Review in the Wall St. Journal:
‘The Opening of the Protestant Mind’ Review: The Early Evangelical Outlook
Excerpt:
In Mr. Valeri’s interpretation, though, a figure like Jonathan Edwards, famous for preaching “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God,” may have been among the most liberal and progressive thinkers in the Anglophone world.
[the formatting on the website is damaged so I'm reconstructing the full article here.]
‘Evangelicals,” or born-again Protestants—Christians who believe in converting non-Christians to their faith—haven’t had a lot of great press of late. The mainstream media all but blamed them for the 2016 election of Donald Trump. Going further back are evangelical ties to the Moral Majority and the religious right. Evangelicals in both politics and religion have a reputation for intolerance. They may have earned it: In 2017, the Pew Research Center found that evangelicals, more than any other Christian group, viewed Hindus, Buddhists, Mormons, atheists and Muslims unfavorably.
Mark Valeri’s “The Opening of the Protestant Mind” isn’t about 21st-century America, but his exploration of born-again Protestantism’s historical roots upends assumptions about religious conversion. Instead of making Christians intolerant, coming to faith by conversion historically went hand in hand with reasonableness, civility and religious toleration. Most readers would likely assume the opposite: If you believe other people need to convert to your faith from theirs, chances are you won’t give them much of a hearing. In Mr. Valeri’s interpretation, though, a figure like Jonathan Edwards, famous for preaching “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God,” may have been among the most liberal and progressive thinkers in the Anglophone world.
Mr. Valeri’s narrative of Anglo-American Protestantism between 1650 and 1750 is not as oxymoronic as it initially sounds. The Protestant outlook that prevailed in English society at the time of Charles I’s execution in 1649 assumed that the “health of the state depended on a . . . religious confession” to supply social coherence. For the rest of the 17th century, when English writers (including American colonists) encountered non-Christians, they saw “illegitimate, dangerous, and demonic” religions.
But after the Glorious Revolution in 1688, in which the threat of a Catholic monarch was decisively ended, English Protestants began to distinguish “loyalty to the kingdom” from “conformity to any one creed.” English writers—some zealous Protestants, others philosophically inclined—“minimized theological orthodoxy” as a requirement for social standing. Not only did these authors discover “republican ideas of toleration and moral virtue” in other religions; they also revised Christianity. Conversion became the path to faith not by submission to dogma but by persuasion. This shift aided the ascendant Whigs in governing a diverse religious constituency. It also prompted Protestants to regard conversion
(and awakenings) as the mark of true faith. Mr. Valeri, a professor of religion and politics at Washington University in St. Louis, refers to a variety of authors well known and obscure. In the “Letter Concerning Toleration” (1689), the key to civil liberty was separating the purpose of the state from that of the church. If religious contro
public order, the state should intervene. Otherwise government should leave religious groups to themselves. Locke’s outlook extended to Native believe that they please God and are saved by the rites of their forefathers, they should be left to themselves.” Jonathan Edwards, who for a time served as a missionary to Native Americans, echoed Locke. Although an advocate for the First Great Awakening, Edwards regarded the Mohawks and English people as because they shared the same sinful human nature. For that reason, Edwards thought acculturating Native Americans to Anglo-American conventions as unimportant compared with converting them through persuasive preaching.
The 1733 English publication of “The Ceremonies and Religious Customs of the Various Nations of the Known World” is Mr. Valeri’s best example. Compiled by two French Protestants, Bernard Picart and Jean Frédéric Bernard, this popular book reinforced the ideal of conversion. Especially appealing to Anglo-American Protestants was the French catalogers’ contention that ceremonial religion represented an illegitimate “alliance between priests and secular rulers who persecuted religious dissenters.” Ritualized Christianity went hand-in-hand with imperial ambition and produced “uncivil, unreasonable, and coercive” religion
Mr. Valeri does not hide the anti-Catholicism of British Protestants, whether Enlightened or awakened. But his argument relies too heavily on lit enough on political history. He maps changes in “the discourse” about the religious “other” as the best way to track perceptions of non-Christian discounts the significance of imperialism. Between 1653 and 1763, the British Empire grew considerably in size and might. To govern adequately, followed the playbook of other imperial administrations by tolerating cultural and religious diversity in provincial peripheries.
Roman Catholics, for their part, well knew the intolerance of British Protestants. Until at least 1829, with the Catholic Emancipation Act, holding civil or military posts required membership in the Church of England. A similar pattern prevailed informally in Scotland, the United States and Canada. As late as 1870, the popular essayist and historian Anthony Froude, by no means a devout Protestant, celebrated Elizabeth I’s 1588 victory over the Spanish Armada as the moment when Protestant and English fortunes combined to secure Britain’s political sovereignty and Protestantism’s long-term viability in Europe and colonial North America. It’s true that religious outsiders in 19th-century Anglo-American society enjoyed a measure of liberty at the local level. But in government, Protestants generally reserved the levers of power for themselves.
The Protestant air of superiority is a missing piece in Mr. Valeri’s book. Had he spent more time on the nature and persistence of anti-Catholicism among British Protestants, he could well have resolved the riddle of Protestant tolerance in politics and insularity in religion. He might even have facilitated understanding those Protestants who to this day show a capacity to live with and sometimes be governed by non-Christians even while praying for their conversion.
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