an amazing three nights!

As the organizer for this lecture series, I ate like a king all week at some of the best restaurants in Chattanooga. The only downside was the lack of sleep. I probably averaged about 4-5 hours of sleep this week because I handled nearly all the arrangements for this event, including shuttle runs to and from the airport, breakfasts, lunches, and dinners with the speakers and members of the Chattanooga community, as well as faculty at UTC and surrounding schools, technology setup at the lectures, advertising on the radio and in the newspaper, and catering services. I make no complaints though. It was a thrill to meet with some of the best scholars of religious history and thought in America, and offer their knowledge to the local public.

On Tuesday, February 14, Gerald McDermott spoke on "Jonathan Edwards, the Great Awakening, and the Future of Global Christianity." This is an abstract of his talk:

"Jonathan Edwards (1703-58) was a leader and analyst of the revival that helped shape early America. His experience with the Great Awakening led to an analysis of religious experience that has provided spiritual direction ever since. This lecture explains his relationship to the Awakening, outline his theology of discernment that emerged from the Awakening, and discuss his relationship to millennialism and American exceptionalism. Then it will propose that his larger theological vision is well-suited to the new shape of global Christianity, for it provides bridges between Catholics and Protestants, East and West, charismatics and non-charasmatics, and liberals and conservatives."

McDermott did not deliver his usual seamless, polished speech. Instead, he chose to take a more conversational tone when explaining the person and theology of Edwards. My sense is that the audience, made up of a collection of faculty, students, and people in the Chattanooga community, appreciated the fact that McDermott made Edwards approachable as an important figure in American religious history.

Scholars like McDermott, Marsden, and others have taken great pains to show Edwards as embodying more than simply a fire and brimstone preacher, and this message is making headway. Several people in the audience commented on how their perception of Edwards has now changed. They no longer viewed "America's Theologian" as simply the author of "Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God." As McDermott successfully demonstrated, Edwards was a complex thinker whose contribution to American history, and religion in general, is much broader in scope than most people realize. While I am not necessarily convinced that Edwards bridges the gaps between the East and West, Catholics and Protestants, and charasmatics and non-charasmatics in the way that McDermott proposed, I appreciated the passion that Roanoke's Jordan-Trexler Professor of Religion has for one of the most important thinkers America has produced.

Tommy Kidd's lecture on Wednesday, February 15, "Patrick Henry, the Great Awakening, and the Rise of Religious Liberty in Revolutionary Virginia," was (understandably) much more historical than the one by McDermott.

This is his abstract:

"In this lecture, Dr. Thomas Kidd of Baylor University will consider the great Patriot leader Patrick Henry as a bridge between the Great Awakening and the American Revolution. Henry attended revival meetings of the Great Awakening as a boy, which helped form his personal faith and his dramatic speaking style. Along with fellow Founders such as John Adams and George Washington, Henry believed both in protecting religious liberty, and in continuing direct government support for churches. Henry's debates with James Madison and Thomas Jefferson over disestablishing Virginia's state church illuminate the vital importance of faith in the American founding, the Founders' disagreements over the 'separation of church and state.'"

Kidd focused on the issue of religious liberty and Henry's concern for the welfare of America in the aftermath of the Revolution. Kidd argued that Henry has been lost among the crowd of Founders because he objected to the structure of government and view of church-state relations that other patriots like Jefferson and Madison promoted. Henry feared that America was being fashioned by some of the Founders into another Britain, which would be ruled by a president instead of a king. Henry also swam against the current when he suggested that America's government should not necessarily separate completely from religion. He wanted people to continue to pay taxes to churches, but only to those of their choice. Rather, than benefit the Congregationalists or Anglicans, Henry thought it best for people to be able to give to any Christian denomination, including Baptists, Presbyterians, Congregationalists, and Anglicans. Jews and other non-Christians should be exempt from paying tax completely.

Tommy's lecture also led to some interesting discussions during the time of Q &A with the audience. Several people pressed him for further comments on church-state relations as well as Henry's view of liberty. As always, Tommy handled many potentially explosive issues with poise, care, and graciousness.

Finally, Catherine Brekus spoke on Thursday, February 16 on "Sarah Osborn's World: The Rise of Evangelical Christianity in Early America."

This is her abstract:

"What are the historical roots of evangelical Christianity? When and why did the evangelical movement begin, and how can we explain its popularity? In 'Sarah Osborn's World: The Rise of Evangelical Christianity in Early America,' Catherine Brekus answers these questions by recovering the story of an extraordinary woman who belonged to the first generation of evangelical Christians in America. Few people today have ever heard of Sarah Osborn, a schoolteacher who lived in Newport, Rhode Island during the 1700s, but she was one of the most charismatic female religious leaders of her time. During the 1760s she led a remarkable revival that brought hundreds of people, including large numbers of slaves, to her house each week. Her story offers a fascinating window into the early history of the evangelical movement, a movement that continues to influence American life today."

Brekus broke new ground in the series by showing several slides of Osborn's manuscripts and images of eighteenth-century American life. In many ways, Brekus's lecture reiterated the main themes that I tried to engage with in Enlightened Evangelicalism: The Life and Thought of John Erskine. Brekus described Osborn as an evangelical Calvinist who was influenced by the Enlightenment. Osborn's commitment to empirical evidence, that stemmed from John Locke's philosophy, supports my thesis about Erskine and other eighteenth-century evangelicals. Catherine's lecture is based on her forthcoming book about Osborn, which will be published soon by Yale University Press.

What I appreciated most about the three lectures was that they displayed evangelicalism in a favorable light. When I taught at conservative institutions in the past, Christianity was taken for granted. Most schools required their professors to integrate faith and learning. But at a state school Christianity is not necessarily appreciated, even in the Bible-belt South. Less than an hour away from me is the site of the Scopes (Monkey) Trial of 1925, which has tarnished evangelicalism as an anti-intellectual movement. As leading scholars at recognizable institutions of higher learning, McDermott, Kidd, and Brekus are repairing this damaged image. Hopefully, the word will continue to spread that there are significant differences between fundamentalism and mainstream evangelicalism.

A Great Day of Teaching

I had a lot of fun teaching today. In my 9am class on "Religion in Southern Culture," four students gave presentations on a supplemental book that they read for the course. I was caught off guard when one student presented Darren Dochuk's From Bible Belt to Sunbelt. Out of a list of over one hundred and fifty titles, she chose this book. After the presentation, I had the chance to reiterate the importance of Dochuk's thesis as well as the thoroughness of the book. When the student mentioned Bill Bright and Campus Crusade in her presentation, I noticed several people perk up and ask questions about the book, presumably because they were members of "Cru" and wanted to purchase the text, or perhaps check it out at the library.

In my 11am course, "Religion in the Age of Wesley, Whitefield, and Edwards," the sixteen of us debated which excerpts from Jonathan Edwards's A Faithful Narrative of the Surprising Work of God (1737) to include in my forthcoming reader. We are only spending one week on Edwards's Narrative, and so we had to move through it very quickly. I instructed the students to pick out roughly fifteen pages of text that they felt future students should read. Several people commented that pages 3-14 were essential in that they provided an overview of the revivals at Northampton in a narrative format. About four or five people countered by saying that this information could be quickly condensed and explained in the introductory paragraphs to the excerpt, and that the best material came from pages 30-45 in which Edwards analyzes the nature of the conversions at Northampton. Finally, two or three people were adamant that the case study on Phebe Bartlet (pages 109-121) should be included. I appreciated everyone's input, despite the fact that we did not reach a consensus. Edwards's book is so interesting, and has so many different parts, that it is indeed difficult to pick out only a few pages.

Jonathan Yeager