Table of Contents

Introduction, by Thomas J. Davis

Section I John Calvin, Calvinism, and American Society
Chapter 1 Calvin and the Social Order in Early America: Moral Ideals and Transatlantic Empire, by Mark Valeri
Chapter 2 Calvinism and American National Identity, by David Little
Chapter 3 Implausible: Calvinism and American Politics, by D. G. Hart

Section II John Calvin, Calvinism, and American Theology
Chapter 4 Practical Ecclesiology in John Calvin and Jonathan Edwards, by Amy Plantinga Pauw
Chapter 5 "Falling Away from the General Faith of the Reformation"? The Contest over Calvinism in Nineteenth-Century America, by Douglas A. Sweeney
Chapter 6 Calvin and Calvinism within Congregational and Unitarian Discourse in Nineteenth-Century America, by David D. Hall
Chapter 7 Whose Calvin, Which Calvinism? John Calvin and the Development of Twentieth-Century American Theology, by Stephen D. Crocco

Section III John Calvin, Calvinism, and American Letters
Chapter 8 "Strange Providence": Indigenist Calvinism in the Writings of Mohegan Minister Samson Occom (1723-1792), by Denise T. Askin
Chapter 9 Geneva's Crystalline Clarity: Harriet Beecher Stowe and Max Weber on Calvinism and the American Character, by Peter J. Thuesen
Chapter 10 "Jonathan Edwards, Calvin, Baxter & Co.": Mark Twain and the Comedy of Calvinism, by Joe B. Fulton
Chapter 11 Cold Comforts: John Updike, Protestant Thought and the Semantics of Paradox, by Kyle A. Pasewark

Conclusion John Calvin at "Home" in American Culture

About the Author

Professor and Chair, Department of Religious Studies, and Thomas H. Lake Scholar in Religion and Philanthropy, Indiana University-Purdue University

Reviews

"The authors of these provocative and insightful essays are prone neither to grandiose claims nor to cavalier dismissals. Instead, they skillfully explore ambiguities. Ranging in their scope from politics and economics to religious practice, ethics, and fiction, they reveal the persisting relevance of a sixteenth-century Genevan theologian for anyone who hopes to understand American culture. They also prove that reading about Calvin can be genuinely
entertaining."
--E. Brooks Holifield, author of God's Ambassadors: A History of the Christian Clergy in America
"Calvinism is deeply 'at home in the American consciousness,' and fully deserves another round of new and mature reflection."--Margaret Bendroth, Congregational Library
"Thomas Davis supplies the missing voice in this volume in an all-too-brief but beautifully wrought discussion...."--Margaret Bendroth, Congregational Library