Overview
- Presents a history of grassroots mobilizations in favor of a clearer division between religion and government
- Explores the complex alliances between various secularist campaigners, including religious skeptics, liberal Protestants, people of minority faiths, white supremacists and labor reformers
- Brings together case studies of church-state conflicts from the early Republic to the Progressive era
- Appeals to scholars and students of nineteenth-century American history, religious history, legal history and modern church-state conflicts
Access this book
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Other ways to access
About this book
This book shows how, through a series of fierce battles over Sabbath laws, legislative chaplains, Bible-reading in public schools and other flashpoints, nineteenth-century secularists mounted a powerful case for a separation of religion and government. Among their diverse ranks were religious skeptics, liberal Protestants, members of minority faiths, labor reformers and defenders of slavery. Drawing on popular petitions to Congress, a neglected historical source, the book explores how this secularist mobilization gathered energy at the grassroots level.
The nineteenth century is usually seen as the golden age of an informal Protestant establishment. Timothy Verhoeven demonstrates that, far from being crushed by an evangelical juggernaut, secularists harnessed a range of cultural forces—the legacy of the Revolutionary founders, hostility to Catholicism, a belief in national exceptionalism and more—to argue that the United States was not a Christian nation, branding their opponents as fanatics who threatened both democratic liberties as well as true religion.
The nineteenth century is usually seen as the golden age of an informal Protestant establishment. Timothy Verhoeven demonstrates that, far from being crushed by an evangelical juggernaut, secularists harnessed a range of cultural forces—the legacy of the Revolutionary founders, hostility to Catholicism, a belief in national exceptionalism and more—to argue that the United States was not a Christian nation, branding their opponents as fanatics who threatened both democratic liberties as well as true religion.
Similar content being viewed by others
Keywords
- secularist campaigns in the US
- public role of religion
- separation of Church and State
- religion and politics
- Protestants in America
- secularists in America
- Christian nation
- secular studies
- 19th century America
- Christian state
- Seventh-Day Adventists
- liberal Protestants
- Civil War
- feminization of religion
- moral reform in America
- American secularism
- James Madison
Table of contents (10 chapters)
-
Front Matter
-
Back Matter
Reviews
"Verhoeven offers a rich survey … . Verhoeven captures this repeated dialectic with admirable balance. … Verhoeven effectively shows the broader popular appeal of the separationist logic in the nineteenth century … .” (Leigh E. Schmidt, Church History, Vol. 89 (1), March, 2020)
“Secularists, Religion and Government in Nineteenth-Century America is a comprehensive, convincing, and readable account of church-state attitudes during the ‘forgotten century.’ It should be on any instructor’s list as a text in an undergraduate or graduate course on American church and state.” (Steven K. Green, Journal of Church and State, Vol. 61 (4), 2019)
“The author’s ‘bottom-up’ approach gauges popular opinion by examining petitions to Congress from secularists and evangelicals over a range of issues. … Summing Up: Recommended. Advanced undergraduates and above.” (W. B. Bedford, Choice, Vol. 56 (12), August, 2019)
“Secularists, Religion and Government in Nineteenth-Century Americais a remarkable book, showcasing a relish in the historian’s craft and offering a compelling new vision of a major and pressing theme in US history. Scholars in religious and political history alike will find themselves in Verhoeven’s debt for a long time to come.” (Michael G. Thompson, Australasian Journal of American Studies, Vol. 38 (2), July, 2019)
Authors and Affiliations
About the author
Timothy Verhoeven is Senior Lecturer in the School of Philosophical, Historical and International Studies at Monash University, Australia. He is the author of Transatlantic Anti-Catholicism: France and the United States in the Nineteenth Century (Palgrave, 2010) as well as many articles on the history of church-state relations.
Bibliographic Information
Book Title: Secularists, Religion and Government in Nineteenth-Century America
Authors: Timothy Verhoeven
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-02877-0
Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan Cham
eBook Packages: History, History (R0)
Copyright Information: The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s) 2019
Hardcover ISBN: 978-3-030-02876-3Published: 03 January 2019
eBook ISBN: 978-3-030-02877-0Published: 19 December 2018
Edition Number: 1
Number of Pages: IX, 286
Number of Illustrations: 5 b/w illustrations, 5 illustrations in colour
Topics: US History, Legal History, History of Religion, Political History