America's Religious Crossroads: Faith and Community in the Emerging Midwest by Stephen T. Kissel

Abstract

Reviewed by: America's Religious Crossroads: Faith and Community in the Emerging Midwest by Stephen T. Kissel Marcus Gallo (bio) Keywords Old Northwest, Midwest, Religion, Protestantism, Religious development America's Religious Crossroads: Faith and Community in the Emerging Midwest. By Stephen T. Kissel. (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2021. Pp. 268. Cloth, $110.00.) Examining the Old Northwest until 1848, the year that Wisconsin became a state, Stephen T. Kissel describes the religious "bonds, networks, and relationships that allowed these isolated western settlements to evolve in their regional unity and identity" (2). Kissel tackles a variety of topics, including home worship and hospitality, religious literature and schooling, church-building, camp revivals, Bible societies, and social reform movements. These religious undertakings helped develop the Old Northwest, providing structure to the region prior to the establishment of "stable civic and political infrastructures," when "the separation of church and state became more clearly defined by civic and political policies" (145–46). By midcentury, as the pioneer period ended, the Northwest was home to a "religious mosaic" encompassing a variety of sects that still flavored local society (145). [End Page 650] Kissel's chapters all follow a similar structure: Each looks extensively at how mainline Protestant sects handled the aforementioned undertakings, then touches briefly on similar developments among northwestern minorities: Catholics; Blacks and Indians; and Mormon, Shaker, and Rappite utopians. The repetition of this structure can leave these sections on minorities feeling tacked on; the book offers far more to readers interested in the experiences of white Protestants than to those seeking to learn about Black churches or missionary efforts among Native American communities. While not overly focused on religious violence, the rough-and-tumble nature of the Old Northwest emerges from numerous examples. In Kissel's words, "Being able to hold one's own in a fight was regarded with equal value to honesty, because it proved a man could stand his ground and defend his principles" (119). In some instances, the dividing lines could be between believers and unbelievers. Most of the inhabitants of Jackson, Michigan, and Vermillion County, Illinois, resented the presence of itinerant preachers wishing to spread religion. In Plainfield, Michigan, the settlers threatened to ride the preacher out of town on a wooden horse for insulting their integrity by preaching about the evils of prostitution. Perhaps in response to this sort of hostility, one intrepid preacher rode his circuit "with a loaded pistol and a dirk," causing the Western Methodist Conference to publicly reprimand him, then eventually drive him out of the church (116). Similarly, camp revivals attracted throngs of all sorts, including liquor salesmen, to the consternation of religious participants. Revivals could become sites of vandalism and violence when rowdy crowds of youths sought to entertain themselves by disrupting proceedings, prompting the faithful to arm occasionally themselves to maintain order. In other instances, mainstream Protestants moved beyond the defensive, targeting minority sects with violence. In 1810, convinced that local Shakers had been seducing children to run away and then abusing them, a crowd of five hundred armed men entered Union Village, Ohio, and demanded that the Shakers there renounce their faith. The vigilantes left after the Shakers convinced them that they had not, in fact, been maltreating the children of the village. What emerges is a picture of a society that lacked a monopoly on violence; religious organization helped fill the void of authority. Kissel's investigation of church disciplinary procedures is most revealing of the ways in which religious structures overlapped with civil structures in the Old Northwest, providing something of a surrogate for the state. [End Page 651] When forming, Protestant churches adopted strict rules of decorum. For example, Methodists banned "swearing, drunkenness, profaning the Sabbath, failing to attend public worship, fighting, gambling, transacting dishonest business, participating in the slave trade, and 'the putting on of gold and costly apparel'" (107). Enthusiastic lay members formed committees to strengthen the faith of the spiritually conflicted and investigate unacceptable behavior among their congregations. They punished the guilty by demanding public confessions or, for more extreme behavior, suspending or expelling members from the church. Over time, churches expanded their scope to handle disputes that blurred the line between religious...