Ever since I read Mark Noll’s book on “turning points” I have wondered at times about the turning points in the formation of 1st Century Christianity. Of course, birth, teaching, miracles, confession, transfiguration… of course, such events are at some level turning points. But they are just too obvious. Outside the big events in the life of Jesus, what were the turning points in the early church? Mark Noll asked this about church history and Elesha Coffman asks this in American church history in her new book, Turning Points in American Church History: How Pivotal Events Shaped a Nation and a Faith (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2024).
American church history is important to American history because of its influence.
American church history is important because it shaped the faith of Christians in the USA today, which is “lumpy and angular in some context-specific ways.” It is in fact distinctively American.
American church history reminds us that American Christianity is not straight from the Bible.
We are different from and not just part of. An Egyptian Muslim recently told me that when he came to the USA he couldn’t believe how little the churches are here. “In our country they are huge.” His point was that our churches are unimpressive. I’ve not been to Egypt, but European cathedrals stagger. Perhaps that’s what he had in mind. Anyway, American Christianity is its own thing. Turning points here clarify American Christianity.
Turning points help us to order our past; pondering specific events reveal the complexity of events and challenge simplistic moments that fit into a constructionist plot; they give us the opportunity to explain why some events matter more than others.
I have done this many times in Jesus classes simply by asking “What were the most important events in the life of Jesus?” Discussions enlighten us all. Which highlights an inevitability about a turning points approach: different scholars would load in different turning points. There is no hermeneutic that drops the 10 most important moments in American church history. We are dealing with a dialectic and a discussion, with some debates.
What are your turning points in American church history?
So what are Coffman’s turning points:
The defeat of the Spanish armada as upending the old world order.
Roger Williams banned from Massachusetts as the limits of religious freedom
King Philip’s war and a collision of cultures
George Whitefield and evangelicalism
The first African American church and a faith for the enslaved and free
The first American RC bishop and a church far from Rome
American Bible society and the benevolent empire
The Methodists split over slavery and a house divided
Student volunteer movements and muscular missions
Azusa Street’s revival and the Los Angeles fire
The Scopes “Monkey” trial and science challenging religion
16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, civil rights, and uncivil religion
Reagan’s presidency and religion moves right.
Wow, those are some great topics to ponder both the American church history but also Christianity that we have in the USA now.
Join us. Buy the book. Read along with me.
For me turning point was the birth of Youth for Christ in 1944.
Thanks Scott for sharing this book . I find it really interesting.