The Old Faith in a New Nation

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"Conventional wisdom holds that tradition and history meant little to nineteenth-century American Protestants, who relied on common sense and 'the Bible alone'. The Old Faith in a New Nation challenges this portrayal, showing that between the Revolution and the Civil War, American Protestants were deeply interested in the meaning of the Christian past. Paul J. Gutacker draws from hundreds of print sources--sermons, books, speeches, legal arguments, and political petitions--to show how ordinary educated Americans remembered and used Christian history. Even while claiming to rely on the Bible alone, evangelicals turned to Christian history to navigate pressing questions about church-state relations, Catholic immigration, women's rights and roles, slavery, and more. By tracing how American evangelicals remembered and used Christian history, The Old Faith in a New Nation interrogates the meaning of 'biblicism' and provides context for evaluating the way in which the religious past is remembered, contested, and memorialized today." --