Wednesday, June 19, 2013

Religion and Revolution: A Review of James Byrd's Sacred Scripture, Sacred War

Religion in American History tells us about it here.

4 comments:

Mark David Hall said...

I don't have time to review the book, but I recently finished it and, for what it is worthy, recommend it highly.

MH

Tom Van Dyke said...

Awesome. The revisionists are getting revised.

"With its remarkable research and deft insights, Sacred Scripture, Sacred War represents a major breakthrough in the study of religion and the American Founding. Never before have we had such a systematic investigation of how the Patriots actually used the Bible. Anyone interested in the Revolution will have to contend with Byrd's book." -- Thomas S. Kidd, author of God of Liberty: A Religious History of the American Revolution

The problem has been that "secular" historians just don't hear the religious echoes in the talk of the times, or understand the zeitgeist of a society for which God and his providence was a reality, not just one theory among many.

If they didn't believe God was on their side [or at least not hostile to what they were doing], they could not have gone through with it.

Tim Polack said...

Was very surprised to see that only two papers were submitted for the religious and the Revolution topic. Certainly would expect more there as Religion as on of the most popular sub-topics in history. Am I misreading something?

Tom Van Dyke said...

Was very surprised to see that only two papers were submitted for the religious and the Revolution topic. Certainly would expect more there as Religion as on of the most popular sub-topics in history. Am I misreading something?

The discipline has taken a Marxist ["marxian" may be less noisy]turn---it's less about history and more an egalitarian forensic anthropology. Sure, George Washington blahblahblah, but how did that affect your average mestizo bisexual Zoroastrian dwarf?