Evangelicals at a Crossroads: Revivalism and Social Reform in Boston, 1860-1910

Abstract

While many historians have studied Boston's intellectual, social, and literary life, few have examined its religious dimensions in the years after 1800. Along with Margaret Lamberts Bendroth's Fundamentalists in the City: Conflicts and Division in Boston's Churches, 1885–1950 (2005), Evangelicals at a Crossroads helps fill this void. While Bendroth focuses on reformed Christians, the city's leading congregations, and the development of fundamentalism, Benjamin L. Hartley's well-researched and well-documented study concentrates on Wesleyan evangelicals and the interdenominational agencies that Boston evangelicals established to assist orphans, immigrants, and the poor. Boston's varied evangelicals (primarily Methodists, Baptists, and Salvation Army members) took paths that at times converged and at others diverged as they strove to practice scriptural holiness and base urban life on biblical standards. Despite their differences over theology and praxis, before 1890 their shared values and goals enabled them to work together effectively to win converts and improve social conditions. By the early twentieth century, however, the impact of the Social Gospel movement, theological differences, and changing social circumstances fractured their united front, and they split into liberal Protestant, fundamentalist, evangelical, and Pentecostal camps.