Milwaukee Lecture on Children in Colonial America

Regular readers of the blog may remember that I was in Milwaukee last month working for Gilder-Lehrman with teachers from the Milwaukee Public School district on the subject of "Women and Children in Colonial America." Part of my job was to give a lecture to 400 middle school and high school history students on the subject of "Children in Colonial America." This was a tough lecture to deliver--my audience consisted of students ranging from 10 to 18 years of age. There were 5th graders AND high school seniors in the auditorium!

Well, the folks at Milwaukee Public Schools have written a blog post about my visit and posted a short audio clip of the lecture that includes the introduction and part of my discussion of Puritan childrearing. Here it is:

Sunday Night Odds and Ends

A few things on-line that caught my attention this week:

Boston 1775 tries to pin down the religious beliefs of John Adams.

Nominate us for a Cliopatria Award.

Remembering the Boston Tea Party at the Old South Church.

Ten best jobs for college students.

Springsteen: E-Street Band is not done.

Village Voice interviews Ronald Sider about the Manhattan Declaration.

Michael Lind: Can populism be liberal? And Historiann responds.

Is the Manhattan Declaration a waste of everyone's time? John Stackhouse thinks so.

John Turner on Robert J. Norrell's Up From History: The Life of Booker T. Washington. And James LaGrand reviews it too.

Jill Lepore reviews Gordon Wood, Empire of Liberty. Jay Winik reviews it here.

Robert Darnton on Google Books.

Edge of the American West: The banality of book reviews.

Why Don't We Talk About the "Original Intent" of the Declaration of Independence?

One of the primary battle grounds of the so-called "culture wars" in America is how to interpret the United States Constitution. A lot of debate over the Constitution's meaning revolves around the "original intent" of the framers. Conservatives like Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas interpret the Constitution based on what they believe the founders actually meant when they wrote the document. Others adopt the view that the Constitution is a "living" document. It must be adapted or even reinterpreted in order to speak to current issues in American life.

While Constitutional scholars will probably quibble with the simple way I have defined these different interpretive views, my point here is not to debate the meaning of the Constitution. Instead, I am wondering why we do not talk more about the "original intent" of the Declaration of Independence. This makes for an intriguing historical question.

Last month I blogged about David Armitage's book on the Declaration. In The Declaration of Independence: A Global History, Armitage makes a compelling argument that Jefferson, his committee of writers, and the Second Continental Congress did not intend to write a document meant to proclaim human rights (the famous second paragraph). Instead, they set out to produce a document that announced American statehood to the world. It was only later, in the 19th century, that Americans turned the Declaration into a document about human rights. This was done by people like Lincoln, the abolitionists, and the women's suffrage movement--individuals and groups who found the rights-language in the Declaration useful in their political crusades.

Armitage is not alone in making this argument about the original intent of the Declaration.

Pauline Maier, in American Scripture: The Making of the Declaration of Independence, writes: "In none of these documents is there any evidence whatsoever that the Declaration of Independence lived in men’s minds as a classic statement of American political principles." (p.167).

Derek Davis, in Religion and the Continental Congress, 1774-1789: Contributions to Original Intent writes: "The Declaration of Independence was primarily a foreign policy document aimed at England, France, and Europe..." (p.109).

Barry Shain in The Myth of American Individualism The Protestant Origins of American Political Thought writes: 'As Jefferson claimed in the opening paragraph, Congress’s intention in issuing the Declaration was primarily to show Americans’ 'respect to the opinions of mankind [in that chauvinistic world, Europeans]' by declaring and explaining to it 'the causes which impel them to the separation.' As such, its principal importance at the time was as a “foreign-policy statement.”

Armitage concludes:

Partisan strife at home, and debate about the nature of independence abroad, made it necessary for Americans to rehabilitate their Declaration after 1815. A document that had addressed itself to the “Opinions of Mankind” and to “a candid World” had to be recovered from its cosmopolitan contexts and made into something specifically American. This effort of domestication would have two equal and opposite effects: first, it would hide from Americans the original meaning of the Declaration as an international, and even a global, document; second, it would ensure that within the United States only proponents of slavery, supporters of Southern secession, and anti-individualist critics of rights talk would be able to recall that original meaning.

I have been thinking a lot about the Declaration of Independence because I am writing a chapter on it for my book manuscript on the place of religion in the American founding. I think some of the strongest proponents of an "original intent" view of the Constitution would probably be uncomfortable applying the same "original intent" interpretation to the Declaration. If Armitage, Maier, Davis, and Shain are correct, then the Declaration was not meant primarily to promote American rights. Thus, while the Declaration does affirm that rights come from God, the original intent of its authors was not to use this God-language to create a Christian nation. The God-language was pretty standard stuff for the eighteenth century.

Actually, it was the Declaration's revisionists--Lincoln and others--who turned the Declaration into something meant primarily to promote American values like "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness." Consequently, anyone who wants to use the Declaration's four references to God to argue that the founders wanted to create a Christian nation are engaging in revisionism as well. In other words, Lincoln, the abolitionists, the women suffragists, and the Christian America crowd have not only abandoned "original intent," but they have also turned the Declaration into a "living document."

David Brooks's "Other" Education: The Music of Springsteen

Like me, David Brooks is clearly on a Springsteen high after seeing him in Baltimore last weekend. What a show!

In his New York Times column today he described the way Springsteen has given him a "second education."

In any case, over the next few decades Springsteen would become one of the professors in my second education. In album after album he assigned a new course in my emotional curriculum.

This second education doesn’t work the way the scholastic education works. In a normal schoolroom, information walks through the front door and announces itself by light of day. It’s direct. The teacher describes the material to be covered, and then everybody works through it.

The knowledge transmitted in an emotional education, on the other hand, comes indirectly, seeping through the cracks of the windowpanes, from under the floorboards and through the vents. It’s generally a byproduct of the search for pleasure, and the learning is indirect and unconscious.

A lot of us have received a so-called "second" or "emotional" education from Springsteen,. But Brooks never makes it clear exactly what he learned from The Boss. Sure, he has vague references in his column to the way Springsteen helps him to "organize the buzzing confusions of reality" or aids him in "shaping the unconscious categories through which I perceive events,"but there is no content. It would seem that a reference to a Springsteen song is in order. Or at least just one concrete example of the way Springsteen has helped shape his neo-conservative outlook on life. Perhaps I am missing the point of the column, but Brooks's description of what he learned from Springteen's music would never fly on one of my history exams. I would assume that he had learned nothing and was simply trying to con me with fluffy prose. This time Brooks left me wanting more.

OK, I am no doubt being too hard on Brooks. After all, how much can he put into one column? Perhaps a book on Springsteen is in order! I would buy it.

Black Friday Reading: "Being Consumed"

In "honor" of Black Friday I have been reading Wiliam T. Cavanaugh's Being Consumed: Economics and Christian Desire (Eerdmans, 2008). Cavanaugh is a professor of theology at the University of St. Thomas in St. Paul, Minnesota.

In this short book, Cavanaugh puts our free market, capitalist, consumer-driven economy under the microscope of the Christian tradition. His chapters on the free market and consumerism are of particular relevance for anyone tempted to join in today's Black Friday shopping-fest.

In his chapter entitled "Freedom and Unfreedom," Cavanaugh sets his theological sites on Milton Friedman and free-market defenders everywhere. For Friedman, a market is "free" when it "gives people what they want instead of what a particular group thinks they ought to want." According to Cavanaugh, two "corollaries" follow from Friedman's view of free markets. First, this understanding of free markets defines freedom negatively, "that is, as freedom from the interference of others, especially the state." Second, this understanding of free markets "has no telos, that is, no common end to which desire is directed."

Using the teachings of St. Augustine of Hippo, Cavanaugh responds to both of these corollaries. For Augustine, freedom is not "simply a negative freedom from, but a freedom for, a capacity to achieve certain worthwhile goals." And all of these "goals are taken up into the one overriding telos of human life, the return to God." For Augustine, autonomy is impossible because to be "free" without God is "to be nothing at all." Ultimately, modern consumerism and free markets do not serve any meaningful ends. As Cavanaugh puts it:

In order to judge whether or not an exchange is free, one must know whether or not the will is moved toward a good end. This requires some kind of substantive--not merely formal--account of the true end, or telos, of the human person. Where there are no objectively desirable ends, and the individual is told to choose his or her own ends, then choice itself becomes the only thing that is inherently good. When there is a recession, we are told to buy things to get the economy moving; what we buy makes no difference. All desires, good and bad, melt into the one overriding imperative to consume, and we all stand under the one sacred canopy of consumption for its own sake.

Even property, Cavanaugh argues, is a gift from God that must be used to serve the common good. (I will let you chew on that one a bit).

In his chapter "Detachment and Attachment," Cavanaugh offers a Christian-based reading of consumerism. "What really characterizes consumer culture," he writes, "is not attachment to things but detachment. People do not hoard money; they spend it. People do not cling to things; they discard them and buy other things. Or:

...the detachment of consumerism is not just the willingness to sell anything. The detachment of consumerism is also a detachment from the things we buy. Our relationships with products tend to be short-lived: rather than hoarding treasured objects, consumers are characterized by a constant dissatisfaction with material goods. This dissatisfaction is what produces the restless pursuit of satisfaction in the form of something new. Consumerism is not so much about having more as it is about having something else; that's why it is not simply buying but shopping that is the heart of consumerism. Buying brings a temporary halt to the restlessness that typifies consumerism This restlessness--the moving on to shopping for something else, no matter what one has just purchased--sets the spiritual tone for consumerism.

Cavanaugh argues that consumerism is a type of spirituality--a way of connecting with other people and finding meaning in life. He calls it "one of the most powerful systems of formation in the contemporary world, arguable more powerful than Christianity."

Things and brands must be invested with mythologies, with spiritual aspirations; things come to represent freedom, status, and love. Above all, they represent the aspiration to escape time and death by constantly seeking renewal in created things. Each new movements of desire promises the opportunity to start over.

But what about the Christian belief in the goodness of material things? Are we not to enjoy the fruits of creation and the products made by talented and gifted human beings? Yes, Cavanaugh argues, but

Created things, though good, are never ends in themselves; rather, they point outside themselves toward their Creator. As St. Augustine says, all created things contain within themselves traces of the Creator. Precisely because of this, they are not ends but means toward the enjoyment of God. According to Augustine, created things are to be used, but only God is to be enjoyed.

Cavanaugh also suggests some things ordinary people can do to resist the powerful current of consumerism. Churches, he argues, should be involved in promoting economic practices "that are consonant with the true ends of creation. This requires promoting economic practices that maintain close connections among capital, labor, and communities, so that real communal discernment of the good can take place." He encourages us to buy locally, put our money into smaller banks that make loans to community projects, and participate in the fair trade movement.

He also suggests turning our homes into "sites of production, not just consumption":

Few of us have the means to make most of what we consume, but simple acts such as making our own bread or our own music can become significant ways to reshape the way we approach the material world...It also increases our sense that we are not merely spectators of life--for example, hours spent passively watching and listening to entertainment that others make--but active and creative participants in the material world. We can appreciate, as Pope John Paul II said, our true vocation as sharers in the creative activity of God.

There is a lot more we can say about this excellent and provocative little book. For example, Christian readers will want to read Cavanaugh's suggestion that the Eucharist offers a model of community that challenges our consumer mentality. And I do not have the time or space to write about his chapters on globalization and scarcity.

For those of you looking for a theological critique of the kind of economic system that informs "Black Friday" go out and get a copy of Cavanaugh's book. (But wait until tomorrow!)

Special Thanksgiving Odds and Ends

Happy Thanksgiving! Enjoy some of these Thanksgiving-related pieces from the web.

Do the Pilgrims need a new look? Randall Stephens thinks so.

Barack Obama's Thanksgiving Day Proclamation. And E.J. Dionne on how it is already being attacked.

The Wall Street Journal chronicles the arrival of Pilgrims at Plymouth.

A thanksgiving reflection from an Indian militants.

Did capitalism save the Pilgrims? Steven Malanga thinks so.

How to digest a historic feast. (Washington Post).

Thomas Jefferson, religious liberty, and why he did not issue Thanksgiving proclamations.

Will you unplug for Thanksgiving?

The Emancipation Proclamation, Thanksgiving, and sweet potatoes.

Larry Tise on our Turkish-American Thanksgiving bird

History News Network's "Hot Topics" on Thanksgiving

Gail Collins on the "traditional" presidential pardoning of the turkey.

Ayn Rand: We should thank ourselves and the creators of the iPhone on Thanksgiving.

How did the Pilgrims steal Thanksgiving from the Jamestown settlers?

Bill Kauffman: FDR was the "Grinch Who Moved Thanksgiving." And guess why? Melanie Kirkpatrick also chimes in at the Wall Street Journal (Sorry, no link--WSJ won't let me open the page).

A Chinese immigrant Thanksgiving.

The Forgotten Virtue of Gratitude

Here is a Thanksgiving reflection I wrote last year. It was original published at Inside Higher Ed.


The Forgotten Virtue of Gratitude

By John Fea
November 26, 2008

It was a typical 1970s weekday evening. The sky was growing dark and I, an elementary school student, was sitting at the kitchen table of a modest North Jersey cape cod putting the finishing touches on the day’s homework. The back door opened -- a telltale sign that my father was home from work. As he did every day, Dad stopped in the laundry room to take off his muddied work boots. As usual, he was tired. He could have been covered with any number of substances, from dirt to paint to dried spackle. His hands were rough and gnarled. I kissed him hello, he went to the bathroom to “wash up,” and my family sat down to eat dinner.

I always knew how hard my father worked each day in his job as a general contractor. When I got older I spent summers working with him. I learned the virtues of this kind of working class life, but I also experienced the drudgery that came with laying concrete footings or loading a dumpster with refuse. I worked enough with my father to know that I did not want to do this for the rest of my life. Though he never told me so, I am sure that Dad probably didn't want that for me, either.

I eventually became only the second person in my extended family to receive a college degree. I went on to earn a Ph.D. (a “post-hole digger” to my relatives) in history and settled into an academic life. As I enter my post-tenure years, I am grateful for what I learned from my upbringing and for the academic vocation I now pursue. My gratitude inevitably stems from my life story. The lives that my parents and brothers (one is a general contract and the other is a plumber) lead are daily reminders of my roots.

It is not easy being a college professor from a working-class family. Over the years I have had to explain the geographic mobility that comes with an academic life. I have had to invent creative ways to make my research understandable to aunts and uncles. My parents read my scholarly articles, but rarely finish them. My father is amazed that some semesters I go into the office only three days a week. As I write this I am coming off of my first sabbatical from teaching. My family never quite fathomed what I possibly did with so much time off. (My father made sense of it all by offering to help me remodel my home office, for which I am thankful!) “You have the life,” my brother tells me. How can I disagree with him?

Gratitude is a virtue that is hard to find in the modern academy, even at Thanksgiving time. In my field of American history, Thanksgiving provides an opportunity to set the record straight, usually in op-ed pieces, about what really happened in autumn 1621. (I know because I have done it myself!). Granted, as public intellectuals we do have a responsibility to debunk the popular myths that often pass for history, but I wonder why we can’t also use the holiday, as contrived and invented and nostalgic and misunderstood as it is, to stop and be grateful for the academic lives we get to lead.

Thanksgiving is as good a time as any to do this. We get a Thursday off from work to take a few moments to reflect on our lives. And since so many academics despise the shopping orgy known as “Black Friday,” the day following Thanksgiving presents a wonderful opportunity to not only reject consumer self-gratification, but practice a virtue that requires us to forget ourselves.

I am not sure why we are such an unthankful bunch. When we stop and think about it we enjoy a very good life. I can reference the usual perks of the job -- summer vacation, the freedom to make one’s own schedule, a relatively small amount of teaching (even those with the dreaded 4-4 load are in the classroom less than the normal high school teacher). Though we complain about students, we often fail to remember that our teaching, when we do it well, makes a contribution to society that usually extends far beyond the dozens of people who have read our recent monograph. And speaking of scholarship, academics get paid to spend a good portion of their time devoted to the world of ideas. No gnarled hands here.

Inside Higher Ed recently reported that seventy-eight percent of all American professors express “overall job satisfaction.” Yet we remain cranky. As Immanuel Kant put it, “ingratitude is the essence of vileness.” I cannot tell you how many times I have wandered into a colleague’s office to whine about all the work my college expects of me.

Most college and university professors live in a constant state of discontentment, looking for the fast track to a better job and making excuses as to why they have not landed one yet. Academia can be a cutthroat and shallow place to spend one’s life. We are too often judged by what is written on our conference name badges. We say things about people behind their backs that we would never say to their faces. We become masters of self-promotion. To exhibit gratefulness in this kind of a world is countercultural.

The practice of gratitude may not change our professional guilds, but it will certainly relieve us of our narcissism long enough to realize that all of us are dependent people. Our scholarship rests upon the work of those scholars that we hope to expand upon or dismantle. Our careers are made by the generosity of article and book referees, grant reviewers, search committees, and tenure committees. We can all name teachers and mentors who took the time to encourage us, offer advice, and write us letters. Gratitude may even do wonders for our mental health. Studies have shown that grateful people are usually less stressed, anxious, and depressed.

This Thanksgiving take some time to express gratitude. In a recent study the Harvard University sociologist Neil Gross concluded that more college and university professors believe in God than most academics ever realized. If this is true, then for some of us gratitude might come in the form of a prayer. For others it may be a handwritten note of appreciation to a senior scholar whom we normally contact only when we need a letter of recommendation. Or, as the semester closes, it might be a kind word to a student whose academic performance and earnest pursuit of the subject at hand has enriched our classroom or our intellectual life. Or perhaps a word of thanks to the secretary or assistant who makes our academic life a whole lot easier.

As the German theologian and Christian martyr Dietrich Bonhoeffer explained, “gratitude changes the pangs of memory into a tranquil joy.”

John Fea teaches American history at Messiah College, in Grantham, Pa. He is the author of The Way of Improvement Leads Home: Philip Vickers Fithian and the Rural Enlightenment in America (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2008).

William Moraley: "Coming to America"

Who is William Moraley and why is he coming to America?

As the editors of Moraley's memoir, Susan Klepp and Billy Smith write: "William Moraley ventured from England to the colonies in 1729 as an indentured servant, worked in various capacities, rambled about the countryside on foot, and mingled with white and black bondspeople, labor artisans, Indians, and other common folk." Moraley's memoir is a morality tale about failure in eighteenth-century British America. After spending five years in America, he returned to England and wrote The Infortunate: or the Voyage and Adventures of William Moraley. Klepp and Smith have published the memoir with a nice editor's introduction. The book is now in its second edition with Penn State University Press.

I have been teaching Moraley in my Colonial America course for about eight years now. Since many of my students read The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin in my U.S. Survey course, they are familiar with the memoir genre. (One of the advantages of teaching at a small liberal arts college is that most history majors who take my colonial course also had me as a professor in their introductory survey course so I can assume most of them have read Franklin). Both Franklin and Moraley arrived in the Delaware Valley in the 1720s, but only one of them "made it." Moraley did not experiences the so-called "American dream" and thus we know virtually nothing about him. After all, we ambitious and self-improving Americans would not look highly on a guy who openly admits that "I neglected to improve my Talents, always preferring the present Time to the future; so that all these Advantages were bestow'd on me to no Purpose." Franklin he was not.

I love comparing Franklin and Moraley in class because it leads to a great discussion about who was more representative of early eighteenth-century immigrants to the Delaware Valley. My students and I wonder together about why Americans do not deal very well with failure. This time around several of my students admitted that they were frustrated with Moraley because he was not living up to their standards of self-improvement. I asked them why this was the case. Was there something in the American psyche that cannot accept failure? And how do they reconcile their disgust for Moraley with their theological belief (most of my students are Christians) that we are all sinners who doomed to failure? We all prefer Ben Franklin or Philip Vickers Fithian to Moraley.

While Franklin's Autobiography became a book that defined the American character, Moraley was a bungler--a guy who did not take advantage of what the colonies offered him and ended up wandering in the woods of New Jersey getting "treed" by a panther.

Moraley is the stuff of which good folk music is made. He is on a "Down Bound Train" where he experiences "Hard Times" in this "American Land." (OK--these are all Springsteen songs or covers, but I am sure that there are Seeger and Guthrie songs that would fit the bill. I just don't have the time right now to look them up). In some ways, he is an eighteenth-century Tom Joad.

This connection with the American folk music tradition prompted me in class the other day to challenge the students to write a folk song about Moraley. Only one student took me up on the offer. Sarah Plumadore, a music major and history minor, creatively changed the lyrics of Neil Diamond's classic "Coming to America" to better reflect the experience of Moraley. Here is her Moraley-inspired version of "Coming to America" (or perhaps "Lost in Philadelphia" might be more appropriate):

Far
He's been travelin' far
Across the sea
But not beyond the empire

Free
Moraley wants to be free
Not indentured
But improved as can be

He took a boat he walked the trail
He's lost in Philadephia
He left town to fix a watch
Now he hides from panther's claws

Free, time served, now he's on his way
And Moraley is now to be wed
But it's taken away
It's taken away

Home, to return to a familiar place
He cleans clocks, he gets the fare
Creditors give him chase
To Burlington does he race

Next, he goes to Maryland
But on the way a snake finds him
Then it's back to Burlington
Then a ship bound for England

On the boat he is the cook
They dock in Ireland
Moraley journeys to Newburn
He reunited with his family

But there's lack of opportunity
His mother dies tragically
From debts he's still not free
The moral of this tale, you see
We can't all like Franklin be

Great work, Sarah! I encourage my readers to go listen to Diamond's version and replace the lyrics with Sarah's new words.

Springsteen Wraps Things Up in Buffalo

Will it be the last concert with the entire E-Street Band? Probably.

I was not in Buffalo last night, but it sounds like Springsteen devoted his final show on the "Working on a Dream" tour to the hardcore fans. He played Greetings from Asbury Park, N.J. for the first time on the tour. This album includes songs such as "Mary Queen of Arkansas" and "Angel" that no doubt delighted the long time Springsteen fans, but left the casual fans scratching their heads. He also played "I'll Work for Your Love" and "Restless Nights" for the first time on the tour.

Frankly, if I had a choice I would have chosen the Baltimore set list over the finale in Buffalo. Some of the songs on Greetings just don't work in a show with the E-Street Band. I know the hard-core Springsteen fans will be angry at me for this comment (and let me go on record that I think Greetings is a great album), but the set list in Baltimore probably made for a more high-energy concert. Having said that, if it was possible for me to get to Buffalo last night I would have been there in a heartbeat.

Some of the students in my classes today were eager to hear about the Baltimore concert. Most of them asked me about it privately, but one student in my big U.S. survey course (110 students) raised her hand and asked "How was the Bruce Springsteen concert?" Needless to say, I was thrilled by the question and spent a few minutes talking about the show, even singing the first line of "Hungry Heart." When I asked if any of them had ever attended a Springsteen show, no one raised their hand. The week before one student informed me that her mother had been to eleven Bruce concerts. Man am I getting old!

Come back soon, Bruce!

See Stan Goldstein's rundown at the Star Ledger's Springsteen blog.

Sunday Night Odds and Ends

A few things on-line that caught my eye this week:

Adam Kotsko defends the lecture.

Sean Wilentz reviews Robert W. Merry, A Country of Vast Designs: James K. Polk, the Mexican War, and the Conquest of the American Continent.

Jon Rowe offers and interesting commentary on an interesting debate on whether or not America is a Christian nation.

U.S. presidents and the Mormons.

Johan Neem wants to revive the academic library. I think he is right.

Tenured Radical: Should you blog before you get tenure?

Randall Stephens interviews Elaine Maisner, senior editor at the University of North Carolina Press.

A short history of the Internet.

Support the Roy Rosenzweig Fellowship Endowment

Gina Barreca: Five things professors don't know. Part One. Part Two.

Oxford word of the year: "unfriend."

Charles Wilson Peale's "Staircase Group."

New York Times on the Manhattan Declaration.

Lucas Morel reviews three new books on Lincoln in Books and Culture.

Paul Nagel of the Boston Globe reviews Woody Holton, Abigail Adams

Four centuries of immigrant writing.

John Gross reviews Ben Yagoda, Memoir: A History

Springsteen Rocks Baltimore

Friday was a night to remember in Baltimore. In possibly his next to last concert with the entire legendary E-Street Band, Bruce Springsteen played a three and a half hour concert--his first in Baltimore in thirty-six years.

The house was packed when Springsteen came out around 8:20 or so. He opened with "Wrecking Ball," the song he wrote for his Giants Stadium concerts last month. After playing "Prove it All Night," the band kicked into a rousing rendition of "Hungry Heart" with Springsteen, as is his custom, allowing the crowd to sing the first few verses and yelling his patented "COME ON" between each verse. When the lights revealed thousands of people screaming "Got a Wife and Kids in Baltimore Jack," we knew it was going to be an incredible night of music. Springsteen crowd surfed during part of "Hungry Heart" and even took a swig of some guy's beer. Have I mentioned that Springsteen is 60 years old?

As expected, Springsteen played the entire Born to Run album. He played the title track with the lights on, gave a moving rendition of "Meeting Across the River" (with most fans showing their respect for the song by remaining quiet), and ended with an epic rendition of "Jungleland." When they finished playing the album the band came to the front of the stage and took a bow. Springsteen announced that this was the last time the entire band would play through the album. (Did he mean the last time on the tour, or the last time FOREVER?).

As he has been doing recently, Springsteen transitioned out of Born to Run with "Waiting on a Sunny Day." He brought up a young girl to sing some of the lyrics. She was great. Then Springsteen began to collect signs. The requests included "Santa Claus is Coming to Town" (someone in the crowd gave him a Santa hat that said "The Boss," but it didn't fit his head), the E-Street Shuffle" (the guy next to me called a friend and held his cell phone up during the entire song), "I Came for You" (with Springsteen playing alone on the piano), and "Radio Nowhere" (a young fan's sign said that she did not want to listen to "Radio Disney" anymore, she wanted to hear "Radio Nowhere.").

The band did eight (count'em eight!) encores. I was glad to hear both "American Land" AND "Land of Hopes and Dreams." I plan to use both of these songs in my "Immigrant America" class next spring. "Rosalita," "Higher and Higher," "Dancing in the Dark" (in which two ladies danced with Clarence), and "Glory Days" were incredible.

This was definitely a special concert. (See the entire setlist here). The energy was high, the band was awesome (Patti Scialfa was absent tonight), and Springsteen gave the capacity crowd their money's worth. I sat next to a guy with a "Steel Mill" shirt on (Springsteen's first band) who had been to thirty shows over the years. The guy in front of me never sat down--dancing wildly and playing air keyboard the entire concert. Next to him was a guy who had to be in his mid-to-late sixties. He was clearly having a great time, pumping his fist in the air and singing all the lyrics while his wife sat in her chair the entire concert. The guy two seats down from me was in tears at the end of "Jungleland."

I do not pretend to be a music expert, but Springsteen has got to be the greatest rock and roll performer of all time. By the end of the night my wife Joy, who is not a big Springsteen fan, was yelling "Bruuuuuuce."

I wish I could be in Buffalo tonight for the final show. We would take the kids.

Bruce closed the concert by saying "we will see you down the road." I hope he meant it.

ADDENDUM: See the review of the show at Backstreets and Sam Sessa's review at the Baltimore Sun.

Richard Hughes Book Signing

If you live in south central Pennsylvania, take some time tomorrow to go see my colleague Richard Hughes, distinguished professor and senior fellow at Messiah's Boyer Center, who will be at the Camp Hill Barnes & Noble from 11:00am to 1:00pm signing copies of his new book, Christian America and the Kingdom of God. I read an early draft of this book and can attest that it will give those interested in the relationship between religion and politics a lot to think about. I hope Richard will get a chance to talk about the book.

Here is a summary:

The idea of the United States as a Christian nation is a powerful, seductive, and potentially destructive theme in American life, culture, and politics. Many fundamentalist and evangelical leaders routinely promote this notion, and millions of Americans simply assume the Christian character of the United States. And yet, as Richard T. Hughes reveals in this powerful book, the biblical vision of the "kingdom of God" stands at odds with the values and actions of an American empire that sanctions war instead of peace, promotes dominance and oppression instead of reconciliation, and exalts wealth and power instead of justice for the poor and needy.

With conviction and careful consideration, Hughes reviews the myth of Christian America from its earliest history in the founding of the republic to the present day. Extensively analyzing the Old and New Testaments, Hughes provides a solid, scripturally-based explanation of the kingdom of God--a kingdom defined by love, peace, patience, and generosity. Throughout American history, however, this concept has been appropriated by religious and political leaders and distorted into a messianic nationalism that champions the United States as God's "chosen nation" and bears little resemblance to the teachings of Jesus.

Pointing to a systemic biblical and theological illiteracy running rampant in the United States, Hughes investigates the reasons why so many Americans think of the United States as a Christian nation despite the Constitution's outright prohibition against establishing any national religion by law or coercion. He traces the development of fundamentalist Christianity throughout American history, noting especially the increased power and widespread influence of fundamentalism at the dawn of the twenty-first century, embodied and enacted by the administration of President George W. Bush and America's reaction to the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001.

Song of the Day

Springsteen's powerful reflection on growing old--"Kingdom of Days."

"When I count my blessings and you're mine for always. We laughed beneath the covers and count the wrinkles and the grays..."

Springsteen Tonight

As my readers know, I am heading off to see "The Boss" tonight in Baltimore. (I am listening to Greetings From Asbury Park, N.J. as I type). Could this be Springsteen's next to last show with the E Street Band? I hope not, but it is possible. I am going to savor it.

For those of you who may not be Springsteen fanatics, but want to know a little bit more about him, I would recommend reading Nicholas Dawidoff's excellent New York Times Magazine essay, "The Pop Populist." It was first published in 1997 so it is a bit dated, but it really captures Springsteen well. Here is a snippet:

What made people so loyal to Springsteen was the extent of his musical commitment to them. Not only did he write songs which made it clear that he shared their concerns; he also gave performances that were epic displays of fidelity. For years his filial distress was such that when he faced a crowd he was looking for unconditional love. He was a kinetic performer, one who could make concert halls of any size feel intimate as barrooms as he catapulted himself about the stage, leaped out into the crowd, sweat like a spot welder, sang -- and talked -- himself hoarse. His band went to extraordinary lengths to keep up with him. The drummer Max Weinberg's hands routinely bled, while the guitar player Nils Lofgren drank so much espresso on stage that after concerts he lifted weights for hours before he could sleep. ''You talk about James Brown the hardest-working man in show business,'' says the soul singer Sam Moore, of Sam and Dave. ''It's not true. This man was phenomenal.''

When the show was over, Springsteen would return to his motel room, settle onto the edge of his bed with a notebook, a dictionary and a thesaurus and stay up until morning frantically writing songs with titles like ''Prove It All Night.'' By creating music about people who trudged out of factories at the end of the day, he could honor such lives while avoiding the rug mill himself. His songs were full of romantic desperation, and they were his life. Springsteen was bent on impressing the importance of what he was doing upon his father, his hometown and his audience -- the people who had given him a ticket out of Freehold. So he never touched drugs, never got too close to women, never did anything that might interfere with his work. Out on the road, when the E Street Band guitar player Steve Van Zandt and the saxophonist Clarence Clemons felt like going out to strip bars after shows, they kept their plans quiet ''Bruce was a very strong and mysterious person in those days,'' Van Zandt says. ''People were afraid of him.''

For the more hardcore Springsteen fan, check out Jim Cullen's recent review of Clarence Clemons's memoir, The Big Man: Real Life and Tall Tales.

Would You Give Up Your Right to Vote for a New I-Phone?

40% of Messiah College students enrolled in a United States history survey course would.

Every year my colleague, Cathay Snyder, conducts a survey among the members of our United States to 1865 survey course. This course serves as a general education requirement for students and it represents a pretty good cross-section of the Messiah College student body. This year 84 undergraduates--from first year students to seniors--took the survey.

Here are the results:

• 40% of Messiah College students would give up their right to vote in one presidential election in exchange for a new I-Phone.
• 92% of Messiah College students would give up their right to vote in a presidential election in exchange for four years of free education at Messiah College.
• 62% of Messiah College students would give up their right to vote FOREVER for one million dollars.
• 75% of Messiah College students believe that one vote CAN make a difference

Today I shared the results of this survey with my students and asked them to respond to these trends. Here were some of their responses:

Would you give up your right to vote in one presidential election for a new I-Phone?. Most of them talked about how important technology was to their everyday lives. One student even suggested that cell phones and other forms of technology would make her better prepared to land a job in her chosen field. So I pressed them. Was their own economic betterment (chance to land a good job, pursue their own version of economic happiness, live a comfortable life) more important than their participation in American democracy? Most said that it was.

Another insightful student made a historical argument. As a woman, she was not going to betray all of the women who went before her who fought for women's suffrage.. She was thus unwilling to trade away her vote for a piece of consumer technology like an I-Phone. Responding to her remark, another student lamented this society's lack of historical consciousness. If we knew what it took to get universal suffrage, we may not be so present-minded and passe about participation in American democracy. Yet most of the students in the class were at Messiah College not to study the liberal arts--things like history, literature, philosophy, politics--that might help them become more informed citizens. Instead, they were in college on more specialized career tracks--accounting, business, engineering, and nursing. One student lamented that becoming an informed citizen was too much work and the proliferation of information on satellite television and the Internet only confused him more. When I suggested that the study of things such as history prepared one to be more active and informed citizens, most of them nodded in approval, but I am guessing that few of them will pursue careful study of such a field beyond the required general education course.

One student, referencing a passage I gave them from Tocqueville's Democracy in America, described how among democratic nations,

the woof of time is every instant broken and the track of generations effaced Those who went before are soon forgotten; of those who will come after, no one has any ideas...As social conditions become more equal, the number of persons increases who...owe nothing to man, and expect nothing from any man; they acquire the habit of always considering themselves as standing alone.

Most agreed that Toqueville was right, but really had no particular interest in doing anything about it.

I am most sympathetic with those students who would give up their right to vote in one presidential election for free college tuition, room, and board. Many thought that college would allow them to acquire the skills needed to be an informed citizen and thus an informed voter. Others, when pushed, understood this trade off in economic terms. They were willing to pass on voting in one election if they could gain the skills necessary to pursue economic comfort and a "good job." What is striking is that this is something I would fully expect from any college undergraduate. Christian college students are not a whole lot different. In fact, when this survey was given to NYU students, they actually came across a bit more civic minded and less materialistic than the students at Messiah.

Would you give up your right to vote FOREVER for $1 million dollars? Apart from economic acquisitiveness and the chance to make a million bucks, few students could justify this position.

What fascinates me is that 75% of the students surveyed believed that one vote CAN make a difference, yet this did not stop many of them from giving up the opportunity to "make a difference" in exchange for an I-Phone or one million dollars. As one student put it, "I believe that one vote can make a difference, but just not my vote."

There was a certain cynical response from the students during the discussion of these results. They clearly want to be good citizens and participate in the democratic process, but few of them thought that they could really make a difference with their vote. Many felt that they were not being heard and this discouraged them from voting. All of them admitted that ideals such as democratic participation were no match for the kinds of "pursuits of happiness" that corporate America had to offer them.

In the end, those who fear that Christian college students are mounting some sort of assault to overtake the country with their Christian ideals, political virtue or spiritually-inspired disinterestedness seem to have little to worry about.

Gordon Wood on Academics and Narrative History

This week's Washington Post series on "The Writer's Life" features Gordon Wood. There is a podcast of Wood talking about Empire of Liberty, his new book in the Oxford History of the United States series, as well as his thoughts on the discipline and practice of history.

The series also includes a short piece by Wood on the relationship between academic monographs and narrative history. Wood defends the work of academic historians and their monographs, although he admits that few people other than fellow academics will read them. Rather than bashing the academic monograph, as many non-academic history writers are prone to do, he asserts the importance of these studies for revealing a deeper and more solid understanding of the past.

Ultimately, Wood calls some historians to bridge the gap between the discipline and popular audiences. He calls for a kind of history that goes beyond the journalistic writing of popular historians and engages more fully with the best of historical scholarship.

I really like this idea and tried to incorporate it in The Way of Improvement Leads Home (although I am probably still too analytical in my style for Wood's taste). It does seem possible that historians can write narrative history that will appeal to the informed history buff, with footnotes that reveal their debt to the most recent and important scholarship in the particular field.

In the end, there will always be historians who will gravitate toward the specialized monograph that is written in an analytical style to his or her fellow historians. There will also always be historians who try to write compelling narratives for general readers. We need both.

Lecture at the University of Richmond

Last night I was at the University of Richmond where I gave a lecture on Philip Vickers Fithian to the American Revolution Roundtable of Richmond. The University of Richmond is a beautiful campus. Since I got there early I was able to stroll around a bit.

The crowd at the lecture was very knowledgeable and curious about Fithian and what I have been calling the "Presbyterian Rebellion." I even managed to sell a few books during the signing period after the lecture.

I also experienced "a first" last night. The Q&A session following the lecture had to be cut short because a seventy-eight year old man in the audience fainted! It was VERY warm in the room (I was sweating through the entire lecture) and this gentleman was simply overcome by the heat. Fortunately, there was a doctor in attendance and after a few minutes the man was fine.

Thanks to Bruce Venter for inviting me to speak and Bill Welsch, a fellow native New Jerseyan, for helping me find my way to Route 95 following the lecture.

This Weekend: Springsteen and Soccer

Baltimore is the place to be this weekend.

As followers of this blog know, we have tickets to the next to the last show on Springsteen's "Working on Dream" tour. Bruce has not played Baltimore in thirty-six years. It should be a great show. Last night in Milwaukee the band broke out "Santa Claus is Coming to Town"(for the first time on the tour?) and, by all reports, on Friday night in Baltimore they will play the entire Born to Run album for the eighth time on the tour.

And as long as we are in Baltimore for the weekend, we will probably roll out of bed on Saturday morning and head over, ears ringing from the night before, to Homewood Field on the campus of Johns Hopkins University to watch the NCAA Division III women's soccer "Sweet Sixteen" matchup between Otterbein College and #1 ranked Messiah College. We have jumped on the Messiah women's soccer bandwagon over the course of the last several weeks. This past Sunday night we were there (in the midst of a relatively small crowd) to see Messiah defeat Endicott College 1-0 in what turned out to be a real thriller. Two wins this weekend will send the defending national champs back to the Final Four.

By the way, the Messiah College field hockey team plays in the NCAA Division III Final Four this weekend at Mt. Holyoke College and the men's soccer team play in the Sweet Sixteen at home. Pretty impressive, huh.

What is Your Writing Routine?

Today's Insider Higher Ed is running a great essay by Peg Boyle Single on how to finish writing a doctoral dissertation. Her advice, however, could apply to all kinds of writing. Single suggests:

1). Schedule writing times
2). Decide on a "task based" or "time based" approach to writing
3). Backup your writing with a separate file for every day
4). Write your chapters from beginning to end and then go back and revise.
5). "Turn off your internal critic."
6). End your writing session by preparing for the next one.
7). Track your progress.

I have found that scheduling a regular time to write is the most important of these suggestions. I try to write five days a week, usually from about 6:00 to 9:00 or 9:30 in the morning. (I am thankful that my wife gets the kids off to school). I am not always writing sentences and paragraphs during this period, but I do devote these hours to doing writing project-related tasks such as reading or taking notes or outlining. I thus tend to take a "time-based" approach to writing unless I am on a tight deadline and must go to a "task based" approach. By 10:00 I am preparing to head to the college for the day and do not worry about writing again until the following morning.

I agree with Single that preparing the first draft is the hardest part of writing. This is also the part of the writing process in which I suffer the most from a lack of motivation. I actually love revising and refining my prose. This is the fun part of writing. So I will usually just plow through the first drafts with little attention to style and then go back and craft sentences, turns of phrases, etc...

I could not agree more with Single's suggestion to end each writing session by preparing for the next one. When I roll out of bed and head to my home office, I want to be ready to dive into the project. Alll the books I will need must be nearby and my notes must be in front of me so I can peruse them while waiting for my computer to warm up.

What is your writing routine?

Sunday Night Odds and Ends

A few things on-line that caught my eye this week:

100 Most Overrated/Underrated Films

Cool college towns

What the United States can learn from the Byzantine Empire.

The end of the op-ed?

Did the prosperity gospel movement cause the economic crash? Or was it the devil?

Wendell Berry short story: A Place in Time

Barbara Ehrenreich on the perils of positive thinking.

The fate of South Carolina's "I Believe" license plate.

Paul Harvey reviews Jonathan Bean, Race and Liberty in America: The Essential Reader.

Lauren Kientz reports on a roundtable at the recent conference on United States intellectual history.

Rodney Clapp on the tools of writing.

Mt. Holyoke's appeal to community college graduates.

College students don't read and what we can do about it.

Response to Jeff Sharlet

It seems as if I have gotten myself into a conversation/debate with Jeff Sharlet about his blog post on David Brooks's op-ed column on John Thune as a possible GOP candidate in 2012. (Did you get all of that straight?). For those of you who do not know Sharlet, he is a writer worth getting to know. He is a contributing editor for Harper's and Rolling Stone, editor of The Revealer, a review of religion and the press, a books columnist for Religion Dispatches, and partly responsible for three books: as author of The Family, a New York Times bestseller (Harper, 2008); coauthor, with Peter Manseau, of Killing the Buddha (Free Press, 2004), and co-editor, with the staff of KillingTheBuddha.com, of Believer, Beware: First Person Dispatches from the Margins of Faith (Beacon, 2009).

Jeff was gracious enough to respond to my original post that criticized him for being too hard on Brooks (and Thune). I have printed Jeff's comments to that post below (in italics), with my responses in bold.

Thanks for a thoughtful response, John. I hope you'll allow me to clarify a few misperceptions, starting with Biola.
Jeff, thanks for the comment. I appreciate your willingness to take the time to interact with one of those "small blogs" you talk about in the beginning of your piece. I also appreciate your clarifications on some things. They have helped me to better understand your original post.

Given that I'm pals with some Biola folks, and think highly of their work, I'd hardly argue that affiliation with that school disqualifies one from public life. My issue is with Brooks' attempt to rebrand Biola as other than what it is: one of the preeminent Christian conservative schools in America. If someone tried to mainstream themselves by, say, declaring their affiliation with the Highlander Institute nothing more than a relationship with a community center, I'd be just as quick to challenge that.
You seem to know Biola well, and are correct to call it "one of the preeminent Christian conservative schools in America." (As you know, of course, it is also a lot different than Bob Jones, Regent, or Patrick Henry). I took issue with the way you chided Brooks for referencing Biola. Brooks said that Thune: "attended Biola University, a small Christian college outside of Los Angeles." I read this as a mere statement of where Thune went to school (much like the next sentence in Brooks's column about Thune receiving an MBA from the University of South Dakota). In other words, I did not see his reference to Biola as some sort of "rebranding" of Biola as something that it is not. In your blog post you accurately note that Biola is an acronym for the "Bible Institute of Los Angeles," but your tone implies that this would automatically disqualify Thune from being a politician who could reach across the political aisle or embrace some form of moderation.

My problem with Brooks isn't so much his conservatism as it is his insistence on ignoring the reality of political differences. Thune is a real political conservative. You want to support that, fine. But don't pitch Thune as some kind moderate just because he's a nice guy.
Brooks admits that Thune is a "down-the-line conservative on social, economic and foreign policy matters?" I don't think Brooks is saying Thune is a moderate, but I do think he is saying that he is a political conservative who is not "combative." Brooks is not making an argument about the content of Thune's political convictions, but rather one about his style. I think your post misrepresents Brooks on this point unless, of course, you believe that it is impossible for a political conservative to be "ecumenical" in style.

More importantly: I don't suggest that Thune is involved in a Christian conspiracy to overtake America. I don't suggest the Family is anything like that. Ever. And your implication that I do is at best ill-informed. The Family is not a conspiracy, a point I make in my introduction, throughout my book, and in dozens or hundreds of media interviews. They are not trying to overtake America -- they are, as I quote Christian Right activist Rob Schenck, "a religion of the status quo."
Fair enough. I am sorry if I misrepresented your view. Thanks for clarifying. I am glad you did.

As for Colson -- I'm glad you're distributing presents to prisoners. But Colson's ideas are, frankly, ugly. Do I think they're "dangerous"? I'm not sure I'd say that. I would say that they're certainly anti-democratic. And I base that on what I'm guessing is a more extensive reading of Colson's books than Thune has undertaken, months in Colson's archives at the Billy Graham Center, and interviews with Colson himself.
I wonder how you distinguish Colson from Robertson or Dobson? Below you state that you have defended Dobson and Robertson for being members of the Religious Right who make their views known in the public square. What am I missing? It would seem that Colson, Dobson, and Robertson are all contributing to public discourse. In this sense, I think Jon Shields is correct in his book, The Democratic Virtues of the Christian Right.

By comparing that to the anti-LDS bigotry with which some on the left and the right attacked Romney is disingenuous, anti-intellectual, and, frankly, just kinda dumb. I know that's a harsh assessment -- but you did just compare me to a bigot.
I in no way meant to say that you were a bigot. I apologize if I came off that way. But it does seem that your criticism of the anti-democratic, elite, secretive nature of the Family is similar to some of the critics of the LDS and their secretive rituals. Both, it has been argued by their critics, threaten democracy. And of course the Mormons were major players in Prop 8 in California. What do you think about that comparison? How is the secrecy of the Mormons, which translates into political action, different from the secrecy of the Family, which also translates into political action? Maybe I really am dumb, disingenuous, and an anti-intellectual. Help me out here!

Nowhere have I ever attacked Christianity, evangelicalism, or even fundamentalism, per se. I've been glad to count a number of self-described fundamentalists as my allies in trying to shine some light on the elitist politics of the Family. And before liberal and secular audiences all over the country, I've actually defended fundamentalist leaders such as James Dobson and Pat Robertson, arguing that regardless of what one may think of their views, one CAN have an opinion about their views, because they make them known in the public square. They participate in the democratic process. The Family attempts to sidestep that process, by their own declaration, seeking opportunities for powerful leaders to meet and make decisions "beyond the din of the vox populi." The group was founded in explicit anti-democratic sentiment and continues to apply those ideas, through back room dealing and some very fuzzy theology -- charges, by the way, that come not just from the left but from World magazine. So while I disagree with Thune, my problem here is not with his conservatism, but with his preference for what the Family calls "privacy" when it comes to the intersection of religion and politics. Give me a Mike Huckabee -- or, hell, a Sarah Palin -- over that kind of elitism anyday. Is Thune a contender? Yes -- and I'm hardly hiding that opinion. I was making that case before Thune popped up on Brooks' radar. Do I want him stopped? Sure -- because just as Bob McDonnell suckered the Virginia media into seeing him as a moderate, Thune can do the same thing. That's why I prefer honest conservatives like Huckabee.
Thanks for clearing this up. I think we are in general agreement here.

Rant ended. I see you're a serious scholar, so I wanted to respond with a little depth.
I have enjoyed taking the time to engage with your response to my post. Thanks. I hope you keep reading the blog.

The Annointing of John Thune

In case you have not seen it already, David Brooks, in his regular New York Times column, just made South Dakota senator John Thune a possible candidate for the Republican presidential nomination in 2012. Brooks writes:


But deep in the bowels of the G.O.P., there are serious people having quiet conversations. The people holding these conversations created and admired Bob McDonnell’s perfectly executed Virginia gubernatorial campaign. And now as they look to the future of their party, and who might lead it in 2012, the name John Thune keeps popping up.

Yet over at Killing the Buddha, Jeff Sharlet is having none of it. Thune, he writes, should not be considered a presidential candidate just because he is tall, good-looking, and is a nice guy. Fair enough. But according to Sharlet, Thune is also scary because he attended Biola University, formerly known as the Bible Institute of Los Angeles, which Sharlet describes as one the "premiere fundamentalist colleges in America." Apparently people who attend these kinds of colleges are not fit to hold office because they are conservative evangelicals. (I also might add that Biola, as far as I know, does not require faculty or students to be members of the Republican Party).

What really bothers Sharlet is Thune's connection to "the prayer cell-movement known as the Family or the Fellowship" and his claim to have read the writings of Prison-Fellowship founder and former disgraced Nixon aid, now born-again Christian, Charles Colson. I admit that the "Fellowship" sounds a bit creepy and overly secretive. My basis for this assessment actually comes from Sharlet's book, The Family. Moreover, the smell of Christians seeking political power always raises a red flag for me. And yes, Charles Colson's brand of conservative evangelicalism has, at times, fueled the culture wars.

But too much of Sharlet's article reflects the same kind of fear-mongering that many on the Religious Right have toward Barack Obama and the Left. If Thune is involved in a Christian conspiracy to overtake America and restore it to its supposed "Christian roots," then Christians, should have a problem with that. But does praying regularly with other members of Congress or reading Chuck Colson--a guy who has changed the lives of thousands of prisoners through Prison Fellowship--make him dangerous? That is a stretch. (Full disclosure--I have delivered Christmas presents to the families of prisoners through Colson's "Project Angel Tree"). Some of this reminds me of the anti-Mormon attacks on Mitt Romney in 2008.

If Brooks's article on Thune does catapult him to national prominence and he does become a candidate in 2012, then we will need to learn more about how his faith informs his politics in a way that takes us beyond his 2005 interview with Christianity Today.

In the end, I don't understand why Sharlet uses his blog to attack Brooks for writing this piece. (He calls him "foolish"). I am not a Republican, but it seems to me that Brooks is probably right about Thune. Thune's Christianity and his good looks could make him a candidate in 2012. Any realistic observer of the American political scene would have to agree, whether they like it or not, that these are the kinds of candidates who attract Republican voters. In fact, his decision to discredit Thune so quickly suggests that Sharlet really does agree with Brooks that the South Dakota senator is a viable candidate in 2012, albeit a candidate who must be stopped.

Readers Respond to the Way of Improvement Leads Home

Maria, a reader who came to a book talk at the David Library of the American Revolution, writes:

What a pleasure to learn about this small segment of the world. In my opinion, your book is definitely best-seller material. Your writing style is magnificent! The research you did and the way you presented it was a page-turner. I can't wait for the next one. I think your book is really for a far-reaching audience and not just for history buffs. Most history books have to be read a segment at a time but yours is so uplifting, inspiring and necessary for modern society. It actually made me suffer with the "nostalgia" disease you were talking about in the book.

Dr. Jonathan Den Hartog, an early American history professor in Minnesota who recently taught The Way of Improvement Leads Home writes:

I teach at a 4-year liberal arts college with a religious background in Minnesota. One of my recurring duties is teaching the “U.S. History to 1877” survey. These survey classes usually have 20-30 students. This semester, the class is 25 students strong. Most of the students are freshmen and sophomores.

I always assign several monographs, to introduce students to in-depth historical description and to expose them to academic historical writing. I am very choosy in selecting these monographs. For an introductory class, I prefer monographs that are well-written, engaging, and deal more with individual people than amorphous social developments. When I learned that John had just published The Way of Improvement Leads Home, I decided to give it a try with the class. The book definitely meets my criteria. I was much impressed with the way it works as a contextual biography. Although focused on Philip Vickers Fithian, the book sets him in intellectual, political, and religious contexts to create a thick description of the late colonial and revolutionary periods.

I devoted an entire 100-minute class to discussing the book. We had no difficulties in filling this time. Students responded very well to the book, and conversation flowed well. In fact, it was probably one of the most memorable and lively conversations we’ve had all semester.

Several topics really engaged students:
1. The relationship of Philip and Betsy. They found those sections very well-written, and the characters were dramatically alive to the students. The prevailing sentiment was not to understand why Philip kept after Betsy for so long (or why she ultimately yielded). Although the students wanted to read contemporary dating practices into the 18th century, the book provided an excellent foil to show how courtship expectations and practices differed dramatically 200 years ago. It provided a “teachable moment” about historical change.

2. The intersection of Presbyterianism and republicanism in the Revolution. This allowed us to discuss again how Protestantism intersected with political ideology in promoting the American Revolution. We are simultaneously reading Marsden, Noll, and Hatch’s Search for Christian America, so the material in Way of Improvement helped deepen and extend our conversation.

3. The “rural enlightenment.” Having already discussed “Enlightenments in America,” these passages allowed us to see how enlightened cosmopolitanism might intersect with local settings like Cohansey, New Jersey. One student was particularly enthralled with the idea of “exhorting societies.”

....the book was a success. A good endorsement of the book came from a student who is also taking my “American Religious History” class. He observed the book could profitably have been used for either class. I think he’s right. I could also see the book working well in a “Colonial America,” “Atlantic Worlds,” “American Revolution,” or “American Intellectual History” class. The book is definitely accessible to undergraduates of all levels, so I would strongly recommend that professors looking for course adoptions strongly consider The Way of Improvement Leads Home.

The Gospel According to Bruce Springsteen

As part of my continued preparation to see "The Boss" next weekend in Baltimore, I just finished reading Jeffrey B. Symynkywicz's The Gospel According to Bruce Springsteen:" Rock and Redemption from Asbury Park to Magic (Westminster/John Knox, 2008). Symynkywicz is a Unitarian-Universalist minister, a graduate of Harvard Divinity School, and a Bruce fan. He is certainly qualified to explore some of the religious themes in Springsteen's music.

What we get in this book is a chapter-by-chapter commentary on every Springsteen album and almost every Springsteen song. Each chapter begins with a a few paragraphs on the direction Springsteen's career was taking at the time he wrote the given album and, when appropriate, a bit of historical context. Symynkywicz offers some great insights. I especially liked his chapter on The Rising, entitled "From Good Friday to Easter." His discussion of "Mary's Place" prompted me to go back and listen to the song again in order to rethink the religious imagery. I was moved by Symynkywicz's account of Springteen's thoughts upon the birth of his first child, Evan James, as portrayed in the lyrics of "Living Proof." "The birth of a child," Symynkywicz writes, is "living proof that God's mercy beats at the very heart of creation." Or as Springsteen puts it:

Well now on a summer night in a dusky room

Come a little piece of the Lord's undying light

Crying like he swallowed the fiery moon

In his mother's arms it was all the beauty I could take

Like the missing words to some prayer that I could never make

In a world so hard and dirty so fouled and confused

Searching for a little bit of God's mercy

I found living proof

Symynkywicz's book can get a bit preachy at times, but what else should one expect from a member of the cloth? At the end of the book he offers Bruce's "Ten Suggestions for Spiritual Living." This section offers a nice overview of Springsteen's understanding of humanity, hope, community, and the brokenness of this world.

The Gospel According to Bruce Springsteen is a nice introduction to Springteen's music. I plan to use it as a reference tool. Perhaps someone might correct me on this, but I don't think there is a more comprehensive interpretive treatment of the Springsteen canon available. Die hard Springsteen fans might disagree with Symynkywicz's interpretations of some of the Boss's songs, but this book certainly gives us a lot to think about.

Reports from the American Academy of Religion

I have never been to the American Academy of Religion (AAR) annual meeting. As a historian I tend to run with fellow historians at places like the AHA, OAH, or OIEAHC. As a historian who spends some of my time thinking about American religion, the closest I ever get to religious studies scholars is an occasional meeting of the American Society of Church History or in the hallways of Boyer Hall. Yet I must admit that I have always been intrigued by what goes on at a meeting of the AAR. Some day I would like to attend one, but for now, here are some interesting reports from last weekend's annual meeting in Montreal.

At Religion and American history Linford Fisher reports on sessions related to American indigenous culture.

At America's Gods, "fatedplace" learns some lessons about how a graduate student should present herself and her work.

JTB at "Rude Truth" provides a personal overview, including spilling an entire cup of hot Dunkin Donuts coffee on his lap. As depressing as it sounds, I liked this line: "The Job Center is dead to me."

Killing the Buddha's overview focuses on the host city. So does Stephen Carlson at Duke Newt.

Mark Silk at Spiritual Politics offers his take.

Eric Daryl Meyer reviews papers by Coakley, Volf, and Zizek.

John L. Jackson has a love-hate relationship with conferences like the AAR.

Office Hours: A Professor's Lament

If you are a student you need to read "Richardson's Rules of Order," a very informative series of posts by UMass professor Heather Cox Richardson. I wish I had these "rules" when I was in college--I would have done a lot better on my history papers. Her posts should be required reading in historical methods classes. I hope she plans to publish them in book form soon.

Today's "rule of order" is entitled "A Note About Professors." Richardson tries to get students to understand and sympathize with their professors, especially those who teach big lecture classes.

I was struck, however, by the final point of her post:

Finally, you might want to Google your professors to see what they do outside the classroom. You will probably see that your school has an extraordinary faculty. You might find that your school has national leaders in nanotechnology and sports medicine; or Pulitzer Prize winners and consultants to the State Department. Go meet these people, talk to them, work with them. When an extraordinarily famous professor agreed to work with a friend of ours on her undergraduate thesis, we were shocked. “How did you get HIM?” we demanded. “I just went and asked,” she answered. “He says no one ever asks him to do anything anymore because he’s too famous, and he misses students.” A professor can’t work with every one who asks, but it’s certainly worth talking to someone whose work you admire.

While I have run across some faculty who really do not want to see students outside the classroom, I think Richardson is right when she assumes that most college professors really long for opportunities to engage with students in a more informal setting, even it is a faculty office.

Messiah College, like most colleges and universities, requires me to hold regular office hours each semester. This semester my office door is open every Monday, Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday afternoon--about ten hours a week. Students will occasionally drop by to argue a test grade or ask questions the day before an exam, but very few come by to talk about the larger implications of the things I lecture about in class, or to pick my brain on some important topic, or to chat about their life or their future. I know some students are shy and others are intimidated by professors, but if I were spending tens of thousands of dollars a year to go to college I would try to make the most of the experience by getting to know my teachers.

Like the "famous" professor in Richardson's story, students might be surprised to realize just how much their professors can help them and want to help them. For example, the best references letters come from professors who know something about their students outside of the classroom. Such a personal touch in a reference letter for a job or graduate school can go a long way. Professors are often flattered when students show an interest in their work or want to know more about a particular concept discussed in class. Yet, as I noted in a recent post, fewer and fewer students seem to be intellectually curious these days.

A final note: I am writing this during office hours. No one is showing up. Perhaps my students' loss is the blogosphere's gain, but I prefer a face to face conversation to writing for the vast world of cyberspace anytime.