Includes bibliographical references (pages 513-595) and index.

The New England Calvinists -- Rationalism resisted -- Nature, the supernatural, and virtue -- Jonathan Edwards -- Fragmentation in New England -- The deists -- Evidential Christianity -- Unitarian virtue -- Universal salvation -- Episcopal theology and tradition -- Methodist perfection -- The Baptists and Calvinist diversity -- Restoration -- Roots of black theology -- The immediacy of revelation -- Calvinism revised -- "True Calvinism" defended -- Lutherans : reason, revival, and confession -- Catholics : reason and the Church -- The transcendentalists : intuition -- Horace Bushnell : Christian comprehensiveness -- The Mercersburg theology : communal reason -- Orestes Brownson and Isaac Hecker : transcendental Catholicism -- The dilemma of slavery.

Print version record.

This volume is a comprehensive survey of early American Christian theology which encompasses scores of American theological traditions, schools of thought, and thinkers. Holifield examines mainstream Protestant and Catholic traditions as well as those of more marginal groups. He looks closely at the intricacies of American theology from 1636 to 1865 and considers the social and institutional settings for religious thought during this period. The book explores a range of themes, including the strand of Christian thought that sought to demonstrate the reasonableness of Christianity, the place of American theology within the larger European setting, the social location of theology in early America, and the special importance of the Calvinist traditions in the development of American theology. Broad in scope and deep in its insights, this book acquaints us with the full chorus of voices that contributed to theological conversation in America's early years.