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Damned Nation: Hell in America from the Revolution to Reconstruction
Among the pressing concerns of Americans in the first century of nationhood were day-to-day survival, political harmony, exploration of the continent, foreign policy, and--fixed deeply in the collective consciousness--hell and eternal damnation. The fear of fire and brimstone and the worm that never dies exerted a profound and lasting influence on Americans' ideas about themselves, their neighbors, and the rest of the world.
Kathryn Gin Lum poses a number of vital Why did the fear of hell survive Enlightenment critiques in America, after largely subsiding in Europe and elsewhere? What were the consequences for early and antebellum Americans of living with the fear of seeing themselves and many people they knew eternally damned? How did they live under the weighty obligation to save as many souls as possible? What about those who rejected this sense of obligation and fear? Gin Lum shows that beneath early Americans' vaunted millennial optimism lurked a pervasive that rather than being favored by God, they and their nation might be the object of divine wrath. As time-honored social hierarchies crumbled before revival fire, economic unease, and political chaos, "saved" and "damned" became as crucial distinctions as race, class, and gender. The threat of damnation became an impetus for or deterrent from all kinds of behaviors, from reading novels to owning slaves.
Gin Lum tracks the idea of hell from the Revolution to Reconstruction. She considers the ideas of theological leaders like Jonathan Edwards and Charles Finney, as well as those of ordinary women and men. She discusses the views of Native Americans, Americans of European and African descent, residents of Northern insane asylums and Southern plantations, New England's clergy and missionaries overseas, and even proponents of Swedenborgianism and annihilationism. Damned Nation offers a captivating account of an idea that played a transformative role in America's intellectual and cultural history.
Kathryn Gin Lum poses a number of vital Why did the fear of hell survive Enlightenment critiques in America, after largely subsiding in Europe and elsewhere? What were the consequences for early and antebellum Americans of living with the fear of seeing themselves and many people they knew eternally damned? How did they live under the weighty obligation to save as many souls as possible? What about those who rejected this sense of obligation and fear? Gin Lum shows that beneath early Americans' vaunted millennial optimism lurked a pervasive that rather than being favored by God, they and their nation might be the object of divine wrath. As time-honored social hierarchies crumbled before revival fire, economic unease, and political chaos, "saved" and "damned" became as crucial distinctions as race, class, and gender. The threat of damnation became an impetus for or deterrent from all kinds of behaviors, from reading novels to owning slaves.
Gin Lum tracks the idea of hell from the Revolution to Reconstruction. She considers the ideas of theological leaders like Jonathan Edwards and Charles Finney, as well as those of ordinary women and men. She discusses the views of Native Americans, Americans of European and African descent, residents of Northern insane asylums and Southern plantations, New England's clergy and missionaries overseas, and even proponents of Swedenborgianism and annihilationism. Damned Nation offers a captivating account of an idea that played a transformative role in America's intellectual and cultural history.
330 pages, Hardcover
First published July 14, 2014
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Displaying 1 - 14 of 14 reviews
August 4, 2014
The idea of hell has been contested territory for a long time. From Dante's Inferno to Rob Bell's Love Wins, the reality of hell and who is consigned to it continues to be "hotly" debated.
Damned Nation looks at a critical slice of American history from the formation of our country up through the Civil War and the contested ground of the preaching of hell during this period. On the one hand, this book considers the prevalence of the preaching of hell when this was already waning in Europe, and seems to suggest that many public figures were supportive of this preaching as a form of social control in a forming country. On the other, it explores the alternative ideas about judgment that were already present even prior to the civil war. This is encapsulated in the illuminating profiles of two preachers with the same name, "Salvation" and "Damnation" Murray and the distinctive styles and theological convictions of their preaching.
Lum traces this preaching in the Second Great Awakening of the 1820s and 30s as well as the growing concerns about the impact of such preaching on some troubled individuals. In her second section, "Adaptation and Dissent", she particularly explores not only the tempering of such preaching but also alternative visions of heaven and hell in Joseph Smith and the Latter Day Saints, Swedenborgians, and in Native American religion.
It is fascinating to see how the concept of damnation is part of the discussions of slavery and abolition and is handled during the Civil War. Most often, it was very tempting to consign the opposition (whether slaveholding or abolitionist) to hell, and then there were African-American voices who consigned their oppressors to hell. Hell and the state of one's soul was also a concern of chaplains preparing soldiers going into battle. However, the message was different for the families of those who died in battle, where death in battle or prison camps itself was treated as having an atoning effect that assured the deceased of heaven's glories. Lum, as have others, notes the distinctive note Lincoln sounded in his second inaugural of seeing the war as a judgment of God on north and south alike.
I found Lum fair and meticulous in the handling of primary source material, mostly consisting of sermons and other printed tracts. Perhaps space did not permit this but I found myself wondering if more might have been done to situate particular preachers' preaching of hell and damnation in the wider body of their work. It is common, for example to focus on the images of being dangled over the flames in Edward's "Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God", which is admittedly drastic language, but many treatments of this sermon neglect its larger theological context, which emphasizes the mercies of God in giving the opportunity to turn and respond to Christ's saving work.
While some find any mention of hell or judgment offensive, others (and Lum does note this) would find equally offensive the idea of a God who fails to judge evil. In the concluding sections of her book, Lum extends this conversation to the present, chronicling the continued belief in hell for a number or even majority of Americans and that this belief continues to be contested ground.
This review is based on an advanced e-galley copy of this book provided by the publisher through Netgalley. No compensation was received for this review and the opinions in this review are that of the reviewer alone.
Damned Nation looks at a critical slice of American history from the formation of our country up through the Civil War and the contested ground of the preaching of hell during this period. On the one hand, this book considers the prevalence of the preaching of hell when this was already waning in Europe, and seems to suggest that many public figures were supportive of this preaching as a form of social control in a forming country. On the other, it explores the alternative ideas about judgment that were already present even prior to the civil war. This is encapsulated in the illuminating profiles of two preachers with the same name, "Salvation" and "Damnation" Murray and the distinctive styles and theological convictions of their preaching.
Lum traces this preaching in the Second Great Awakening of the 1820s and 30s as well as the growing concerns about the impact of such preaching on some troubled individuals. In her second section, "Adaptation and Dissent", she particularly explores not only the tempering of such preaching but also alternative visions of heaven and hell in Joseph Smith and the Latter Day Saints, Swedenborgians, and in Native American religion.
It is fascinating to see how the concept of damnation is part of the discussions of slavery and abolition and is handled during the Civil War. Most often, it was very tempting to consign the opposition (whether slaveholding or abolitionist) to hell, and then there were African-American voices who consigned their oppressors to hell. Hell and the state of one's soul was also a concern of chaplains preparing soldiers going into battle. However, the message was different for the families of those who died in battle, where death in battle or prison camps itself was treated as having an atoning effect that assured the deceased of heaven's glories. Lum, as have others, notes the distinctive note Lincoln sounded in his second inaugural of seeing the war as a judgment of God on north and south alike.
I found Lum fair and meticulous in the handling of primary source material, mostly consisting of sermons and other printed tracts. Perhaps space did not permit this but I found myself wondering if more might have been done to situate particular preachers' preaching of hell and damnation in the wider body of their work. It is common, for example to focus on the images of being dangled over the flames in Edward's "Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God", which is admittedly drastic language, but many treatments of this sermon neglect its larger theological context, which emphasizes the mercies of God in giving the opportunity to turn and respond to Christ's saving work.
While some find any mention of hell or judgment offensive, others (and Lum does note this) would find equally offensive the idea of a God who fails to judge evil. In the concluding sections of her book, Lum extends this conversation to the present, chronicling the continued belief in hell for a number or even majority of Americans and that this belief continues to be contested ground.
This review is based on an advanced e-galley copy of this book provided by the publisher through Netgalley. No compensation was received for this review and the opinions in this review are that of the reviewer alone.
April 2, 2016
"Damned Nation: Hell in American from the Revolution to the Reconstruction" is an absorbing account of how people thought of Hell during the USA's infancy.
The narrative of Hell during the period this book covers begins with the legacy of Jonathan Edwards and other Calvinists who proclaimed that God had already elected those who were destined to Hell and those who would enjoy the bliss of Heaven. This stark and bleak dogma was gradually assailed by different religious and cultural forces, causing worry to many because they saw Hell as a foreboding punishment that would maintain morality in society (even today Christian apologists use the Hell as an indication of Christianity's justness).
Gin Lum is astute in noting the tensions between Calvinism and Arminianism regarding Hell; the burgeoning Methodists and many Baptists adhered to Arminianism. Significantly, universalism, while not widely popular among Americans, offered criticisms of the orthodox doctrine of Hell. Gin Lum contrasts the "Salvation" and "Damnation" Murrays thoroughly on this point. She also briefly touches upon annihilationism as a mediating position but I wish she had spent more time discussing it. Instead of God's sovereign choice, Hell increasingly came to be seen as the fitting fate for those who intentionally rejected God (a belief still prevalent in Christianity).
Sentimentality increasingly affected American culture during this time. Instead of believing that babies were capable of being condemned to Hell due to original sin, clergy tried to comfort their parishioners and family tried to assuage their own anxieties by believing they would see their infants and young children in Heaven. Americans were also hopeful about deathbed conversions, particularly during the carnage of the Civil War. Sentimentality was especially inculcated by fiction written by women, such as "The Minister's Wooing" and "The Gates Ajar".
Racism played a role in challenging Hell. The Native Americans and other indigenous groups that came into contact with missionaries often refused to convert to Christianity because if Christianity was true, then they would be separated from their forebears; while they would enter into Heaven, they would not have access to their ancestors in the afterlife. This is important because it reminds us that unlike modern North American culture, many other peoples have a strong communal identity which is not nearly as individualistic as we are. This also reveals an important and understandable source of consternation for non-Christians who worry about their non-Christian friends and family.
The issue of slavery also related to Hell. Abolitionists and slaves declared that slaveowners were sentencing themselves to Hell by cruelly abusing their slaves and refusing to free them. Meanwhile, slaveowners and Southern ministers claimed they were being MORE faithful to Scripture because they were literally following the Bible's prescriptions regarding slavery. This demonstrates the close ties between religion, politics and racism and how all of these affected the USA leading up to and during the Civil War.
I commend Gin Lum for her sources. She not only makes liberal use of primary sources (she notes how she sought to maintain the original language of the writers) but she also draws upon both men and women's accounts, including African-Americans (although these accounts are limited to men). Virtually all of the sources focus on Protestant Christianity so Roman Catholic perspectives are largely left out.
As per Goodreads guidelines, I received this book free as the winner of a First Reads giveaway. I was not required to write a positive review.
The narrative of Hell during the period this book covers begins with the legacy of Jonathan Edwards and other Calvinists who proclaimed that God had already elected those who were destined to Hell and those who would enjoy the bliss of Heaven. This stark and bleak dogma was gradually assailed by different religious and cultural forces, causing worry to many because they saw Hell as a foreboding punishment that would maintain morality in society (even today Christian apologists use the Hell as an indication of Christianity's justness).
Gin Lum is astute in noting the tensions between Calvinism and Arminianism regarding Hell; the burgeoning Methodists and many Baptists adhered to Arminianism. Significantly, universalism, while not widely popular among Americans, offered criticisms of the orthodox doctrine of Hell. Gin Lum contrasts the "Salvation" and "Damnation" Murrays thoroughly on this point. She also briefly touches upon annihilationism as a mediating position but I wish she had spent more time discussing it. Instead of God's sovereign choice, Hell increasingly came to be seen as the fitting fate for those who intentionally rejected God (a belief still prevalent in Christianity).
Sentimentality increasingly affected American culture during this time. Instead of believing that babies were capable of being condemned to Hell due to original sin, clergy tried to comfort their parishioners and family tried to assuage their own anxieties by believing they would see their infants and young children in Heaven. Americans were also hopeful about deathbed conversions, particularly during the carnage of the Civil War. Sentimentality was especially inculcated by fiction written by women, such as "The Minister's Wooing" and "The Gates Ajar".
Racism played a role in challenging Hell. The Native Americans and other indigenous groups that came into contact with missionaries often refused to convert to Christianity because if Christianity was true, then they would be separated from their forebears; while they would enter into Heaven, they would not have access to their ancestors in the afterlife. This is important because it reminds us that unlike modern North American culture, many other peoples have a strong communal identity which is not nearly as individualistic as we are. This also reveals an important and understandable source of consternation for non-Christians who worry about their non-Christian friends and family.
The issue of slavery also related to Hell. Abolitionists and slaves declared that slaveowners were sentencing themselves to Hell by cruelly abusing their slaves and refusing to free them. Meanwhile, slaveowners and Southern ministers claimed they were being MORE faithful to Scripture because they were literally following the Bible's prescriptions regarding slavery. This demonstrates the close ties between religion, politics and racism and how all of these affected the USA leading up to and during the Civil War.
I commend Gin Lum for her sources. She not only makes liberal use of primary sources (she notes how she sought to maintain the original language of the writers) but she also draws upon both men and women's accounts, including African-Americans (although these accounts are limited to men). Virtually all of the sources focus on Protestant Christianity so Roman Catholic perspectives are largely left out.
As per Goodreads guidelines, I received this book free as the winner of a First Reads giveaway. I was not required to write a positive review.
October 18, 2014
A readable survey on the belief and non-belief in eternal perdition in America from late colonial times up to Reconstruction. Although the bast majority of people and especially ministers believed in it, that dissenting belief in universal salvation was significant and instructive. One woman said that so much love as to be crucified just couldn't go to waste with most people. Many thought that preaching damnation was important for social control but the evidence cited suggests that brimstone preaching did not seem to effect people who wanted to be bad and insensitive. The later chapters on slavery and race relations are especially interesting as we see how intertwined the opinions about Hell were with the institution with abolitionists (including non-believers such as Garrison) insisting that slave owners would be damned and slave owners being convinced they would be damned if they gave up slavery. Recommended for anyone interested in the subject.
May 28, 2016
Kathryn Gin Lum offers a survey of how Hell was used in American culture in the late eighteenth through the late nineteenth century. Clergy, laity, and slaves are all included. Gin Lum asks the question of why Hell was such a compelling and enduring idea in the early United States. The reader will find some unexpected material here that is grounds for pondering how eternity breaks into daily life. For further thoughts on this book see my blog post on it: Sects and Violence in the Ancient World.
April 6, 2023
This is a fascinating read on how the doctrine of Hell has been used throughout American history. If you ever struggled with the doctrine of Hell, the. This book will help you understand some reasons why.
February 2, 2018
Solidly interesting. Recommend.
October 16, 2024
Very good would have liked more of a pre-colonial set up but otherwise great
April 12, 2015
A bit dry & academic, so I'll admit that I only skimmed the middle sections. Lum's book explores the relationship between hell-talk and politics in America from around 1776 to the Civil War. Her thesis is that after the overthrow (more or less) of a monarchial government, there was a concern among Americans: absent a king's force, guided by his morals, how does a nation ruled by the people remain a moral country? That is to say, if people only behave morally because of governmental force, what happens when there is no king, and a majority of voters decide to make immoral behaviors not-illegal? The churches of the period, as Lum documents extensively, increased their hell-talk, their threats of damnation as a way of inducing people to maintain the moral path in the absence of governmental force. Still, if I am moral, I'm bound for heaven: if my neighbor, immoral, is bound for hell, how's that my concern? That is, how do we counter tolerance or pluralism, and ensure that the moral don't agree that government shouldn't force their morality on the immoral? Lum documents, too, an increasing element (in the early 1800s) of "if your neighbor sins and you stood by and let it happen without protest, and he goes to hell, then God will hold *you* responsible for failing to warn/stop your neighbor, and you, too, will go to hell."
Alas, most of the middle section of the book went off in the direction of how that line of thinking led to the missionary movement of the mid-19th century, and the countervailing movement of "don't missionize the stupid savages" [how do we know they're stupid? because they're not accepting Christianity, duh] and "instead, missionize the 'lost' of our own country." Her later chapters, on how hell-talk was used rhetorically in abolition speeches (and anti-abolition tracts as well), are somewhat more interesting. In the slavery chapter, a new element of emphasis --that God will damn the country as a whole for keeping slaves-- comes in to play in the hell-talk of the day.
In her epilogue, she brings the topic of hell a little into the present day, noting a decrease (according to the Pew Survey) in belief in hell among Americans, and a general discomfort among most of her students with hell-talk, but I wish she had gone just a bit further and explicitly tracked the "if I stand by while my neighbor sins I will go to hell and the country will be damned by God" idea into the present thinking of those who, not content with themselves choosing to avoid homosexual behavior, abortions, or other causes celebre, want to make it impossible/illegal for others to choose those things. Understanding their intolerance not as simple bigotry, but as a self-interest, may open an opportunity for dialogue.
Alas, most of the middle section of the book went off in the direction of how that line of thinking led to the missionary movement of the mid-19th century, and the countervailing movement of "don't missionize the stupid savages" [how do we know they're stupid? because they're not accepting Christianity, duh] and "instead, missionize the 'lost' of our own country." Her later chapters, on how hell-talk was used rhetorically in abolition speeches (and anti-abolition tracts as well), are somewhat more interesting. In the slavery chapter, a new element of emphasis --that God will damn the country as a whole for keeping slaves-- comes in to play in the hell-talk of the day.
In her epilogue, she brings the topic of hell a little into the present day, noting a decrease (according to the Pew Survey) in belief in hell among Americans, and a general discomfort among most of her students with hell-talk, but I wish she had gone just a bit further and explicitly tracked the "if I stand by while my neighbor sins I will go to hell and the country will be damned by God" idea into the present thinking of those who, not content with themselves choosing to avoid homosexual behavior, abortions, or other causes celebre, want to make it impossible/illegal for others to choose those things. Understanding their intolerance not as simple bigotry, but as a self-interest, may open an opportunity for dialogue.
February 20, 2015
Goodreads First Reads Giveaway Book.
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Damned Nation: Hell in America from the Revolution to Reconstruction is a well-researched text about "hell-fire and brimstone" Christianity during America's formative years, which is really an update of the author's doctoral dissertation of a similar title from Yale in 2010.
What is Hell? And, where did one find the truth about this? Like most religious questions, the best place to begin would've been the Bible, or from someone quoting / referencing it. Many documents during this period contained vivid descriptions of Hell as a place of flaming fire, perhaps because many Christian leaders used Scriptures as vivid descriptions of judgment and eternal damnation to encourage repentance and control behavior. The next probing question plaguing many was who was damned to Hell. Many early American's listened to Bible-thumping preachers with their hell-fire and damnation sermons, believing those damned to Hell were those evil heathens who didn't believe in their religious notions and were unwilling to repent of their sins.
The author, Kathryn Gin Lum, an Assistant Professor in the Department of Religious Studies at Stanford University, analyzed in her book how the prevailing belief in Hell influenced people's perceptions of religion and their role in the world. These same Americans feared believing that they and others they knew would be damned to eternal Hell. The author used these same beliefs to partially explain the current ideas about Hell in America, identifying the Westboro Baptist Church as a notorious example of a group that publically preaches a list of sins worthy of eternal damnation. As many today believe, without a concept of Hell, many early Americans found it difficult to believe in a just God who would eventually correct the wrongs people commit against one another.
Is Hell a separation from God or is it a fiery pit for all of eternity ? No one really knows. We just need to figure out how we're going to reconcile eternal damnation in Hell with God's love for us in Heaven, as the prospect of eternal torment is irreconcilable with God's love. Perhaps, we should think of Hell as separation from God, the source of all love, joy, peace, and light . This punishment would be much worse than damnation to an eternity in a dark pit with fire and brimstone.
Damned Nation, with its extensive set of endnotes and useful index of key terms, is a must-read and valuable addition to anyone's religious library.
------------------------------------
Damned Nation: Hell in America from the Revolution to Reconstruction is a well-researched text about "hell-fire and brimstone" Christianity during America's formative years, which is really an update of the author's doctoral dissertation of a similar title from Yale in 2010.
What is Hell? And, where did one find the truth about this? Like most religious questions, the best place to begin would've been the Bible, or from someone quoting / referencing it. Many documents during this period contained vivid descriptions of Hell as a place of flaming fire, perhaps because many Christian leaders used Scriptures as vivid descriptions of judgment and eternal damnation to encourage repentance and control behavior. The next probing question plaguing many was who was damned to Hell. Many early American's listened to Bible-thumping preachers with their hell-fire and damnation sermons, believing those damned to Hell were those evil heathens who didn't believe in their religious notions and were unwilling to repent of their sins.
The author, Kathryn Gin Lum, an Assistant Professor in the Department of Religious Studies at Stanford University, analyzed in her book how the prevailing belief in Hell influenced people's perceptions of religion and their role in the world. These same Americans feared believing that they and others they knew would be damned to eternal Hell. The author used these same beliefs to partially explain the current ideas about Hell in America, identifying the Westboro Baptist Church as a notorious example of a group that publically preaches a list of sins worthy of eternal damnation. As many today believe, without a concept of Hell, many early Americans found it difficult to believe in a just God who would eventually correct the wrongs people commit against one another.
Is Hell a separation from God or is it a fiery pit for all of eternity ? No one really knows. We just need to figure out how we're going to reconcile eternal damnation in Hell with God's love for us in Heaven, as the prospect of eternal torment is irreconcilable with God's love. Perhaps, we should think of Hell as separation from God, the source of all love, joy, peace, and light . This punishment would be much worse than damnation to an eternity in a dark pit with fire and brimstone.
Damned Nation, with its extensive set of endnotes and useful index of key terms, is a must-read and valuable addition to anyone's religious library.
January 19, 2015
To repeat the other comments, when this book was speaking to abolitionists and the way hell was used in the slavery debates / Era of Reconstruction, this book was very interesting. Too often though, it focused on a retelling of the story of Christianity in America that, while it is an interesting story worth telling, is not really what I expected from a book with this title. In 328 pages, you're probably not going to be able to get into a lot of depth on the Great Awakening and also cover all the interesting abolitionist stuff mentioned prior. I felt like this book either needed to stick with one time period or expand out another hundred pages. As it is, this book is an academic work cut to trade size and doesn't really excel at either.
March 5, 2015
I received this from Goodread's First Read Program.
I feel bad, it took me so long to finish this book, and not because it was bad, but it was intense and deserved my full attention. This book is a fascinating read on Hell and how it shaped the growth of this country's culture. It covers so many different aspects of how both fear of Hell and preaching fire and brimstone affected people throughout the various stages of American history.
It is an aspect I had not looked into much before, but I am glad I did, because it is quite fascinating!
I feel bad, it took me so long to finish this book, and not because it was bad, but it was intense and deserved my full attention. This book is a fascinating read on Hell and how it shaped the growth of this country's culture. It covers so many different aspects of how both fear of Hell and preaching fire and brimstone affected people throughout the various stages of American history.
It is an aspect I had not looked into much before, but I am glad I did, because it is quite fascinating!
March 7, 2015
In this excellent work of cultural history, Kathryn Gin Lum looks at how conceptions of future punishment shaped early America. This book is really well researched, and does a good job showing how people's theology of hell enabled them/compelled them/empowered them to respond to the world around them. Gin Lum also looks at how different ideas of hell competed with each other, and how some of these ideas shifted and changed over time. There are times where this books' larger argument gets lost in the details, but the details are worth getting lost in and this work is well worth reading.
January 7, 2015
I thought it was an okay book. There were sections I like and felt were short and then were sections that were long and I started to skim. Maybe I was not in the right mood to read it. It was good.
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