Andrew S. Finstuen's Books

Original Sin and Everyday Protestants

The Theology of Reinhold Niebuhr, Billy Graham, and Paul Tillich in an Age of Anxiety

By: Andrew S. Finstuen

Write a review Read reviews Take a Quiz Solve Book Puzzle

Original Sin and Everyday Protestants

The Theology of Reinhold Niebuhr, Billy Graham, and Paul Tillich in an Age of Anxiety

By: Andrew S. Finstuen

In the Years Following World War II, American Protestantism experienced tremendous growth, but conventional wisdom holds that midcentury Protestants practiced an optimistic, progressive, complacent, and materialist faith. In Original Sin and Everyday Prot

Average ratings

N/A

Write a review

Solve jigsaw puzzle

Age

Page Count

269

Publisher

Univ of North Carolina Press

Published Date

ISBN 10

0807833363

ISBN 13

9780807833360

Faith in Freedom

Propaganda, Presidential Politics, and the Making of an American Religion

By: Andrew R. Polk

Write a review Read reviews Take a Quiz Solve Book Puzzle

Faith in Freedom

Propaganda, Presidential Politics, and the Making of an American Religion

By: Andrew R. Polk

In Faith in Freedom, Andrew R. Polk argues that the American civil religion so many have identified as indigenous to the founding ideology was, in fact, the result of a strategic campaign of religious propaganda. Far from being the natural result of the nation's religious underpinning or the later spiritual machinations of conservative Protestants, American civil religion and the resultant "Christian nationalism" of today were crafted by secular elites in the middle of the twentieth century. Polk's genealogy of the national motto, "In God We Trust," revises the very meaning of the contemporary American nation. Polk shows how Presidents Franklin D. Roosevelt, Harry S Truman, and Dwight D. Eisenhower, working with politicians, advertising executives, and military public relations experts, exploited denominational religious affiliations and beliefs in order to unite Americans during the Second World War and, then, the early Cold War. Armed opposition to the Soviet Union was coupled with militant support for free economic markets, local control of education and housing, and liberties of speech and worship. These preferences were cultivated by state actors so as to support a set of right-wing positions including anti-communism, the Jim Crow status quo, and limited taxation and regulation. Faith in Freedom is a pioneering work of American religious history. By assessing the ideas, policies, and actions of three US Presidents and their White House staff, Polk sheds light on the origins of the ideological, religious, and partisan divides that describe the American polity today.

Average ratings

N/A

Write a review

Solve jigsaw puzzle

Age

Page Count

268

Publisher

Cornell University Press

Published Date

ISBN 10

150175923X

ISBN 13

9781501759239

Original Sin and Everyday Protestants

The Theology of Reinhold Niebuhr, Billy Graham, and Paul Tillich in an Age of Anxiety

By: Andrew S. Finstuen

Write a review Read reviews Take a Quiz Solve Book Puzzle

Original Sin and Everyday Protestants

The Theology of Reinhold Niebuhr, Billy Graham, and Paul Tillich in an Age of Anxiety

By: Andrew S. Finstuen

In the years following World War II, American Protestantism experienced tremendous growth, but conventional wisdom holds that midcentury Protestants practiced an optimistic, progressive, complacent, and materialist faith. In Original Sin and Everyday Protestants, historian Andrew Finstuen argues against this prevailing view, showing that theological issues in general--and the ancient Christian doctrine of original sin in particular--became newly important to both the culture at large and to a generation of American Protestants during a postwar "age of anxiety" as the Cold War took root. Finstuen focuses on three giants of Protestant thought--Billy Graham, Reinhold Niebuhr, and Paul Tillich--men who were among the era's best known public figures. He argues that each thinker's strong commitment to the doctrine of original sin was a powerful element of the broad public influence that they enjoyed. Drawing on extensive correspondence from everyday Protestants, the book captures the voices of the people in the pews, revealing that the ordinary, rank-and-file Protestants were indeed thinking about Christian doctrine and especially about "good" and "evil" in human nature. Finstuen concludes that the theological concerns of ordinary American Christians were generally more complicated and serious than is commonly assumed, correcting the view that postwar American culture was becoming more and more secular from the late 1940s through the 1950s.

Average ratings

N/A

Write a review

Solve jigsaw puzzle

Age

Page Count

268

Publisher

Univ of North Carolina Press

Published Date

ISBN 10

0807898538

ISBN 13

9780807898536

Book's by Andrew S. Finstuen

Original Sin and Everyday Protestants

Original Sin and Everyday Protestants

Faith in Freedom

Faith in Freedom

Original Sin and Everyday Protestants

Original Sin and Everyday Protestants

Username

Password

Username

Password

Password again

Birthday

Email