Nathan O. Hatch

How did American Christianity become what it is today? How did the formative years of our country shape Christianity? How did Christianity shape the formative years of our country? What part did mass movements from Baptists to Mormons play in the “democratization?” How did the “incarnation of the church into popular culture” help this movement along (9)? Dr. Nathan O. Hatch embarks on a journey to sift through the annals of early American history to attempt to answer those questions and more in his book, The Democratization of American Christianity.

Biographical Sketch of the Author
Dr. Hatch did not set out to write The Democratization of American Christianity without a wealth of experience and knowledge under his belt. In fact, when it was published, Hatch was the professor of history and vice president for Graduate Studies and Research at the University of Notre Dame. That was not by accident, but after a career of hard work through college and extensive graduate work, and amassing postdoctoral fellowships at prestigious universities like Harvard and Johns Hopkins. That alone would allow the reader of his work to assume the author has been well-vetted, well-studied, and has more than enough background in the history of American Christianity to endeavor to write a book surveying major events and developments therein, but that barely scratches the surface of Dr. Hatch’s background and experience.

Dr. Hatch graduated summa cum laude from Wheaton College in 1968 and earned his master’s (1972) and doctoral (1974) degrees from Washington University in St. Louis. He later became the associate dean of Notre Dame’s College of Arts and Letters from 1983 to 1988, and from 1988 to 1989 he was the college’s acting dean. Finally, in 1999, Dr. Hatch was appointed to be the Andrew V. Tackes Professor History at Notre Dame. An impressive career in history took off through hard work, patience, and an incredible amount of time and careful study.

Throughout his rise through the “ranks” at Notre Dame, Dr. Hatch was busy authoring influential, often-cited books on the history of religion in America. These included The Sacred Cause of Liberty: Republican Thought and the Millennium in Revolutionary New England in 1977, The Bible in America in 1981, the 1983 volume The Search for Christian America, and Jonathan Edwards and the American Experience, which was published the same year as the work being reviewed herein, 1989. Since the publishing of the aforementioned works, Dr. Hatch continued to have several more published works on American culture and history, and has since become the president of Wake Forest University, where he is affectionately known as “Natty O.”

Therefore, from Dr. Hatch’s extensive work in the area of church history, American history, and his well-vetted appointments into prestigious positions of influence, I believe this book to be written by someone well-versed and more than capable of speaking with authority on the subject at hand. While there is always the opportunity to agree or disagree with one’s ultimate findings, I believe all would most certainly agree he is a powerful voice to listen to attentively. Furthermore, as one who enjoys history, but has not delved much into the formative years of American democratization, which this book sets out to explore, I began reading this text with much interest, excitement, and careful consideration.

Summary of Contents
The best summary of The Democratization of American Christianity would be by Dr. Hatch himself, “This book is about the cultural and religious history of the early American republic and the enduring structures of American Christianity” (3). That is the thesis he expands upon throughout the 300 or so pages of the book, which he sets out to accomplish in four main units or sections, including; “Context,” which provides a thorough look at American Democracy and American Christianity and some of the crises over the various authorities in our culture, “Mass Movements,” which covers major movements such as the rise of the black church and Mormonism, to name two, within and without Orthodox Christianity in America, “Audience,” which had an enlightening and ultimately disheartening section on the raging fight against Calvinism,” and “Legacy,” which delves into a recurring populist theme we still see to this day, an enduring theme of selfism which continues to shackle American Christianity. Dr. Hatch ends the book with bonus material, so to speak, offering another look at the Second Great Awakening and some of the anti-Calvinism poems and songs largely covered or referenced in chapter six.

The best way one could summarize Hatch’s approach would say he explores the major American Christian movements by taking a microscope to the pivotal figures therein. In other words, he studies the “macro” or the overarching, major movements in American Christianity by looking closely at what was occurring on the “micro” level throughout many of the formative, catalytic events along the way. For example, Hatch notes, “Not since the crusading vigor of the early Puritans or of first-generation Methodists had an English-speaking culture produced a generation of so many rootless, visionary young preachers” (13). Without them, the major events would have never occurred. Some of these “rootless” men included Francis Asbury, Joseph Smith, Charles Finney, and Henry Alline.

And yet, a question continued to arise and aimed to be answered in chapter two about who was in charge in popular culture. It seemed many of the mass movements sought to bring equality and freedom to just about every area of life, top to bottom, as evidenced by their disdain for the elite leaders of society and promoting an egalitarian view of the home (22-29). The message that rang out through this time was the “primacy of the individual conscience” (35). Again, selfism was (and is) king.

While chapter two seemed to cover some of the more mainstream powers and the blurring of the lines within them all, chapter three took aim at American camp meetings, which were largely led by Francis Asbury, who said, “Camp meetings! Camp meetings!...The battle ax and weapon of war it will break down walls of wickedness, part of hell, superstition, and false doctrine” (49). Charismatic leaders largely led these and common citizens were given the reins, so to speak, to lead however they willed or wanted. This is the age when Presbyterians and Episcopalians largely lost their grasp on the reins of religious culture in America, especially as self and the common folk became king of all (61).

In chapter four, Dr. Hatch begins his interesting examination of five mass movements, which had similar styles but vastly different substances. This is when the phrase “No creed but the Bible!” began to emerge (81), and groups like the Baptists began to abandon their orthodox or Calvinistic roots. One of the mass movements, Mormonism, was also a key player in Hatch’s examinations, albeit totally unorthodox. Nevertheless, they were a force with which to be reckoned.

Chapter five takes a look at the importance of printed material which grew to be able to give common man access to theological truth on the common man’s level. As a Methodist journal noted, “A RELIGIOUS NEWSPAPER would have been a phenomenon not many years since…but now the groaning press throws them out in almost every direction” (125). This took the communication from covering things of interest for the movers and shakers, down to the masses, which gave them much more of a sense of entitlement to go against the grain of the elite. The appeal of the masses continues in the sixth chapter on the audience. Trust was given to the common people over the educated, and the acceptance of theology was on the whim of the culture at large (170-178).

The transformation that had begun and was covered in the previous chapters seemed to come to the figurative and literal head in chapter seven as the populist leaders were now gaining positions of authority in virtually every cultural arena. In the South, this was seen by the “evangelical quest for respectability…In many places, Baptist and Methodist churches became the very pillars of the establishment” (195). It is also in chapter seven where Finney offers this damning quote, “I gradually formed a view of my own mind, as revealed in consciousness,” as he argued nothing should stand between his mind and Scripture, leaning on his own reason (199). The rise of selfism was ultimately complete.

In chapter eight, Hatch begins to wrap up his work with an Epilogue on the recurring populist impulse with American Christianity, with the foundational understanding being, “the United States contains more citizens who value religion than other western industrial societies,” which defies logic (210). Hatch notes a Gallup poll comparing the importance of religion to young Americans and Europeans, 41 percent of Americans found religion to be important to the 10 percent in Europe (210). Therefore, Hatch reiterates his opening thesis that the power of American Christianity has behind it “a central force [that has] been its democratic or populist orientation” (213). Our love for “for freedom of expression” and a refusal to “bow to tradition or hierarchy” truly started “the world over again,” especially with the standard of, “no creed but the Bible” (213). Individualism or selfism was (and perhaps still is) king, because “American Christianity continues to be powered by ordinary people and by the contagious spirit of their efforts to storm heaven by the back door” (219).

The book concludes with a deeper look or another look at the Second Great Awakening, which Hatch noted was “a comparable period of religious upheaval” not witnessed “since the Reformation,” but was also a time when “many Americans divorced religious leadership from social position, completing a separation that had been building for a century,” because the “weak” were finally “confounding the mighty” (225-226). The final section of the book was a sampling of anticlerical and anti-Calvinist poems and songs, which translated “theological concepts into language of the marketplace,” or more accessible to the common man in society (227).

Critical Evaluation
First and foremost one should consider whether or not Dr. Hatch was successful and explaining and defending his thesis. His purpose to write a book on “the cultural and religious history of the early American republic and the enduring structures of American Christianity” was successfully achieved through his careful and thorough examination of the key figures during the early years of American history and their lasting, indelible impacts. He seemed clear, fair, and unbiased in his approach almost as a journalist chronicling a very intricate, detailed period of history for a documentary.

As a Calvinist, I was especially intrigued by the revolt against Calvinistic orthodoxy, especially against the Baptists’ roots therein (179). While the tide is beginning to turn back to our orthodox roots, Hatch’s examination reveals why we departed in the first place. Therefore, I also believe that charts the roadmap for how we continue to reform our way back to our historic roots.

There seems to be a clear reason The Democratization of American Christianity won a few prestigious awards like the “Albert C. Outler Prize in Ecumenical Church History,” as that is the strongest approach of this book. It is ecumenical in nature, certainly linking some unorthodox movements with Christianity in its broad swaft of American Christianity. This would make many orthodox Christians bristle, but Dr. Hatch seemed to write this book as unbiased as he could despite his background, which I think can be applauded, albeit necessary to keep in mind while reading.

Finally, I found this book exhausting and sometimes confusing to read, but filled with insightful information that was of interest to me, especially noting how we Baptists backslid from our roots as Calvinists. I find it a helpful; thorough read for those interested in finding the prevalent decay of American Christianity is not a recent phenomenon, but something a tidal wave that has been building for some time. And, should we learn from the building of the tidal wave, we may be able to thwart the crashing of it!… (meer)

Chapter One: Introduction: Democracy and Christianity

Hatch opens by noting the explosive growth in Baptist and Methodist denominations from the Revolution to the middle of the 19th Century, at which time they greatly overshadowed the once dominant Congregational establishment of New England. These denominations' growth was the fruit of the Second Great Awakening, and it was this movement that did more to Christianize the American nation than at any other time in its history. But the other major effect was the "democratizing" of religion:

Abstractions and generalities about the Second Great Awakening as a conservative force have obscured the egalitarianism powerfully at work in the new nation. As common people became significant actors on the religious scene, there was increasing confusion and angry debate over the purpose and function of the church. A style of religious leadership that the public deemed "untutored" and "irregular" as late as the First Great Awakening became overwhelmingly successful, even normative, in the first decades of the republic. Ministers from different classes view with each other to serve as divine spokesmen. Democratic or populist leaders associated virtue with ordinary people and exalted the vernacular in word, print and song. (p. 5)

It was religious populism that distinguished the Second Great Awakening from the first.

The American Revolution loosed forces of egalitarianism and republicanism which greatly expanded the circle of people who believed that they could shape their own destiny. In the new nation, public opinion had become a force of its own. As the cement which had glued the old society together dissolved, religion too took part in the reshaping of social order. Evangelical firebrands like the Methodist Lorenzo Dow roamed the land, crazy Lorenzo Dow, as ecclesiastical establishments withered and the federal government remain a midget in a giant land. During these same years in England, as the pace of industrialization in Britain quickened, squire and parson struck a conservative alliance to protect themselves against the workers they exploited. Not so in America, where evangelical fervor mixed freely with popular sovereignty. It was time for the common people to shape their nation, as the churches became vital forces in popular culture. Though the individual denominations may indeed have brought forth internally authoritarian structures, the movements themselves extolled the common people and loosed a new experiential (and emotional) Christianity.

Enabled by the expansion of print culture in America, evangelists built structures of authority where there were none -- and they left behind records of their actions and thoughts in numerous diaries, pamphlets, books and biographical accounts. Hence the source material is plentiful and instructive. Focusing on the leadership of these democratic Christian movements, Hatch traces the rise of a full-fledged "populist" clergy. As Tocqueville commented, these new religious leaders were as much politicians as they were priests -- a tribute to the art of democratic persuasion which allowed these men to rise to lead movements. These new movements were modern in their individualism and voluntarism, partaking fully in a world awash in market liberalism and the ideology of laissez nous faire. These new men were, in a sense, religious entrepreneurs. The dark underbelly of the populist, as we would discover with the real "populists" later in the 19th and early 20th centuries, was often -- unfortunate though it might have been -- giving over the reigns of authority to demagogues.

Chapter Four: Thundering Legions

A diverse group, the five movements covered in this chapter seem to offer something for everyone in the new republic. Each had its own charismatic leader with his own style of leadership and unique appeal. In the open market of religious ideas, each gathered behind him Thundering Legions for Christ.

The Christian Movement

Elias Smith began his career as a Baptist and broke away in 1800 to lead a group of independent Christians from Portsmouth, NH after being inspired by the Jeffersonian political democracy in the writings of Benjamin Austin, Jr. The Virginia Methodist James O'Kelly, The Kentucky Methodist Barton W. Stone and the Scottish immigrant Alexander Campbell all broke away from existing Christian denominations to advocate a primitive, democratic form of Christianity in a new denomination called the Disciples of Christ. Placing the laity and the clergy on the same footing, abjuring the learned traditions of theology and urging the people to read the bible and interpret it for themselves, the Christians dismantled mediating elites. In rhetorical appeals to democratic sentiment, they lashed out at the tyranny of the sects and made a not too subtle appeal to class antagonisms. Calling for the abolition of organizational restraints, itinerants like Nancy Towle in NH and the boy preacher Joseph Thomas in NC traveled the countryside preaching the Disciples' message. The inclusion of women and youth was yet another hallmark of the radicalism of this movement in the tumultuous years of the Second Great Awakening.

The Spartan Mission of Francis Asbury

Seeking a return to the primitive apostolic order of Christianity, Francis Asbury called the clergy of the Methodist Episcopal Church to a life of sacrifice and itinerancy. As Bishop, he lead by example and never accumulated wealth or even "located". A man of the people and an authoritarian leader with a career that spanned 45 years, Asbury sent his preachers to the humble and the lowly in America's rural communities. Participating in and shaping the youth culture of the early 19th C, a young cadre of disciplined itinerates lived hard, Spartan lives and usually died young. Asbury send these itinerates on circuits away from the seaboard to thinly populated areas. In contrast to the Methodist leader in Britain, Jabez Bunting, Asbury was able to assiduously avoid the trappings of respectability as long as he was at the helm.

The Independent Conscience of John Leland

In the context of Baptist struggle for respectability in the new nation, the 1814 Baptist Convention General Missionary Convention in Philadelphia provides a starting point. There the many Baptist sects, led by the learned Richard Furman, sought to forge a single denomination out of many autonomous units. Ranged against Richard Furman was the radical John Leland, who resisted all such urges for respectability through professionalization of the clergy and urged instead an "empire of conscience." He preached against confessions of faith, against intellectualism of any kind, and against the evils of "priest-craft." He served as a marker and a catalyst for the centrifugal forces of localism during the period.

Black Preachers and the Flowering of African-American Christianity

Hatch discusses the willingness of Methodists and Baptists during a period from the Revolution until the end of the 18th C to include blacks, free and slave, as full participants in Christian worship. It was during this period that African-American Christianity took root, and it did so inside of mixed-race congregations of Methodists and Baptists. These denominations formulated a radical challenge to the doctrines of slave obedience formulated by earlier Anglicans, and offered a more open and heartfelt religious experience than the Presbyterians (whose cultural arrogance Hatch sees as a primary reason for African-American rejection of their overtures). As both Baptists and Methodists retreated from their earlier anti-slavery position in the early 19th C, the black preachers increasingly formed their own congregations in secret and in public. Breaking away from the Methodists, Joseph Allen formed the African Methodist Episcopal Church after the Methodists refused to ordain him. Along with the AME Church, other black preachers broke away from white congregations to form their own small communities. If anything was a testament to the democratizing effects of Christianity during this period it was the impetus which Christianity gave to African-American religion and culture in this period.

The Populist Vision of Joseph Smith

Coming from a family for which the promise of American life had been elusive in Vermont and then New York, Joseph Smith sought an escape from the cacophony of sectarian voices in a new revelation. When the Angel Moroni gave the golden tables to Joseph Smith, he used a seer stone to translate them into the Book of Mormon. This book reinterprets the history of the New World as the locus of God's great plan for humanity. As a document of social protest, this account decried distinctions based upon wealth, class and education. The rich, proud and mighty all find themselves in the hands of an angry God. Rage against the oppression of the poor is a consistent theme in the book, as is the message that the common people had the right to take charge of their own religious destiny. The foundation of the Mormon church was built upon resistance to the competitive and capitalist mores of Jacksonian America.

Chapter Seven: Upward Ascent and Democratic Dissent

Reverend Peter Cartwright wrote his memoirs at age 71 in 1856, in which he decried the modern tendency for the Methodist clergy to seek the trappings of respectability. In a unique position to see the transformation, he was astute in his observations. By the mid-19th C, the evangelical religions had moved from outsiders to insiders, from marginal to influential. A second generation of Methodists, Baptists and Disciples all yearned for (and gained) respectability. Yet the quest for respectability in these denominations did not mean the end of evangelical faith. Others would take up that call.

The Leaven of Democratic Persuasions

The career of Charles Grandison Finney, a Presbyterian evangelical, stands as a testament to the way in which the evangelical creed radicalized other denominations. Finney's importance is in his audience-centric approach, adapting his message to be more "respectable" in front of the middle class and more earthy in front of the lowly. Finney brought revivalism to the citadel of orthodoxy, claiming never to have read the Westminster Confession.

The Allure of Respectability

The Methodist transition is marked by the ascension in 1832 of Nathan Bangs to the Bishopric. From an early career as an itinerate, he rose to the position which he exercised from his church in New York City. He built powerful central agencies for the regulation of Methodism, advocated the higher education of the clergy, and domesticated the camp meeting. Founding over 30 colleges in 19 states in the three decades before the Civil War, Methodists had entered "the establishment." Much the same dynamic applied to the Baptists as well.

Firebrands of Democracy

Despite the cooptation of Methodists and Baptists at the time of the Civil War, there were still splinter Christian groups which grew up on the fringe under the influence of powerful leaders ...

Refining the Second Great Awakening: A Note on the Study of Christianity in the Early Republic

Why has more attention not been paid to this chapter in American religious history? Stuck between the Revolution and the Age of Jackson, this period has been glossed over. Worse yet, advocates of the "religion as social control" school have depicted the Second Great Awakening as an exercise in elite domination (see Johnson). More often than not, this school has focused on Congregationalists and Presbyterians and ignored Methodists and Baptists. Then too, denominational historians have seen the need to sanitize their histories. And neo-Marxists have focused on workers while ignoring religion out of an ideological conviction of their own that religion is a form of oppression. Hatch's conclusion is that we are missing a major contribution to the entrepreneurial spirit of the age by leaving out the story of democratic Christianity.… (meer)