In this chapter, Noll provides a sketch of theology in the American colonies up to 1750. He contrasts this period with later, post-Revolution theology:

Christian believers in colonial America, though overwhelmingly Protestant, still assumed that God had structured society like a pyramid and that contentment with one’s created place was a godly virtue. The respect owed to pastors was an instance of the deference due to all whom God had placed in their superior stations. (19)

Noll reviews the major theologians and theological traditions in colonial American, beginning with the Puritans and their well-developed Calvinism. New England Puritans “took for granted that the central religious task was to orient the self to the prerogatives of God” as revealed in Scripture (21). Noll notes the “landmarks” of Samual Willard’s Compleat Body of Divinity (1726) and the considerable works of Cotton Mather (1663-1728). Jonathan Edwards (1703-1758) is the final and preeminent example of Puritan Calvinism. Noll then examines briefly Presbyterianism outside of New England, Anglicanism in Virginia, and other groups (like Quakers) throughout the colonies. All of these, even the sectarian groups, tended toward a traditional understanding of God’s covenant with the people of God.

Posted in Books, American Religion | No Comments »