Editor's Note: This is a new series started with the aim of reviewing older works that are either directly linked with prelim reading lists or dissertation research. Of course, we invite any reader to contribute content about works valuable to their own research, regardless of period or topic.
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| Worlds of Wonder, Days of Judgement: Popular Religious Beliefs in Early New England (1989) |
In Worlds of Wonder, Days of Judgment,
David D. Hall has reexamined the spiritual community of colonial New England,
arguing for the existence of a popular religion that is both rooted in and
supported by culture. Hall’s approach is novel, arguing that religion acted as
“a mode of literacy” (18), and this prevailing connection between faith and
literacy dominates this seminal work.
For
Hall, the faith that emerges in New England cannot be simply explained as a
product of cultural transmission. A variety of reasons are noted for colonial
distinctiveness: the utility and persistence of folk belief, the spatial
relationship between minister and congregation, the separate nature of church
and state, the relative lack of appeal for ‘radical’ (i.e. Quaker, Baptist)
faiths, the accommodative nature of magic and religion (paying homage to Keith
Thomas’ 1971 seminal work), and the prominence of literacy. Popular culture
represents something unique, facilitating an environment that was at once
strictly demarcated, but flexible enough to include “countervailing practices
and motifs” (245).
