Summary Of Nathan Hatch's The Democratization Of American Christianity?

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Nathan Hatch has been noted as one of the most influential scholars in the study of the history of religion in America. Nathan was born in raised in Columbia, South Carolina. Records show that Hatch graduated Wheaton college summa cum laude and then advanced with his masters and doctoral degrees from Washington university in St. Louis. Hatch also served as an associate dean at Notre Dame’s College of Arts and letters. It was there that he instituted and directed the institute of scholarship in the liberal arts that involved many changes. Because of the many awards he won, hatch was then pronounced vice president for graduate studies and research in 1989. May it be known that he became the third person to hold that position since its establishment …show more content…

In fact, according to sources, “The Democratization of American Christianity, published by Yale University Press in 1989, garnered three awards. These included the 1989 Albert Outler Prize in Ecumenical Church History and the 1990 John Hope Franklin Prize as the best book in American studies.” Professor Gordon Wood of Brown University called it "the best book on religion in the early Republic that has ever been written"; In a survey of 2,000 historians and sociologists it was also chosen as one of the two most important books when learning American religion.

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The Democratization of American Christianity, by Nathan Hatch, was written to expound in depth the recounting of the five major mass movements of the nineteenth century. Nathan Hatch has been noted as one of the most influential scholars in the study of the history of religion in America. In his book, he profoundly writes to his readers to clarify how “The wave of popular religious movements that broke upon the United States, in the half century after independence did more to Christianize America than …show more content…

He uses this point to support his central claim by delineating three distinct features within the American society. These include fervor for religion, a continued prominence of populist religious leaders, and the vitality of mass democratic movements which characteristically reflect the leaders of the nineteenth century. Hatch states, “studies show that two out of three adults in American still maintain fairly strong religious beliefs” (210). The same was said to be true in that era. Despite the nature and culture of the religious wars and mass movements, Americans as they do today, claimed

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