American Society of Church History
Religion and Society in the American West: Historical Essays by Carl Guarneri; David Alvarez
Review by: Paul F. Blankenship
Church History, Vol. 58, No. 1 (Mar., 1989), pp. 131-132
Published by: Cambridge University Press on behalf of the American Society of Church History
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BOOK REVIEWS 131
Religion and Society in the American West: Historical Essays. Edited by
CARL GUARNERI and DAVID ALVAREZ. Lanham, Maryland: University
Press of America, 1987. xvi + 491 pp. $36.50 cloth; $23.75 paper.
All but one of the essays which appear in this volume were presented in
earlier versions at a conference on Religion in the American West in June
1984 at St. Mary's College of California where both editors serve on the
faculty. Proceeding from the conviction that "Most historians of American
religion have ignored the Far West, and historians of the Far West have
neglected religion" (p. 8), this book is aimed at correcting such a serious
oversight.
Following Carl Guarneri's helpful introduction, Eldon G. Ernst's "Amer-
ican Religious History from a Pacific Coast Perspective" gives a wide-
ranging and perceptive overview of religion in the Far West, where
"Traditionalism has given in to other priorities" (p. 23). Any nonspecialist
could benefit from some of the articles, which provide a good introduction to a
particular religion or organization. This is especially true of Tony Fells's
"The 'Non-Evangelical Alliance': Freemasonry in Gilded-Age San Francis-
co," in which he gives a careful summary of the whole Freemasonry tradition
as well as its San Francisco manifestation. James McBride's "The Far East,
the Far West, and the Second Coming: The Unification Church in America"
does the same for the Unification church.
Two other articles give an inside look at specific problems within groups in
a way that is beneficial to both specialist and nonspecialist. Lawrence Foster's
" 'Reluctant Polygamists': The Strains and Challenges of the Transition to
Polygamy in a Prominent Mormon Family" focuses on the family of Heber
C. Kimball, who "was one of the closest associates of both Joseph Smith and
Brigham Young, and . . . also was officially the most married of all Mormon
polygamists, with over 40 wives" (p. 131). Here we see the picture of a
Mormon leader with such a close and loving relationship with his first wife,
Vilate, that "he had to be commanded three times in the name of the Lord"
before the obeying the command to take a second wife. Even then, and
through all of his subsequent marriages, his Vilate remained his dearest
love.
Another inside look is provided by Ronald Eugene Isetti's "Americaniza-
tion, Conflict and Convergence in Catholic Higher Education in Late
Nineteenth Century California." He describes the rivalry between the
Jesuits and the Christian Brothers effected by Archbishop Joseph Sadoc
Alemany, who "never got along very well with the Jesuits in the archdiocese"
(p. 335). The conflict between the Jesuits' classical ideal of education with
the Christian Brothers' practical and vocational (but moving toward classi-
cal) ideal-mixed in with archdiocesan politics-is well treated and makes an
interesting and enlightening account.
Essays on Mark Matthews, J. Stitt Wilson, and Peter C. Yorke depict
strong personalities who made a definite impact on their communities:
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132 CHURCH HISTORY
Matthews in Seattle, Wilson in Berkeley, and Yorke in San Francisco. Other
essays deal with Black churches in California, Baptist Railroad churches, the
Mormon Female Relief Society, and many other topics. Frederick Norwood's
"Two Contrasting Views of the Indians: Methodist Involvement in the
Indian Troubles in Oregon and Washington" (published earlier in Church
History, June 1980) is the only article that even touches "Native American
Religion and Its Interaction with Anglo-Christianity" (p. xv). The editors
acknowledge that this subject deserves more attention along with "religious
beliefs among Chinese and Japanese Americans, religious questions in
politics, and the impact of non-Christian religions from Asia" (p. xv).
However, the essays which are included make this volume a significant
contribution to the study of religion in the American Far West.
First United Methodist Church PAUL F. BLANKENSHIP
Covington, Tennessee
The Lively Experiment Continued. Edited by JERALD C. BRAUER. Macon,
Georgia: Mercer University Press, 1987. xix + 250 pp. $39.95 cloth;
$18.95 paper.
Collected essays are notoriously unappealing to publishers, especially
when serving as Festschriften, for they tend to have no central theme. Jerald
Brauer and his collaborators are to be congratulated for largely overcoming
any such shortcomings in this tribute to Sidney E. Mead.
The book's elements are judiciously organized. Three parts follow a brief
introduction: each of the parts has its own coherence, and they build upon
each other most effectively. The premise of the whole is that in his scholarship
and teaching Sidney Mead was a hinge on which the modern study of
American religious history turned.
In the first part, three essays focus upon Mead as in turn historian, teacher,
and theologian. In a case study of the development of American religious
studies Jerald Brauer sets Mead in an institutional context. His conclusions
are arresting, among them the importance he attributes to the prehistory of
the "Sweet era." In this regard Brauer gives his due to the relatively neglected
Peter G. Mode, whom Sweet succeeded. But more fundamentally he argues
that from the outset the historical study of American religion at Chicago
reached well beyond the Divinity School for its resources and clientele. Thus
Mead succeeded not only to Sweet's legacy but also to a far more extensive
and innovative tradition. Martin Marty then offers a most engaging discus-
sion of Mead as teacher, resting his analysis on Mead's consciousness and
self-consciousness as a historian. Finally, J. Ronald Engel discusses Mead's
"theology of the Republic," the basic concept undergirding his work.
The second part flows from the first, for its component essays concern the
hinge on which Mead believed American religious history turns: namely, the
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