
Contents
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The Attempt to Christianize the Republic The Attempt to Christianize the Republic
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The Second Great Awakening The Second Great Awakening
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Factors Prompting the Second Great Awakening Factors Prompting the Second Great Awakening
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Major Developments in the Second Great Awakening Major Developments in the Second Great Awakening
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The Humanitarian Crusade of the Second Great Awakening The Humanitarian Crusade of the Second Great Awakening
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A Christian Critique of the Myth of the Christian Nation A Christian Critique of the Myth of the Christian Nation
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The Voice of the Sixteenth-Century Anabaptists The Voice of the Sixteenth-Century Anabaptists
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The Trade-Off of a Christianized Culture The Trade-Off of a Christianized Culture
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An African American Critique of the Myth of the Christian Nation An African American Critique of the Myth of the Christian Nation
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White American Christians and the Quest for Cultural Dominance White American Christians and the Quest for Cultural Dominance
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America’s Times of Trial America’s Times of Trial
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The First Three Times of Trial The First Three Times of Trial
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America’s Fourth Time of Trial America’s Fourth Time of Trial
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Times of Fall and Restoration Times of Fall and Restoration
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The Founding The Founding
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From the Civil War to World War I From the Civil War to World War I
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The 1960s The 1960s
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Donald J. Trump, the Fall, and the Restoration Donald J. Trump, the Fall, and the Restoration
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What Might We Make of the Disconnect between Christian Belief and Practice? What Might We Make of the Disconnect between Christian Belief and Practice?
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Conclusions Conclusions
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Notes Notes
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Four The Myth of the Christian Nation: The Early National Period
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Published:September 2018
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Abstract
While America’s founders sought to create a nation of religious freedom, not a Christian nation, Christians in the early nineteenth century effectively Christianized the American Republic through the Second Great Awakening. Over the course of American history, many whites have accepted the claim that America is a Christian nation. Blacks from an early date, however, have argued that Christian America is a hollow concept, informed by assumptions of white supremacy. In the nineteenth century, David Walker ridiculed the notion of Christian America, while Frederick Douglass and Ida B. Wells claimed that the idea of Christian America was a cover for horrendous crimes against blacks. In the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, blacks as disparate as Martin Luther King Jr., Malcolm X, James Baldwin, Ta-Nehisi Coates, and James Cone unmasked the myth of a Christian America. By the twenty-first century, the collapse of Christian dominance in the United States could be traced, at least in part, to the complicity of white American Christians in the myth of White Supremacy. Many white Christians responded by attempting to restore a lost golden age, ignoring their complicity in the myth of White Supremacy that had helped bring on America’s fourth time of trial.
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