The American Religious Experience: The Roots, Trends, and Future of Theology (review)

Abstract

BOOK REVIEWS 125 laquene le gollt signifie strictement le Bon Godt, c'est-~t-dire ce qui est acceptable selon les normes d'une Elite, ceile des salons, cette notion va en se diversifiant au tours du xvIII" si~cle. Le goflt cesse alors d'etre uniquement le Bon Godt et reprEsente une notion route relative, eelle que quieonque selon son humeur, son experience esthEtique et ses aptitudes personnelles est en droit de ressentir lorsqu'il est confront~ avec l'0euvre d'art. C'est ainsi que Diderot emploie tour ~t tour le terme dans ces deux acceptions, crEant de cette mani~re une ambiguRE parfois f~cheuse mais ouvrant la voie ~t une comprrhension du fait esthEtique fiche d'implications nouvelles. Enfin j'aurais souhaitE qu'un certain nombre de rEflexions peu nuancres sur des auteurs comme Batteux ou m~me Rousseau et Diderot ne soient pas venues donner cet ouvrage d'autre part 6videmment sErieux un ton auquel la PrEface ne nous avait pas prEparEs. Je pense par exemple h eette rrflexion sur l'auteur de la Nouvelle Hdlo~se: Rousseau, however, was a man who felt strongly about a great many things, but who thought clearly about nothing. (p. 33) ou bien ~ cette declaration pour le moins injuste: Unlike the writings of Descartes, Malebranche and Pascal, whose ideas have been deftly analyzed by generations of persons interested in philosophy, the writings of Batteux, Crousaz, Andre, Dubos, and many others have often been acknowledged in histories of criticism and fine arts but have never been closely scrutinized. (Prdface, p. xiii) ALICE M. LABORDE University of California, lrvine The American Religious Experience: The Roots, Trends, and Future of Theology. By Frederick Sontag and John K. Roth. (New York: Harper and Row, 1972. Pp. 401. $10.95) References to the American Dream, and its turning into a bad dream, are made throughout this book, with no mention of this being the phrase of James Truslow Adams in his 1931 Epic o/ America, meaning the dream of a good hfe as the opportunity for anyone to get rich, on the eve of the great depression. Nor in the passage on Theodore Parker is there a reference to his more American phrase of 1850, "the American Idea," meaning not the freedom to get rich, but freedom as the basis of all our distinctive American institutions (Cf. H. M. Kallen, What 1 Believe and Why--Maybe. New York: Horizon Press, 1971, Chap. 4). Yet Professor Roth is deafly using something hke Parker's idea, while emphasizing pluralism, as necessary to the ideal of "fulfillment of human life for all" (p. 93), though this ideal is more difficult now. Roth notes that philosophy in America has been close to scientific concerns, with the hope of community modeled more on scientific associations than on the church (p. 101). Professor Roth speaks of the period from 1800 to 1860 as "one of exploration, expansion, and the settlement of the middle and western regions of the land." He comments: "After 1800, our theology became more distinctively American... religious trends began to respond more directly to the 'American experience'" (pp. 65, 67). He then moves on to five thinkers who sought a framework to interpret the tasks ahead for the American people: Emerson, Thoreau, Channing, Parker, Bushnell. They were important, but did not get away from "the traditional qualities" of theology (p. 88). Nothing is said about Alexander Campbell who became the main founder of the Disciples of Christ soon after his immigration in 1809. Here was the most American 126 HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY in being the first of the larger Protestant bodies to be launched in this land. Stressing the spirit over the letter of New Testament teaching, and rejecting doctrines as tests of fellowship, the Disciples grew from less than a dozen members in 1812 to nearly two million by 1900, thriving especially in the South and West, where this book locates the greatest expansion of the churches. Perhaps the Disciples are ignored because they never had an official theology. In founding Bethany College, Campbell stipulated that theology not be taught. A book with "theology" in the subtitle might be expected to shun the non-theological...