The American Reformation

The American Reformation May 22, 2015

Amy Kittelstrom:

I’d want to get the term “individualism” or “autonomy” connected to her concept of “moral agency,” but I found this excerpt provocative and thoughtful and worthy of reading her book.

Looking at the historical contribution of New England as an American Reformation instead of an American Renaissance shows that a democratic approach to religion forged the real liberal tradition in America. The American Reformation began as an extended conversation among professing Christians whose basic premises were spare: the perfection of God and the moral agency of human beings. About everything else they argued. In the face of disagreements, liberals tried to maintain open minds and to believe in the possibility and desirability of progress— moral progress, human progress, and social progress dependent on each individual’s growth in conversation with other individuals, rather than in opposition to them, in a society that rises together if it is to rise at all. Liberals strove to keep their minds open to other people’s perspectives because they knew they were fallible, like all humans, which meant that their own opinions might be wrong, and because they believed that all humans also bore within some unique quality of the infinite divine from which others might learn. Human beings are essentially equal, profoundly equal, as fellow fallen creatures of the same perfect God. They need freedom in order to exercise their divine right of private judgment— to heed their sacred inner voices of reason and conscience and to evaluate others’ opinions— and they have a duty to use this freedom to express their perspective on truth as faithfully as they can. The American Reformation produced not only Christians who called themselves liberals, but also liberal intellectual culture, in which both listening with humility and speaking with integrity are acts of piety.


Browse Our Archives