Review

From colonial times to the present, religious experience has been a dominant feature of American Christianity. In many American circles, a conversion experience counts for more than baptism. To this very day, children who are nurtured in certain evangelical environments are taught that unless they have a ‘born-again’ experience, they cannot claim to be authentic Christians. It should come as no surprise that American Methodists added experience (albeit wider than just religious experience) to their theological guidelines alongside the Anglican sources of scripture, reason, and tradition.Bill J. Leonard, James and Marilyn Dunn Professor of Baptist Studies and Professor of Church History in the School of Divinity, Wake Forrest University, serves the student of American Christian history well with his historical survey of Christian religious experience in the United States. The sweep of his survey covers the ground from early America to the end of the second millennium, although the trends he identifies have carried over into the present day. The author cautions the reader that the variety of religious experience throughout the nation's history necessitates a representative survey rather than an all-inclusive one. Nevertheless, I found his work quite comprehensive. Not only does he cover the usual phenomena of awakenings, camp meetings, and urban crusades, but Leonard devotes considerable space to non-mainstream movements such as the Shakers, The Oneida Community, and the now major religious force, the Mormons. He examines the lives and work of important figures among whom are Jonathan Edwards, Charles Finney, and Dwight L. Moody, but he also pays considerable attention to the lives, teachings, and experiences of ‘off-beat’ leaders and celebrities, such as Emanuel Swedenborg, Andrew Jackson Davis, and the Fox sisters.One merit of the book is the extensive exposition of African American and Roman Catholic religious experience. In spite of their size and influence in American history, these two communities have often been neglected in mainstream narratives of religious experience. The emphasis on conversion as the conveying of personhood to the overlooked human in African American theology had to exert a formative influence upon the civil rights movement. Leonard understands the development of Roman Catholic experience to be distinct from that of Protestants throughout most of American history, but surely such distinctiveness has blurred since Vatican II. Perhaps it would be worthwhile to study how Protestant–Catholic interaction over the past fifty years has affected the evolution of religious experience in the United States.Another strength of this text is the inclusion of academic interpretations of various historical figures and movements. Leonard uses these academic studies to illuminate the subject under consideration rather than to engage in any scholarly debate, but he gives the student a place to go for further study.The author highlights two Methodists for special consideration: Peter Cartwright and Phoebe Palmer. He sees Cartwright as representative of frontier Methodism in his chapter on ‘New Measures’ (88–90). The Autobiography of Peter Cartwright presents enthusiastic phenomena and pictures of frontier piety. Leonard notes how influential Methodism was in shaping the Second Great Awakening, particularly in the way Methodist preachers shortened the conversion process and emphasized the participation of the individual in the conversion experience. Phoebe Palmer and her Altar Theology enjoy a special status in the early days of the holiness movement (220–3). Leonard draws the usual thread from John Wesley's doctrine of Christian Perfection through the Second Blessing of the Holiness movement to the tongues, signs, and wonders of the Pentecostal and Charismatic movements in his chapter on ‘Experiencing the Full Gospel’ (217–53). Otherwise, Methodism stands alongside other mainline Protestants in Leonard's narrative.Leonard borrows the phrase, ‘a Sense of the Heart’, from Jonathan Edwards as ‘a unifying motif for ordering varied approaches to religious experience evident in multiple individuals, groups, and contexts’ (xi). This vague concept is broad enough to encompass the scope of the multiform phenomena under scrutiny. Perhaps some theological reflection is in order beyond historiography. Will the current trend of believing without belonging crash in a dead end of spiritual solipsism? Or will it bear fruit in a new general Awakening? Can a genuine Christian spirituality end with personal meaning and self-fulfilment divorced from participation in God's new creation for the entire world? Bill Leonard has given us a sound historical platform for further exploration in what he identifies as an emerging area of academic research. His is an authoritative voice both from his own life story and in his academic research into the history of religious experience.

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