A Sense of the Heart: Christian Religious Experience in the United States by Bill J. Leonard

Abstract

Reviewed by: A Sense of the Heart: Christian Religious Experience in the United States by Bill J. Leonard Emily Suzanne Clark A Sense of the Heart: Christian Religious Experience in the United States. By Bill J. Leonard. (Nashville: Abingdon Press. 2014. Pp. xii, 380. $45.00 paperback. ISBN 978-1-4267-5490-6). In A Sense of the Heart: Christian Religious Experience in the United States Bill Leonard offers a broad historical narrative that seeks “to define, describe, and analyze various elements of religious experience across a wide spectrum of religious communities where varying expressions of religious liberty and pluralism exist” (p. 3). Traversing the Atlantic Ocean, the book begins in sixteenth-century Europe and ends with the spiritual seekers of twenty-first-century America. Leonard provides a readable and approachable overview that will make an excellent read for those interested in learning about Christianity in America and will work well in an undergraduate classroom. Readers who are well versed in American Christian history will recognize all the usual suspects and key players, but they likely will learn some new, interesting details along the way. The first chapter outlines what Leonard means by the term religious experience with nods to William James, Mircea Eliade, Ann Taves, Rudolph Otto, and others. In short, Leonard is not interested in doctrine and dogma; rather, he focuses on what Christians did and how they felt. With such an aim, it is no surprise that the book’s title comes from Jonathan Edwards’s 1746 work A Treatise on Religious Affections (and Leonard references Edwards throughout the book). The chapters that follow take the reader through American Christian history and cover a wide range of individuals and communities. Chapters are both thematic and chronological, and they center on topics like colonial America, revivalism, liberal or esoteric Christian experience (transcendentalism and spiritualism), communitarianism, African American Christianity, Pentecostalism, Catholicism, and modern-day America. This is a wide range of American Christians and experiences, and Leonard brings them together in a narrative that reads and flows with [End Page 638] ease. Readers of The Catholic Historical Review will be particularly interested in chapter 9, which describes the development of American Catholicism, including John Gother’s colonial “Garden of the Soul” devotions, nineteenth-century immigration, Dorothy Day and Catholic social justice, the Second Vatican Council, and Thomas Merton. Despite the book’s attention to Christian diversity, it is still a traditional narrative of American Christianity. Although there is reference to colonial missions to Indians, Native Christian voices are noticeably lacking in A Sense of the Heart. At the close of the book’s first chapter, Leonard notes that his narrative will examine “the nature and diversity of religious experience in light of such distinct religiocultural issues as pluralism, voluntarism, religious freedom, democratic idealism, and Protestant privilege in the US” (p. 22). In light of the missing Indian experiences and the single chapter on black Christians, it might have been more accurate to write “white Protestant privilege.” Although it is a traditional story of American Christianity, with supplemental readings the book will work well in an undergraduate classroom. It provides a solid base narrative and introduces students to various theoretical ideas about religious experience. Leonard’s clear distillation of James, Taves, and others in chapter 1 provides a primer for reading and analyzing the religious experiences that abound in the following chapters. Emily Suzanne Clark Gonzaga University Copyright © 2016 The Catholic University of America Press