The Bible and American Culture ─ A Sourcebook

From political speeches to pop songs, the biblical presence in American culture is hard to ignore. This sourcebook gathers and contextualizes a remarkable series of primary texts to illuminate the varied uses of the Bible in American life. Topics covered include the publication and distribution of the Bible, the use of the Bible in debates over slavery, homosexuality, feminism and civil rights, and biblical sources in works of art, music, poetry and fiction. The book provides a clear understanding of the centrality and influence of the Bible from the period of the first European settlers to the present day. It is invaluable for students taking courses on religion and American culture, and on the history of religion in the United States.

Claudia Setzer is Professor of Religious Studies at Manhattan College, USA
David Shefferman is Assistant Professor of Religious Studies at Manhattan College, USA

INTRODUCTION
The Place of the Bible in the Paradox of America
Biblical Archetypes and the Idea of ‘America’
How the Bible is Interpreted
What is the Bible?
Criteria for Selection
Overview of the Chapters


CHAPTER ONE: SPREADING THE WORD
Missionizing
Production and Distribution
Translation
The Book among books?
John Eliot’s Brief Narrative
Charter of College of William and Mary
Jonathan Edwards, ‘A Divine and Supernatural Light’
Continental Congress Authorizes Bible Printing
The Jefferson Bible
The American Bible Society
Liberal Responses to Calvinism
The Student Volunteer Movement
Isaac Leeser and the Translation of Hebrew Scripture
Francis Kenrick’s Translation of the Pentateuch
The Jewish Publication Society
Dei Verbum
The New American Bible
The Gullah Bible
The Green Bible
Biblezines


CHAPTER TWO: THE BIBLE AND THE REPUBLIC
Settlement and God’s Providence
The First Charter of Virginia
John Winthrop, ‘A Model of Christian Charity’
Fundamental Orders of Connecticut
Dissent Among the Dissenters: The Bible and the Challenges of Colonial Governance
The Examination of Anne Hutchinson at the Court at Newton
The Massachusetts Witchcraft Trials
Cotton Mather, from Memorable Providences Relating to Witchcrafts and Possessions
Samuel Parris, ‘Christ Knows How Many Devils There Are’
John Hale, ‘A Modest Inquiry into the Nature of Witchcraft’
Quaker Pennsylvania and ‘The Keithian Schism’
Founding the Republic
Prayer Before the First Continental Congress
The Prayer of Rev. Duché Before the Continental Congress
The Call to War, the Challenge of Peace
Patrick Henry’s Call for Revolution
Abraham Lincoln’s Second Inaugural Address
Franklin D. Roosevelt as the Nation’s Pastor
Congress Declares the Bible ‘the Word of God’
Public Display of Religion
Abington v. Schempp
The Ten Commandments in the Alabama Courthouse
Legal Responses
Sporting Events and Religious Expression
Verses in Eye Black


CHAPTER THREE: THE BIBLE AND AMERICA’S GREAT DEBATES
Slavery and Abolitionism: Pro-Slavery Arguments
The Sin of Ham
Slavery and the New Testament
Slave Owners’ Publications
A Slave Catechism
After Emancipation
Slavery and Abolitionism: Anti-Slavery Arguments
The Barnes Hypothesis
Theodore Dwight Weld
The Spirit of the Scriptures
Biblical Typology
Experiences of African Americans
Resistance and Revolt in Charleston
Frederick Douglass
Women’s Public Role and the Vote
Sarah Grimké
Sojourner Truth
Preaching the Bible and Women’s Equality
Anna Julia Cooper
Women and Social Reform
The Woman’s Bible
Anti-Suffrage Arguments and Scripture
Horace Bushnell
James Cardinal Gibbons
Debating the Bible’s Authority: The Higher Criticism Controversy
William Newton Clarke
Inspiration: The ‘Princeton Doctrine’
The Briggs Case
Debating the Bible’s Authority: The Modernist/Fundamentalist Showdown
The Fundamentals
Curtis Lee Laws
Harry Emerson Fosdick
Debating the Bible’s Authority: Evolution and Creationism
T. DeWitt Talmage
Henry Ward Beecher
John Zahm
William Jennings Bryan
The Scopes Trial
Reforming Society
The Social Gospel
The City as Menace
Labor Unions
Temperance
The Women’s Christian Temperance Union
The Struggle for Civil Rights
Anticipating the Movement
Support for Segregation
Martin Luther King, Jr.
Fannie Lou Hamer
Black Liberation Theology
Inclusion of Gay/Lesbian/Bisexual/Transexual Persons
Paul’s Statements in Romans 1
Another Interpretation of Romans 1


CHAPTER FOUR: READING IN THE MARGINS
Identity and Textual Interpretation
Jarena Lee
The Bible as Patriarchal
African American Women’s Experience
The Text Interprets Itself
The Prophetic Corrective
A ‘Hermeneutics of Suspicion’
A Gay Theology of Liberation
The Bible as Intimate Friend
Experience and the Authority of Spirit
The Holiness Movement
The Azusa Street Revival
Letter from Bro. Parham
Speaking in Tongues
Catholic Charismatic Renewal
Imagining Babylon and Thy Kingdom Come
The Shakers
‘I, Nephi,…’: The Book of Mormon
William Miller
Ellen G. White on ‘The Book of Books’
Charles Taze Russell, ‘Earth’s Night of Sin to Terminate in a Morning of Joy’
Mary Baker Eddy and Christian Science
Elijah Muhammad, ‘What is Islam? What is a Muslim?’
Jim Jones, ‘The Letter Killeth’
Message from the Apostle
David Koresh and the Seven Seals


CHAPTER FIVE: THE BIBLE AND ARTISTIC EXPRESSION
Art
Edward Hicks, Peacable Kingdom
Harriet Powers’ Bible Quilt
Edmonia Lewis
Bessie Harvey
Tobi Kahn
Poetry
Phillis Wheatley
Emily Dickinson
Robert Lowell
Samuel Menashe
Musical Lyric
‘There is a Balm in Gilead’
‘My Mother’s Bible’
‘The Greatest Story Ever Told’
‘Hallelujah’
Lauryn Hill, ‘Forgive Them Father’
The Novel
Herman Melville, selection from Moby Dick
James Baldwin, selection from Go Tell It on the Mountain