Worlds of Wonder, Days of Judgment: Popular Religious Belief in Early New England

Worlds of Wonder, Days of Judgment: Popular Religious Belief in Early New England (1989)
By David Hall

Synopsis: Examines the roles and uses of religion in the everyday lives of colonial New Englanders by focusing on six main ideas: "the role of the 'folk,' the geography of religion, the relationship between the church and state, the appeal of 'radical' religion, the appeal of 'magic,' and the sway of the literary" (5). Shows that religion permeated everyday life, even for those who were not hard-core about religion. An excellent example of this is the way the Bible was used as a tool of literacy, and that the Bible and other religious books represented "a myth of freedom from the tyranny of priests" (52). Also, they looked for signs of the supernatural everywhere, the will of God as everywhere, and thus all about defeating an evil world. Argues that "Culture and religion...must be understood as partly independent of the social system in which hey occur" (245). This seems to be why so much old-time religion survived - it could elude the changes taking place in the other realms. Basically, religion was a shared rather than a divided/elite culture, power-wise (245).

Interesting Specifics:

"Literacy and religion were inseparable" (38). Books as key link between Protestant traditions and the market economy (70).

Popular literature and religion grew intertwined; tales of damnation and doom were big sellers (137).

Colonists saw "their meetinghouses and cemeteries as civil space, not sacred. The very ground was drained of ritual significance" (167).

Interacts With:

Very mild use of "resistance" in that reading books (esp. the Bible) was seen as a slight act of resistance as one could have the word directly and do what they wanted with them rather than rely on a priest or minister. In this way perhaps interacts with:
de Certeau, Beneath the American Renaissance [in its argument for the omnipresence of religion, that religion affected the popular literature of the time - even though Hall's book is dealing with an earlier period, the Renaissance book makes a similar point.]