Study Questions

Grant Wacker
"Religion in Nineteenth-Century America"
Religion in American Life: A Short History

  1. What was the state of American churches in the wake of the Revolution? What were the three arguments raised against the establishment of religion by Thomas Jefferson, Isaac Backus, and James Madison? What was the relation of the national government and the state governments to religion? What is "civil religion"? What was the significance of Deism, Unitarianism, and Freemasonry?

  2. How did the Great Awakening and the Second Great Awakening differ? What was the significance of the Cane Ridge Revival of 1801? Why were Francis Asbury and Charles Grandison Finney important figures in the Second Great Awakening? What is evangelicalism? Describe the growth of Baptist churches. What legacies did the evangelical revival leave for women?

  3. Why did religious people turn to social reform movements in the nineteenth century? Which reform movements were popular? What is the significance of Dorothea Dix's career and achievements? Identify William Miller, his movement, and their significance. Identify the Shakers, the Oneida Community, and Sojourner Truth.

  4. Explain the "restorer" theme in early nineteenth-century Christianity. What were the "Christian" movement of Barton Stone and Alexander Campbell, and the Mormon movement of Joseph Smith trying to restore? How did their efforts compare? How were they different?

  5. How did the beliefs of Indians and of whites and blacks influence each other? What religions did Asians bring to the country? What is "Reform Judaism"? Identify Rabbi Isaac Mayer Wise. Describe the progress of Christianization of African Americans. Identify the A.M.E. and A.M.E.Z., and Richard Allen.

  6. How was religion involved in the debate over slavery? How did the issue of slavery affect American churches? How did Christians North and South, and Abraham Lincoln in particular, interpret the Civil War, both at the time and afterwards?

  7. How did ethnicity affect the growing Catholic Church? Where did the Catholics come from? How did the different ethnic groups interact with and respond to one another? Why did Protestants persecute Catholics, and how did they react to Catholicism? Describe the "Americanist" controversy. Identify Elizabeth Seton and Jean Baptiste Lamy.

  8. What were Ralph Waldo Emerson's ideas about religion? What is "higher criticism" and how was it significant? How did Charles Darwin's book Origin of Species and increasing awareness of other religions impact American Christianity? Describe the difference between agnostics, "free religionists," and liberals. Why were they so influential?

  9. How did Protestant conservatives respond to the challenges of chapter fifteen? Identify Dwight Moody. What was "sanctification" and how did it affect Protestantism? What is "premillennialism" and "fundamentalism"? Identify Charles Taze Russell and the Jehovah's Witnesses. Identify Seventh Day Adventists, the churches of Christ, and Mennonites. Identify Wovoka and the Ghost Dance. How did Handsome Lake, Tenskwatawa, and the Ghost Dance use the past to help Indians deal with the present? Identify the peyote problem and the Native American church.

  10. The final chapter of the book deals with four ways people of the late nineteenth century tried to reach out and change the world for the better: care of the body, easing of poverty, the temperance movement, and the foreign mission movement. Identify Ellen G. White and Mary Baker Eddy and their health ideas. Identify the Social Gospel movement and the Salvation Army and their significance. Identify Frances Willard and the WCTU. Describe the goals and successes of the domestic mission movement before the Civil War and the later foreign mission movement.

Borrowed with permission from Dr. Mark Stoll, Texas Tech University