REFORMED THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY

A REVIEW OF THE OLD RELIGION IN A NEW WORLD: THE HISTORY OF NORTH

AMERICAN CHRISTIANITY, BY MARK A. NOLL

A BOOK REVIEW
PRESENTED IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS
FOR THE COURSE
THE REFORMATION IN THE NEW WORLD
DEPARTMENT OF HISTORICAL THEOLOGY

JAKE BELDER
27 JANUARY 2010
 It is a challenge to write history well, especially when it is designed to be an

introduction to a subject as broad and multifaceted as the history of Christianity in North

America. Mark Noll’s The Old Religion in a New World (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans,

2002) does just that, however. A highly readable and sufficiently detailed account, Noll

sets out to “explain what was new about the outworking of organized religion on [the

North American] continent by comparison with the European origins of that religion”

(ix).

Interacting primarily with the context of the United States, Noll’s main contention

is that American Christianity differs significantly from its European roots and has been

shaped to a large degree by four factors: the sheer size of America, ethnic and racial

diversity, a significant degree of religious pluralism, and the demise of traditional

European Christianity. What he sets out to demonstrate, quite simply, is that Christianity

played a considerable role in shaping America, and conversely, America played a

significant role in shaping Christianity.

The European settlers who came to North America found themselves in what

must have seemed to be a geographically boundless land, and Noll suggests that this is

one of the most obvious reasons why the religion of the New World differed significantly

from that of the Old. The wide open spaces “gave churches the kind of breathing room

that simply had not existed before. This breathing room allowed Christian groups that had

felt confined in Europe a chance to develop their own religious visions out of their own

internal resources” (12). As an example, Noll mentions the Baptists, who “developed

many strong local leaders—often laypeople—who, with or without formal education,

took the initiative in forming new churches (64). Another factor of particular significance

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in the new American republic was the use of revivals by the Methodists and the Baptists

to reach an exploding population in the great expanses of the new nation. “The essence of

revivalism,” Noll writes,

was direct appeal by a dedicated (often passionate) preacher to individuals

gathered expressly for the purpose of hearing the revivalist’s
message…The purpose of the revival meeting…was always the same: to
convert lost sinners to faith in Christ and, through the reformed behavior
of the converted, to improve society (63).

One of the reasons revivalism saw such success was because the basic essence of the

Christian message remained the same as that of the Old World while at the same time

appealing to the virtues and values of the liberal culture of the new republic. Noll

highlights Charles Finney as representative of this age, with “his willingness to adjust

historic patterns of Protestant faith and practice in order to reach the new towns and cities

of an expanding nation” (98).

Another significant factor in the shaping of Christianity in the New World was the

multiethnic nature of America, a trait it bore right from its inception, as Europeans from

various backgrounds settled in the new land. Noll points out that historians are quick to

stress the role ethnicity played in the history of Catholicism in North America, but are

less inclined to do so when discussing Protestant history. Yet, many of the nation’s

earliest Protestant churches were “distinctly ethnic” (15), and even today many different

churches comprised of immigrant populations “often practice a form of Protestant faith

influenced by ethnic background” (15-16). Additionally, and crucial for understanding

the religious history of this new land, is to recognize “that from the beginning, settlement

by Africans took place alongside settlement by Europeans” (14). Noll, in fact, identifies

the African American population as being the most significant ethnic contribution to

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North American Christianity, and gives due attention to the ways in which they

influenced the religious scene in America.

Of the factors shaping Christianity in the New World, it is religious pluralism that

Noll devotes the most attention too. He notes that “the stupendous array of churches,

para-church agencies, forms of Christian worship, and modes of Christian action has

often been one of the most striking features of North American religious life” (18), and

that this gives North America “a scope of religious diversity hardly matched anywhere

else in the world” (21). This pluralist character was evident almost right away due to

panoply of different traditions and ethnicities that settled in the New World. “Almost

without noticing it, their presence together in one place was breaking up the European

ideal of a unified Christendom” (35). However, this was not what Colonial-era Christians

originally intended, and many Protestants (particularly the Puritans and Anglicans) found

it to be a major difficulty as they tried to implement the European ideal of “one church

for one place” (50) in their new land. As well, the pioneering spirit of the American

people, bolstered by the ideals of liberty and freedom, empowered ordinary individuals

“to think and act for themselves,” which in turn “produced tremendous expansionary

energy in the churches, but…also fueled an ecclesiastical centrifuge” (100). While this

centrifuge would lose some of its energy as it moved toward the twentieth century,

particularly among the increasingly fragmenting Protestant churches, the expansionary

energy would be taken over by others groups, especially Catholics, and the various

sectarian groups such as the Mormons, who would continue to grow rapidly.

Finally, Noll identifies the absence of the confessional conservatism that marked

traditional European Christianity as a distinctive feature of Christianity in the New

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World. North American churches adapted to “a prevailing cultural liberalism, with

liberalism defined in the nineteenth-century fashion as an affinity for populism,

individualism, democratization, and market-making” (24). The separation of church and

state was the outworking of the desire for religious freedom among the Colonists, but

also meant that churches were forced to compete for adherents. Inevitably, “churches and

denominations that mastered the techniques of persuasion flourished” (84). Churches that

attempted to preserve the confessional nature of the European churches found themselves

ostracized because they implicitly chose to become sectarian—“to actively oppose

marketplace reasoning; to refuse to abide by the democratic will of majorities; to insist

upon higher authorities than the vox populi; and to privilege ancestral, traditional, or

hierarchical will over individual choice” (24). Noll demonstrates that churches still

bearing this vestige of their European heritage, especially those identified as mainline

Protestants, often find themselves on the fringes and, in the modern era, in numerical

decline. The notable exception to this is the Roman Catholic Church, which is “a

Christian tradition grounded in the Old World that has matured into a church at home in

America” (138). Facing a great deal of hostility from Protestants when they first settled in

America, Catholics have now become “overwhelmingly the most important Christian

denomination in the country” (177). Noll devotes significant attention to the triumphs of

Catholicism in establishing itself in America.

While it is these four characteristics which define American Christianity, Noll

argues that there were two overarching factors that laid the groundwork for Christianity

to flourish and take the shape it did, and to become such an integral part of American

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culture. First, Noll writes, it is important to recognize that the first Protestants in the New

World

were predominantly from the British Isles rather than the Continent. They
were also more likely to be Reformed (that is, Calvinist) than either
Lutheran or Anabaptist…These Protestants thought that discipline for God
should be exerted in the world. Family life, business practices, political
decisions, management of leisure time—all such concerns should be
pursued with religious seriousness. Thus it was that, as these Reformed
Protestants came to America, they were seeking not a private space to be
religious but a free space for their religion to transform (45-46).

Noll compares the success of the Reformed Protestants in America to their earlier success

in Europe, where they had “so effectively integrated religion and society” (46). While

other religious influences would come to bear on American culture, few would be as

significant as this.

The second factor is the legacy of the separation of church and state. One of the

most notable differences in the religious cultures of America and Europe, it is somewhat

paradoxical that this would be a fundamental tenant of a nation whose culture and society

was and is so pervasively influenced by its religious character. Dietrich Bonhoeffer

would note on a trip to the United States in 1939:

Nowhere has the principle of the separation of church and state become a
matter of such general, almost dogmatic significance as in American
Christianity, and nowhere, on the other hand, is the participation of the
churches in the political, social, economic, and cultural events of public
life so active and so influential as in the country where there is no state
church (276).

Despite the seeming contradiction, it is this freedom which gave religion in America the

opportunity to flourish, and gave the people, for good or for ill, the chance to redefine

and reshape their religion.

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 As is often the case with a book serving as an introduction to a subject, the reader

is left wanting more. This, perhaps, is both positive and negative; on the one hand, the

author has achieved his aim—namely, piquing the interest of his readers to learn more

while having satisfied their initial curiosity about the subject; and on the other hand, it

means there are potentially some deficiencies in his treatment. In the case of The Old

Religion in a New World, the scales lean heavily toward the former, with a few

exceptions. For example, Noll continually offers teasers regarding the practical

outworking of American Christianity, but leaves the reader hanging on numerous

occasions. One such instance of this is in the chapter on theology, where, quoting

Frenchman Claude-Jean Bertrand, “the laxity, the syncretism, the utilitarianism, the

secularization, [and] the nationalization of the church” (186) are noted as characteristics

of American theological reflection without drawing out the implications of that in any

significant way. Noll also briefly notes the way in which religion and politics intermix in

the American context, although this is worthy of considerably more attention than he

gives it, especially considering the juxtaposition of this with the separation of church and

state.

Additionally, while the effort by Noll to include the history of religious

developments in Mexico and Canada is commendable, one cannot help feel that these

histories could be left out of the present volume. He demonstrates that there are some

similarities in these histories to that of the United States, but that they are also marked by

“immense differences” (209). Having stated that, the reader cannot help but think that if

these differences are that significant, they deserve separate and more extensive treatment.

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Incidentally, this would have given Noll more room to expand on the practical

implications of American Christianity noted above.

As difficult as it is to write a book covering such a significant amount of material,

Noll has succeeded in providing a lucid and cohesive introduction to the complex and

fascinating history of North American Christianity. Noll concludes The Old Religion in a

New World with a succinct and helpful summary of American Christianity, observing that

the American situation can be evaluated positively, as an instance of an

incarnated faith carrying the message of a God incarnated in human flesh
into its surrounding society. Or it can be evaluated negatively, as a
peculiar instance of secularization where an anthropocentric religion of
self-realization and salvation through productivity replaces a theocentric
religion of divine revelation and salvation in Christ (281).

He thus helps the reader to draw a fair and balanced conclusion, avoiding romanticism on

the one hand, and wholesale disapproval on the other. Noting that the history of

Christianity in America seems to be an ongoing struggle between the preservation or loss

of Christian integrity, Noll then turns to the future and remarks that “not historical

scholarship but an ability to hear the gospel and to act upon it will determine which of

these paths mark the way to the future” (281).