Nonoverlapping Magisteria

There is no conflict between science and religion. Creationism is only a local movement, prevalent only among the few sectors of American Protestantism that read the Bible as an inerrant, literally true document. Creationism based on biblical literalism makes little sense in either Catholicism or Judaism, for neither religion maintains any extensive tradition for reading the Bible as literal truth. The lack of conflict arises from a lack of overlap between the respective domains of professional expertise of science and religion. No conflict should exist because the magisteria of science and religion do not overlap. According to the principle of NOMA — “nonoverlapping magisteria” — science covers the empirical universe, while religion covers questions of moral meaning and ethical value. This principle was obeyed by both Pius XII and John Paul II. They both saw no conflict between Catholic faith and a theory of evolution. However, there is one important difference between their positions. Pius XII admitted evolution as a legitimate hypothesis, but at the same time he proclaimed that the theory of evolution had not been proven and might well be wrong. On the other hand, John Paul II stated that evolution can no longer be doubted. Now, he stated, evolution must be accepted not merely as a plausible possibility but also as an effectively proven fact. This fact is no threat to religion if one accepts the principle of NOMA. As a consequence of this principle, religion can no longer dictate the factual conclusions that belong to the magisterium of science, nor may scientists decide on moral truths.

“Groaning for the Latter Day”

Two new religious movements, Mormonism and Millerism, established a foundation upon which a heretofore invisible, gloomy eschatology that had long occupied the margins of American Protestantism stepped out into the limelight in the late nineteenth century. Gaining popularity during and after the Civil War, dispensationalist premillennialism posited that the world is fundamentally fallen, and that only Christ’s personal intervention could bring on the Millennium. To some among this growing band of radical evangelicals, the United States’ spiritual failings, political corruption, and social inequities meant that it was beyond redemption. Others still clung to the belief in America’s millennial destiny, arguing that only the United States may stand against the Antichrist at the latter day, joining with Christ and his angels in the final assault against Satan in the inevitable Battle of Armageddon.

Latin America

This chapter gives an overview of the reception of Jonathan Edwards in Latin America, particularly Brazil. In Brazil, Evangelicals and Pentecostals have especially appropriated Edwards. At first, Edwards was received as a revivalist. Protestant Christians in Brazil in the mid-twentieth century were enamoured with church growth, pietistic spirituality, and revivalism. Biographies of Edwards and his writings on these subjects (especially as they related to the First Great Awakening) were translated into Portuguese and Spanish, serving to introduce Christians to Edwards’s life and thought. More recently, Protestant Christians have begun to appreciate Edwards’s Reformed theology. A growing interest in theological education, evangelical history, and the Reformed faith has led many to Edwards. While these two movements do not account for all of the reception history of Jonathan Edwards in Latin America, they do reveal broad trends about both Latin American Protestantism and the appropriation of Edwards in Latin American contexts.

A Wagnerian Battle for Souls: Parsifal and the Crisis in American Protestantism, 1882–1904

The Metropolitan Opera premiere of Richard Wagner's Parsifal in December 1903 stirred what was arguably the first American religious controversy over an artistic event to claim national attention in the twentieth century. Although the outcome was predictable – the protests appeared only to fuel box office success – the significance lies in what this controversy reveals about the music drama's most ardent opponents and supporters at a key moment in American religious history. The 1903 Parsifal controversy unfolded in the midst of a crisis in American Protestantism, as conservative establishment Protestants defended their weakening hold on American culture, and their theologically liberal brethren viewed that same culture as both a source of spiritual inspiration and a cause for redemption. Drawing primarily upon accounts published in the New York press, nationally circulated periodicals (including strongly partisan contributions to the debate by The Musical Courier), and the writings of several prominent Protestant clergy and lay leaders, this reception study argues that the religious controversy surrounding the 1903 Parsifal production was a substantive skirmish in this American Protestant crisis, and brought forward competing interpretations of the music drama which highlighted the cultural implications of what had been, until that point, largely a theological dispute. Conservative response fastened onto elements of the drama found to be sacrilegious, while liberal response was conditioned by its kinship to the nineteenth-century phenomenon of Kunstreligion, and a broad view of redemption that extended beyond the individual soul to the artwork and the artist, and to all of culture.

Hidden in Plain Sight: Dominion Theology, Spiritual Warfare, and Violence in Latin America

Historically, Protestant churches in Latin America regarded the ‘world’ as a realm of sin and impurity. The proper focus of the church, they believed, was on salvation, and building a community of the saved. In recent years, this has begun to change, as evangelicals have entered the political arena in force. Many are motivated by ‘Dominion theology’, a long hidden movement that works to bring a network of conservative Christians to political power in order to affect ‘dominion’ over the earth to hasten the Kingdom of God. Although its origins are in the United States, this is a global movement, hidden in plain sight. The movement has shown strength and drawn notable political allies all across Latin America, with notable cases in Central America and Brazil. This remains a minority and a much-contested movement in Latin American Protestantism, but its advocates are working hard to gain positions of influence.

The Mission to China

American Protestantism determined to a large extent the nature of the mission errand to China, especially in the Chinese Protestant elite’s understanding of social Christianity. American Protestantism, however, suffered from certain weaknesses in its own understanding of the relationship between Christianity and society, and this weakness was most evident in the message of the Social Gospel. The Social Gospel aimed to reshape the modern industrial economy, so that it was more humane to workers and more beneficial to society. That message, though, was compromised in its transmission to China by its association with imperialism. Beyond this message of the Social Gospel, American missions were also the early benefactors of the main institutions—colleges and universities, the YMCA and the YWCA—through which the Protestant elite influenced the larger society.

The Visual Culture of American Protestantism in the 19th Century

The study of Protestant visual culture requires a number of correctives since many scholars and Protestants themselves presume images have played no role in religious practice. This essay begins by identifying misleading assumptions, proposes the importance of a visual culture paradigm for the study of Protestantism, and then traces the history of image use among American Protestants over the course of the nineteenth century. The aim is to show how the traditional association of image and text, tasked to evangelization and education, evolved steadily toward pictorial imagery and sacred portraiture. Eventually, text was all but eliminated in these visual formats, which allowed imagery to focus on the personhood of Jesus, replacing the idea of image as information with image as formation.

Lift Every Voice and Swing

In the twentieth century, jazz professionals became race representatives who also played an important part in shaping the religious landscape of twentieth-century African American Protestantism. They wielded the power to both define their religious communities and craft novel religious voices and performances. These music celebrities released religious recordings and put on religious concerts, and they became integral to the artistry of African American religious expression. This book argues that with the emergence of new representatives in jazz, religious authority for African Americans found a place and spokespeople in popular culture beyond traditional Afro-Protestant institutions and religious life. It examines jazz musicians’ expressions of belief, practice, and unconventional positions of religious authority. It demonstrates that these jazz professionals enacted theological beliefs and religious practices that echoed, contested with, and diverged from the predominant African American religious culture. The lives and work of Cab Calloway, Duke Ellington, Ella Fitzgerald, and Mary Lou Williams anchor this book’s narrative of racial and religious representations as well as of religious beliefs and practices in the middle decades of the twentieth century. Through these African American jazz women and men, this book illuminates the significant Afro-Protestant cultural presence that informed, surrounded, and opposed their professional and personal lives while also contributing significantly to their artistry. This book’s focus on jazz musicians offers a novel rethinking of African American religious history by bringing the significant artistic dimensions of Afro-Protestant religion into focus as it impacted black popular culture in the twentieth century.

Christ’s Body Is One

This essay argues that the ecclesiology of John W. Nevin furnishes American Presbyterians, both evangelical and mainline, with significant resources for the pursuit of Reformed catholicity. Nevin believed that the church must exhibit contemporary unity and historical continuity as a result of its mystical union with the incarnate Christ. He opposed the forces prevalent in American Protestantism that undermined visible, catholic unity. In Nevin’s assessment, the foundational factor in these ecclesiological errors was a defective, truncated Christology. Nevin sought to renew Reformed theology through retrieving an orthodox ecclesiology rooted in a robust understanding of the incarnation. The concluding section will argue that both streams of American Presbyterianism fall short in terms of catholicity and would benefit by attending to Nevin’s ecclesial vision.