Synopses & Reviews
Under the Big Top examines the immensely popular big tent revivals of turn-of-the-twentieth-century America and develops a new framework for understanding Protestantism in this transformative period of the nation's history. Contemporary critics of the revivalists often depicted them as anxious and outdated religious opponents of a modern, urban nation. Early historical accounts likewise portrayed tent revivalists as Victorian hold-outs, bent on re-establishing nineteenth-century values and religion in a new America. In this revisionist work, Josh McMullen argues that, contrary to these stereotypes, big tent revivalists actually participated in the shift away from Victorianism and helped in the construction of a new consumer culture in the United States.
How did the United States became the most consumer-driven and yet one of the most religious societies in the western world? McMullen shows that revivalists and their audiences reconciled the Protestant ethic of salvation with the emerging consumer ethos by cautiously unlinking Christianity from Victorianism and joining it to the new, emerging consumer culture. Under the Big Top helps to explain the continued appeal of both the therapeutic and the salvific worldview to many Americans as well as the ambivalence that accompanies this combination.
Review
"In the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, Americans loved circuses and freak shows. They also loved big tent revivals. In this fascinating and well-researched book, McMullen carefully demonstrated how the United States' largest revivals and most popular evangelists, working out of tents, tabernacles, and sports arenas, shaped and reflected an age of dramatic change. Religion became not just something to experience but to consume alongside the greatest spectacles of the era."
--Matthew Avery Sutton, author of American Apocalypse: A History of Modern Evangelicalism
"McMullen's work offers a carefully textured, gracefully written study of a small but influential group of 'big tent' evangelists at the turn of the twentieth century. Drawing on impressive research, he argues that these figures both wittingly and unwittingly blended old-fashioned revivalist theology with new-fashioned therapeutic consumer culture. The results proved as ironic as they were effective. McMullen significantly enriches our understanding of religion in that formative era."
--Grant Wacker, Gilbert T. Rowe Professor of Christian History, Duke Divinity School
"In Under the Big Top, Josh McMullen explodes traditional stereotypes that label evangelicalism a backward and retrograde cultural force. Instead, he shows how Victorian evangelicals mobilized advertising, celebrity culture, and the desire for healing - all too familiar tropes of the modern age - on behalf of their message. And in so doing, he argues, they helped usher in the America we know today."
--Matthew Bowman, author of The Urban Pulpit: New York City and the Fate of Liberal Evangelicalism
About the Author
Josh McMullen received his Ph.D. in History from the University of Missouri-Columbia. He completed a Masters in Theology and Church History at Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary. He currently serves as Assistant Professor of History at Regent University.
Table of Contents
Acknowledgments
Introduction
Chapter 1: Reaching the Masses: Big Tent Revivalism and the Populist Impulse
Chapter 2: Old Time Religion: Big Tent Revivalism and the Crisis of Late Victorian Culture
Chapter 3: Between Two Protestant Ethics: Big Tent Revivalism and Muscular Christianity
Chapter 4: The Problem of Pain: Big Tent Revivalism and the Search for Therapeutic Well-Being
Chapter 5: Vim and Vice: Big Tent Revivalism and Urban America
Chapter 6: Make 'Em Laugh, Make 'Em Cry, Make 'Em Think: Big Tent Revivalism and Entertainment Culture
Conclusion
Notes
Index