The Land and the City in American Religious Conflict

Abstract

American religious history can be divided rather neatly into two periods. The first, beginning with Native American religion down to and through the Revolution, involved the competing religious parties in territorial conflict over land. The Great Awakening, the Revolution, and the growth of competition among denominations meant a turn from concern for "landscape" to one of "cityscape," without diminishing the struggles over space. This paper examines this conflict from the viewpoint of a number of sociological theories of conflict, settling on models from Georg Simmel as being more satisfying than others in helping account for American religious tensions. "Tell me the landscape in which you live, and I will tell you who, you are."' "Tierra! Tierra! Land! Land! ... you have found land!" The reported cry of Rodrigo de Triana aboard the Pinta at 2:00 A.M. on October 12, 1492, and Christopher Co6 lumbus's words when sight of land was verified begin the American epic. They set the theme for much of what follows, just as the words "In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth" prelcast Genesis or "Midway upon the journey of our life I found myself in a dark wood" anticipates the rest of Dante's great work. For almost five hundred years the land itself has served as the unifying theme of the American epic, not least of all in its religious dimensions. If a person stammers when asked what is American about American religion, he or she can attempt a first word by pointing to the obvious and banal: the adjective "American" points to a place, a land, a landscape, an environment that shapes and then is shaped by the people