Protestant Ministers Research Articles

Strategy and Subterfuge: Billy Graham’s Political Machinations from Montreux to the Mayflower Hotel and Beyond

Abstract One of the turning points in the 1960 presidential campaign was a gathering of 150 Protestant ministers at the Mayflower Hotel in Washington on September 7, 1960, two days after Labor Day. During the closed-door gathering, Protestant leaders, including Norman Vincent Peale, unanimously adopted a statement warning about the dangers to the First Amendment and the separation of church and state should a Roman Catholic be elected president. Drawing on newly available archival sources, this article examines the role of religion in the 1960 campaign, including John F. Kennedy’s long struggle to neutralize the issue and the significance of Paul Blanshard’s 1949 best-seller, American Freedom and Catholic Power. Although Peale was roundly criticized for his role in the Mayflower gathering, the real force behind the meeting was Billy Graham, who did not attend. After assuring Kennedy in a letter dated August 10, 1960, that he, Graham, would not raise the religious issue in the campaign, Graham, at Peale’s behest, convened a group of Protestant ministers at the Montreux Palace Hotel in Switzerland eight days later to discuss how they could deny Kennedy’s election in November. The direct consequence of the Montreux meeting was the Mayflower Hotel gathering. While Peale took the heat for the meeting, Graham continued to play both sides, insisting publicly that he was neutral in the presidential race while working behind the scenes to advance Nixon’s candidacy, a strategy he employed again twenty years later in an attempt to jettison the reelection of a fellow evangelical, Jimmy Carter.

Dismantling the Sentimental in Harriet Beecher Stowe’s Dred: A Tale of the Great Dismal Swamp

Abstract: In this essay, I analyze Harriet Beecher Stowe’s Dred to show how Stowe’s confrontation with Protestant religious institutions in the 1850s led her to deconstruct the sentimental techniques she had previously relied on in Uncle Tom’s Cabin . Scrutinizing Presbyterian leaders’ response to slavery both at a public camp meeting and at a private gathering of Northern and Southern ministers, Stowe assigns the main responsibility for slavery to Protestant ministers fearful of losing cultural power amid the intense denominational competition of the nineteenth century. In particular, she shows how the clergy justified silence on the issue of slavery by assigning slavery to a secular, civil sphere and narrowly defining the Christian church’s realm as purely spiritual, even as those same clergy advanced a nationalist political agenda.

Race and the Power of Sermons on American Politics. By R. Khari Brown, Ronald E. Brown, and James S. Jackson. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press. 2021. xii+167 pp. $70.00 cloth.; Decoding the Digital Church: Evangelical Storytelling and the Election of Donald J. Trump. By Stephanie A. Martin. Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press. 2021. xi.+266 pp. $49.95 cloth.

Despite the growing flight of Americans from religious institutions, these are still the largest voluntary organizations in the United States and they remain significant forces in American politics. As leaders of these organizations, clergy are often visible and influential political figures. In just the past few years, conservative Protestant pastors were frequent visitors to the Trump White House and played a crucial role in mobilizing a large Republican religious constituency. Black Protestant ministers have long been a vital force in Democratic circles and are joined at times by white liberal colleagues, as evidenced by the recent mobilization to preserve abortion rights in the wake of the Supreme Court decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization.

Judah Magnes: The Prophetic Politics of a Religious Binationalist by David Barak-Gorodetsky

Reviewed by: Judah Magnes: The Prophetic Politics of a Religious Binationalist by David Barak-Gorodetsky Eric Fleisch David Barak-Gorodetsky. Judah Magnes: The Prophetic Politics of a Religious Binationalist. Translated by Merav Datan. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press and the Jewish Publication Society of America, 2021. 364 pp. In Judah Magnes: The Prophetic Politics of a Religious Binationalist, David Barak-Gorodetsky presents a refreshingly original take on Judah Magnes (1877–1948), one of the most renowned Jewish figures in America and the Yishuv in the first half of the twentieth century. To date, Magnes has received considerable attention from biographers (i.e., Norman Bentwich, Arthur Goren, Daniel Kotzin, and an edited volume by William Brinner and Moses Rischin). One might wonder whether another exploration of Magnes was necessary, but Barak-Gorodetsky emphatically answers that question, making numerous unique contributions that sharpen an understanding of Magnes’s fundamental ideas and challenge traditional historiographical conceptions of Magnes as an almost ideologically schizophrenic figure. The title of this book is, itself, notable in its complexity. Barak-Gorodetsky and his editors packed a number of rich, loaded terms (prophetic, politics, religious, binationalist) into a short title. Though Magnes is perhaps best known as a binationalist and political leader—a founder of Ichud who advocated for a binationalist state at the Anglo-American Committee of Inquiry on Palestine in 1946 and made the case directly to President Harry Truman in May 1948; and as a leading Jewish political figure, instrumental in the Kehillah experiment in New York and longtime chancellor of Hebrew University—it is the other two descriptors in the title—religious and prophetic—that are the cornerstones of the author’s creative exploration [End Page 209] of Magnes as a person. Above all, Barak-Gorodetsky argues, Magnes defined himself by his own deep and conflicted lifelong religious exploration and eventually, the associated self-conception he developed as a modern-day Jeremiah. Barak-Gorodetsky devotes considerable attention to Magnes’s own personal search for God, which he demonstrates as, at once, Magnes’s greatest lifelong aspiration and least successful endeavor. Making good use of both often-referenced and more esoteric sources of Magnes’s writings, Barak-Gorodetsky highlights Magnes’s anguish at his inability to better understand and connect with God. But, Barak-Gorodetsky explains, regardless of Magnes’s disillusionment in his own religious search, his core intellectual identity should nonetheless be understood as “religious.” In other words, Magnes believed that Jewish communal values and aspirations of the day could only truly and holistically be achieved if they were based on what he lamented was a too-often-ignored Jewish religious core. Barak-Gorodetsky convincingly illustrates how this consistent focus on a Jewish essence explains Magnes’s evolving attitudes toward concepts like socialism, pacificism, and Zionism—ideas that he alternately advocated for and eschewed at different points in his life. In this way, Barak-Gorodetsky makes perhaps his most important contribution in challenging the classic historiography of Magnes, which likened him to an intellectual chameleon. Instead, Barak-Gorodetsky argues that Magnes indeed had a “center of vision” (261) that ran as an internally consistent throughline in his developing ideologies and political stances over time. Another paradigm Barak-Gorodetsky features was Magnes’s role as a prophet-like figure. Whether in his support for social equality, nonviolence, religious reform, or the equal legitimacy of Arab national yearnings in Palestine, Magnes was guided by what Barak-Gorodetsky identifies as a “call to establish the kingdom of heaven here and now on earth” (47). He further frames what many contemporaries and retrospective commentators have criticized as Magnes’s unrealistic and naïve belief in the potential success of a binational state, rather in Magnes’s self-understood tension between priest and prophet. Even more than as a duty to lead the community toward material political success, Magnes saw his principal role as being an unwavering beacon of Jewish morality. Barak-Gorodetsky draws on the writings of Protestant minister and friend of Magnes, John Hayes Holmes, in explaining that to Magnes, “earthly success was actually the enemy of . . . a vision [of justice and peace on earth], since the conditions it created annulled the spiritual success. Thus, external success...

Religious Intolerance in America: A Documentary History

Religious Intolerance in America: A Documentary History

Fear and Loathing in Zarahemla: The Viper on the Hearth and the Book of Mormon as Denominational Attack

Fear and Loathing in Zarahemla: <i>The Viper on the Hearth</i> and the Book of Mormon as Denominational Attack

Ministers on Salvation: Soteriological Views of Pioneers and Pastors in the Protestant Church in the Netherlands

Abstract Missiology has always been inspired by soteriology, that is, Christian views of salvation. However, little is known about the actual soteriological beliefs of missionary practitioners. This article is an explorative qualitative study of soteriological beliefs among Dutch Protestant ministers who work in pioneer settings (N=20) and established churches (N=40). Our research shows that, contrary to what might be expected, these two groups (termed ‘pioneers’ and ‘pastors’) are very much alike with regard to their soteriological beliefs. The majority are convinced of the uniqueness of Jesus, and the connection of salvation with God and/or Jesus – even if this salvation is often expressed in immanent terms. Only two differences have been found between pastors and pioneers. Pioneers experience more challenges in communicating the uniqueness of Christianity and they are more likely to have traditional views of ‘eternal lostness’.

“I Shall Give Thee the Heathen for Thine Inheritance”

Abstract Taking the scriptural concept of the ‘heathen’ as its starting point, this article investigates the attitudes of Protestant ministers and parishioners in England towards the conversion of indigenous non-Christian people in colonial New England during the years of the English republic from 1649 to 1660. The article examines Psalm 2 as a framework within which churchgoers interpreted non-Christianity, before turning to the fragmentary prosopography of parishioners who donated money towards the cause of religious expansion. Illuminating the practical strategies that the new government developed as its pursuit of legitimacy intersected with attitudes towards evangelism overseas, the article demonstrates the ways in which liturgical, pastoral, political and socio-economic circumstances shaped local engagement with the wider Atlantic world. It suggests that English support for the propagation of the gospel emerged from profound theological ambivalence as animosity towards non-believers co-existed with the conviction that some among them could convert and might be saved.

Our Town, Shakespeare Theatre Company, Washington, DC

<i>Our Town</i>, Shakespeare Theatre Company, Washington, DC

Elizabeth Seton: American Saint by Catherine O'Donnell

Reviewed by: Elizabeth Seton: American Saint by Catherine O'Donnell Sr. Judith Metz, SC Elizabeth Seton: American Saint. By Catherine O'Donnell. Ithica: Cornell University Press, 2018. Pp. xiv + 508. $23.50. In Elizabeth Seton: American Saint, Catherine O'Donnell has produced a comprehensive biography that stands as a worthy successor to Annabelle Melville's well-regarded 1951 Elizabeth Bayley Seton. O.'s coverage from Seton's childhood in a developing nation, to her happy marriage and delight in her role as mother, to her conversion to Catholicism, and ultimately her position as founding mother of the American Sisters of Charity provides many insights into the future saint's life. O.'s command of thousands of pages of letters and documents related to Seton's life is impressive, as is her bibliography. The manuscript is rich in context describing both the social, cultural, and religious milieu of the times, as well as providing an extensive exploration of the cast of characters so integral to Seton's life. O.'s illumination of Seton's early years in New York offers a rich description of her family life both before and after her marriage. The early loss of her mother and baby sister set the stage for Seton's unsettled early years. It was not until her marriage at the age of nineteen that she felt she had a real home of her own. The text describes well the depth of relationships that she enjoyed with her father, husband, and women friends as well as her involvement in benevolent work. One of the strong points of this portion of the biography is the in-depth exploration of Seton's intellectual and spiritual life. O. depicts Seton as a spiritual seeker who enjoyed English poetry and was enamored by the works of Rousseau. Later interest in the sermons of Protestant ministers led her to active participation in the Episcopal Church. A journal Seton wrote as an adult portrays her younger self as loving to read and think, a spiritual seeker who "walked among the Cedars singing hymns. Pleasure in everything, course, rough, smooth, or easy" (39)—enthralled by the Bible, poetry, hymns, and finding God in nature. O. asserts that Seton "was eager to shape the twists and turns of her life into a straight path toward the Catholic Church that others might follow" (24). This statement is troubling in that it is an example, among others, of the author's interpretation and assessment presented as "fact." This type of assertion requires documentation. Eventually family health and business problems led to a voyage to Italy where Seton's husband died and she was introduced to Catholicism. Following her return to New York, O. allows Seton's own words to describe her thoughts, feelings, and reactions to the unfolding events as she entered a long season of indecision before her conversion to Catholicism. Two years of economic and social floundering followed. Here, as elsewhere, O. draws insightful connections, noting that Seton was housed but homeless, just as she had been in her youth. O. here asserts that "Seton created a story of social martyrdom" (183), exaggerating the opposition she experienced due to her conversion. At the same [End Page 216] time O. highlights the climate of anti-popery in New York and documents both the active and passive resistance Seton experienced from family and friends. You can't have it both ways without more explanation or documentation. Seton's move to Baltimore and later Emmitsburg, Maryland, plunged her into both the joys and struggles of overseeing schools and founding a new religious community of women while continuing her role as mother to her children. O. provides a thorough treatment of Seton's circuitous route to the founding and establishment of the American Sisters of Charity. She delves into Seton's relationships with several priests involved with the Community, but also unveils the drama of complicated relationships among them as well as their competing spiritualities and visions for the new Community. Although this aspect of Seton's life is fully covered, the relationships between Seton and the women who joined her are not. This could have been an opportunity to explore the loyalty, trust and...

The Multilingual Minister: Languages and Code‐Switching in the Life‐Writing of Scottish Highland Scholar and Traveller, Rev. James Fraser (1634–1709)

AbstractThis article widens the focus of the debate around multilingualism in early modern Europe. Using the life‐writing of a scholar, traveller and Protestant minister from the Scottish Highlands, Rev. James Fraser (1634–1709), it provides a North Sea perspective on the theme. The article sheds light on how Fraser and his locale (the ‘firthlands’ of northern mainland Scotland) produced a dynamic scholarly contribution in local, regional, national and transnational terms, one that was defined by a culture of code‐switching and polyglossia. Employing, in particular, his history of the Fraser family to 1674 and his three‐volume memoir of his travels in Europe, it finds a common thread in Fraser's life in its multilingual nature. Focusing first on the spoken word, and, subsequently, on reading and writing, the article shows how Fraser's evidence from the seventeenth‐century Scottish Highlands provides a vital insight into how the English language rose in the region and across the Atlantic archipelago, and, conversely, how early modern northern Europeans, speakers of minority languages, in particular, experienced and sustained multilingual cultures.

Career Decisions and Strategies of Women in Protestant Ministry

Special difficulties arise for women even today if they wish to pursue their career as Protestant ministers. These difficulties are partly the disadvantages experienced also by women in other professions – like horizontal segregation and glass ceiling, expectations based on traditional gender roles, stereotypes and prejudices, or even discrimination –, but partly they derive from peculiarities not characteristic of secular professions, which mostly have to do with expectations related to roles based on the conservative values and norms characteristic of religious environments as well as with the fact that conditions and expectations have been tailored to men traditionally in this profession. In spite of these difficulties more and more women are choosing the ministerial profession all over the world, including Hungary. Our study investigates how the ministerial profession is constructed for women. We have focused on the formative personal decisions made in the course of women’s career as ministers as well as on those respective influences exercised by their personal environment and the religious institutions that had impact on their decisions. We have provided an overview of the career decisions made by female ministers along with criteria and difficulties related to the decisions. We drew the conclusion that the decisions outline three typical career strategies for female ministers. It is characteristic of all three career strategies that the decisions related to private life and the decisions related to the profession are very intertwined and interdependent. We argue that secular professions tend to be quite different from the ministerial profession in this respect. This study is based on our research („Nők a lelkészi pályán” NKFIH K-128313) in which we have analyzed 26 in-depth interviews with female ministers.

Paving the Way for Dutch Colonial Missions: Jacobus Elisa Johannes Capitein (c. 1717–1747) and His Defense of Slavery in Context

Abstract The ex-slave-turned-missionary Jacobus Capitein (c. 1717–1747) was one of the first Africans to study at a European university and the first to be ordained as a Protestant minister. Capitein is particularly known for his 1742 Leiden University dissertation, which defended slavery as compatible with Christian liberty. This has given rise to the question of whether Capitein should be considered an “Uncle Tom” who merely wrote what his benefactors wanted to hear. This study contends that when his dissertation is considered in its historical- intellectual context, a more nuanced picture of Capitein emerges. By considering Capitein’s actual arguments, the missional agenda behind his dissertation, and the overwhelming corroboration afforded to his views by early modern Dutch theological and juridical sources, it argues that Capitein was an intellectual in his own right, who through his dissertation sought to pave the way for his return to Africa as a missionary.

The Middle Line of Truth: Religious and Secular Ideologies in the Making of Brazilian Evangelical Thought, 1870–1930

This article examines the ways in which Protestant ministers, laypeople and foreign missionaries mediated between religious and secular ideologies in Brazil and took part in international theological debates. It concentrates on a group of church pastors and lay writers based in São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro who produced and circulated Christian literature widely across evangelical networks. In the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, Protestants engaged with both the local reverberations of the Catholic revival, with its impact on the hierarchy and devotional practices of the Brazilian Church, and the secularist leanings of the Brazilian intelligentsia. Focusing on a variety of high- and low-level publications, including periodicals, tracts, theological compendia, religious controversies and sermons, the article examines how Brazilian evangelicals appropriated Protestant theology and channeled its concepts and ideas into local arguments.

“For the Good of Their Souls”: Performing Christianity in Eighteenth-Century Mohawk Country

William Hart’s stated objective in his fine new monograph is to “problematize” the ways in which individual “faithful Mohawks” (20) engaged and performed Protestantism over the course of a long eighteenth century. Informed by deep research in a sizeable primary archive of missionary correspondence, and grounded in broad study of both ethnohistorical scholarship on Christian missionization and performance theory, Hart’s book succeeds admirably in providing an evenhanded assessment of the phenomenon of Anglican missionary work among the Mohawks from the late seventeenth century to the early nineteenth century. Additionally, his insights into this particular case study address broader questions for all those interested in the dynamics of cross-cultural contact.Hart moves beyond long-standing tropes in studies of missionary work among Indigenous people, expressing healthy skepticism of the efforts of prior scholars to measure the degree to which Mohawk conversions to Christianity were bona fide. Instead, Hart maintains that we can glean better insights into Mohawk engagement with Church of England missionaries by assessing the Mohawks’ actions—how they assimilated the religious messaging offered to them, integrated it into their own cultural framework, and subsequently performed it among themselves and before settler audiences. Fundamentally, Hart contends that Mohawks engaged Protestant Christianity initially as a means of “turn[ing] outsiders [i.e., the Anglican missionaries] into insiders” (4), and eventually, by the mid-eighteenth century, as a vehicle for acquiring literacy in a world where “talking papers” (i.e., treaty documents, land deeds, contracts) (228) exerted powerful influence over the Mohawks’ collective future.Hart is forthcoming about the limits of his evidence—he does not presume to represent what Mohawks believed about the Anglican faith (138, 227–28). Rather, he is more interested in how the Mohawks residing in the Mohawk Valley during the eighteenth century leveraged their acceptance of Protestant missionaries as part of a broader effort to cultivate ties of alliance to Great Britain. Carrying the narrative through the upheavals of the Revolutionary War, Hart also offers a detailed and nuanced assessment of the role of Anglican religious performance in the establishment of post-Revolutionary Mohawk/Haudenosaunee diasporic communities in Upper Canada (Tyendinaga and Grand River).Notwithstanding Hart’s commendable unwillingness to allow the current international boundary between Canada and the United States to structure his inquiry into the Mohawks’ social and political history in the first, second, and sixth chapters of the book, there are some ways in which a still more comprehensive adoption of that perspective might have offered better contextualization of his chosen case study. By 1700, two-thirds of the Mohawk population resided in the St. Lawrence River Valley community of Kahnawake (24). By the eve of the American Revolution, that proportion grew to approximately three-quarters of the Mohawk population, with additional Mohawk communities at Kanesatake and Akwesasne, each of which hosted a Catholic mission. A more consistent effort by the author to engage in comparative assessment of how the so-called Catholicized (36) Mohawks of the St. Lawrence Valley engaged the Jesuits over the course of the eighteenth century might have shed important light on the contemporaneous approaches to Protestant missionaries of their kinfolk remaining in the Mohawk Valley.Hart’s study is a welcome addition to early North American ethnohistorical scholarship. The book offers fresh insight not only into Mohawk culture during a crucial era of their history but also into the challenging question of assaying what the Mohawks meant and wanted by their persistent (albeit infrequently answered) requests for Protestant ministers.

Review: Speaking with the Dead in Early America, by Erik R. Seeman

Review: <i>Speaking with the Dead in Early America</i>, by Erik R. Seeman

“We Are Not Aliens in the Universe”

Abstract Marilynne Robinson, in her novels and essays, sets out to retrieve a foundational strain of religious experience, one that has been minimized or even repressed in most branches of the Protestant tradition. This is what, following Paul Ricœur, American theologian David Tracy calls “the manifestation orientation” in religious expression. Building on Tracy’s distinction between “manifestation and proclamation” within Christianity, I identify and analyze a shift of emphasis from the “proclamation orientation” of Robinson’s first novel, Housekeeping, with its presentation of human existence as radically homeless and alienated, to “manifestation” in Robinson’s later work. In the Gilead novels, while preserving the proclamation orientation of Protestantism through an indictment of social injustice, she corrects the one-sided Protestant emphasis on divine transcendence and human sin, affirming a fundamental “at-home-ness” (Tracy) in the universe. Through her fictional Protestant minister and a creative rereading of classical Protestant theologians, Robinson offers an imaginative alternative to Weberian accounts of Protestant spirituality.

Queer Rumors: Protestant Ministers, Unnatural Deeds, and Church Censure in the Twentieth-Century United States

ABSTRACTOver the course of the twentieth century, dozens of conservative Protestant ministers were accused of sexual deviance—including instances of same-sex acts and attractions. Protestant churches, in turn, experimented with employing various tactics to undermine and challenge such accusations. From silencing and secrecy to public censure and disassociation, denominational bodies labored to undermine evidence of queerness among their ministers. This essay surveys a one-hundred-year history of religious groups’ and institutions’ attempts at dealing with the uncomfortable but persistent allegations of not-quite-straightness among their leaders. This story accounts for how conservative Protestantism has been able to maintain its claims to a particular kind of sexual morality even as religious leaders themselves have repeatedly jeopardized this project.

Aristocratic Education and the Making of the American Republic by Mark Boonshoft

Reviewed by: Aristocratic Education and the Making of the American Republic by Mark Boonshoft James P. Cousins Aristocratic Education and the Making of the American Republic. By Mark Boonshoft. (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2020. Pp. xvi, 279. Paper, $29.95, ISBN 978-1-4696-6136-0; cloth, $95.00, ISBN 978-1-4696-5953-4.) The United States was, at its inception, a union of ideas. Historians of education have worked to understand how these ideas were digested and then repackaged for the benefit of future generations. Most agree it was a reciprocal process, where lofty ideals, transmitted through high-flown rhetoric, shaped society and were reshaped from the bottom up. But in many histories, the bottom is never that far from the top; universities, intended for the sons of elite white men, take an outsized role at the expense of other, lesser understood but [End Page 331] equally significant, institutions. Mark Boonshoft's study of early American academies pushes beyond these boundaries and, in doing so, moves the entire field in a more inclusive and balanced direction. Academies, something more than a grammar school but less than a university, were often attached to colleges and used to qualify prospective matriculates. These institutions' historical significance lies in their popular appeal and accessibility. Academy curricula were adapted to meet public demand, and, though such schooling was reserved for white families, the cost of attendance was generally low enough to accommodate the lower classes. Boonshoft details the origins and rise of early American academies from the late colonial era, a period when the expectations for American education were set by European, particularly British, standards, through the 1830s, when academies took on a more recognizably public form. Along the way, readers are treated to an exploration of America's emerging cultural landscape as it shifted and bent according to geopolitical forces and societal impulses. Boonshoft traces the roots of the American academy to the Great Awakening and places reform-minded Protestant ministers at the vanguard of an early academy building boom. Scottish-born Presbyterian minister William Tennent arrived in the remote wilderness of Bucks County, Pennsylvania, and in 1727 founded his "Log College" (p. 19). A host of schools emulating Tennent's academic principles sprung up across the mid-Atlantic shortly thereafter; reformer Jonathan Edwards inspired a similar chain of academies across New England. The popularity of academies in this early period was undeniable, and, though they were originally intended as centers of ministerial training, they quickly found a wider audience. Benjamin Franklin's nonsectarian vision for education favored modern languages over dead ones, scientific literacy over theological training, and a practical curriculum that prepared students to enter a range of vocations. When his Academy of Philadelphia started to steal away matriculates from denominational schools, Protestant academy heads adapted with practical-minded programs of their own. In the decades after the American Revolution, academies were again remade, this time into religiously plural institutions dedicated to the long-term stability of the fledgling country. The preservation of the republic was paramount, but whose vision of the republic would win the day? Federalist leaders, many of whom were trained in academies, grew uneasy at the site of so many unwashed, and unlettered, claimants to political power. Federalists considered merit to be a prequalifer of political authority, and there was nothing more meritorious than academic training in an academy—or so Federalists would argue. The War of 1812 and the Panic of 1819 upended Federalist control of academies and reframed the discussion once again, this time favoring a more populist vision for academies. In this climate of American self-sufficiency, anything that smacked of elitism, or British pretention, became anathema. This populist wave propelled a new publicly accessible vision of higher education; popular support, and tax dollars, followed suit. Boonshoft's work is exceptional in most every regard, but his use of sources is especially noteworthy. Academy records from this era are, for the most part, nonexistent, so Boonshoft is forced to reconstruct the main lines of argument from fragmentary and peripheral accounts. He adeptly weaves these sources [End Page 332] into a composite whole while negotiating the complex interplay of political events...

God, King, Fatherland – and Elections. The Introduction of the Municipal Self-Government in Prussia in 1808 Seen Through the Perspective of the Protestant Sermon

Introduction. The current study focuses on a number of sermons preached by the Prussian Protestant ministers on the occasion of the first municipal elections in Prussia in 1809–1810. The paper seeks to show that the Prussian Protestant clergy supported the introduction of the municipal self-government and inspired the population to take part in elections. Methods. The paper presents a case study dealing with the problem of the interaction between religious and political spheres in the early nineteenth century. This gives rise to the interdisciplinary approach adoptedin the current study. Analysis. Prussian Protestant preachers combined religious symbols with liberal vocabulary advancing the thesis that a good Christian is an honest citizen. The sermons abounded in such terms as “public spirit”, “civic responsibility” or “love of the Fatherland”. God was directly involved in the earthly politics since the municipal self-government was regarded as a divine gift from heaven. The Holy Spirit was thought to be present at municipal elections watching over the minds and the hearts of citizens. Prussian Monarch Frederick William III was stylized in the sermons as a typical “citizen King” who respected the rights of his subjects. The Prussian Kingdom was imagined as a big family with the King as the Father of the nation, the Prussians being his grown-up children. The introduction of the municipal self-government was thus described as “coming of age” of the Prussian people. Conclusion. The case study of the Protestant clergy supporting the liberal reforms conducted by the Prussian government proves that modernization did not always mean secularization.