American Church History

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arapahoepark

Puritan Board Professor
I have seen some church histories, general or survey mostly, in America but I am wondering what would the PB recommend? I especially am looking for syntheses on how shallow our church (at large) became.
 
Sounds like you are looking for The Democratization of American Christianity by Nathan O. Hatch.
 
Also, No Place For Truth: Or Whatever Happened to Evangelical Theology by David Wells.
There are a number of books by David Wells that follow this one which also give insightful details on the state of the American church:
  • God in the Wasteland: The Reality of Truth in a World of Fading Dreams
  • Losing Our Virtue
  • Above All Earthly Pow'rs: Christ in a Postmodern World
He nicely summarises these in a helpful up to date work "The Courage to Be Protestant: Reformation Faith in Today's World" [ Second Edition]
 
Iain Murray, Revival and Revivalism. Excellent history and critique of Finney.

This, and, Evangelicalism Divided by Iain Murray are what you are looking for. The Wells book already recommended is great too.
 
Marsden, George. Fundamentalism and American Culture.
This has come across my radar several times, but I've wondered if the intervening years since publication would make the work stale? Dr. Marsden is one of the best historians of thought. Opinion?
 
This has come across my radar several times, but I've wondered if the intervening years since publication would make the work stale? Dr. Marsden is one of the best historians of thought. Opinion?

It's still good. He documents the whys and hows of Fundamentalism's rise in America. He corrects old scholarship (Ernst Sandeen).
 
Wells and Hatch are great!

Has anyone read Gnostic America by Peter Burfeind? I thought his analysis was insightful in a number of places.
 
I'm going to 3rd Revival and Revivalism by Iain Murray. It's focused on the 2nd great awakening, but that is really the point where the derailment happened. The next 150 years has just been the train wreck that followed.
 
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