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{"id":22759,"date":"2017-02-26T01:48:59","date_gmt":"2017-02-26T05:48:59","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/admin.patheos.com\/blogs\/anxiousbench\/?p=22759"},"modified":"2017-02-20T12:22:49","modified_gmt":"2017-02-20T16:22:49","slug":"blood-from-the-sky","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/anxiousbench\/2017\/02\/blood-from-the-sky\/","title":{"rendered":"Blood From The Sky"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

I have not read this yet, but I just came across a book that looks exactly my kind of thing. This is Adam Jortner, Blood from the Sky: Miracles and Politics in the Early American Republic<\/em> (University of Virginia Press, 2017).<\/p>\n

Here is the description:<\/p>\n

In the decades following the Revolution, the supernatural exploded across the American landscape<\/em>\u2015fabulous reports of healings, exorcisms, magic, and angels crossed the nation. Under First Amendment protections, new sects based on such miracles proliferated. At the same time, Enlightenment philosophers and American founders explicitly denied the possibility of supernatural events, dismissing them as deliberate falsehoods<\/em>\u2015and, therefore, efforts to suborn the state. Many feared that belief in the supernatural itself was a danger to democracy. In this way, miracles became a political problem and prompted violent responses in the religious communities of Prophetstown, Turtle Creek, and Nauvoo. <\/em><\/p>\n

In Blood from the Sky, Adam Jortner argues that the astonishing breadth and extent of American miracles and supernaturalism following independence derived from Enlightenment ideas about proof and sensory evidence, offering a chance at certain belief in an uncertain religious climate. Jortner breaks new ground in explaining the rise of radical religion in antebellum America, revisiting questions of disenchantment, modernity, and religious belief in a history of astounding events that<\/em>\u2015as early Americans would have said<\/em>\u2015needed to be seen to be believed.<\/em><\/p>\n

The book discusses Shakers, Native Indian prophets, and Mormons<\/a>. Roughly, it covers the period from 1800 through the 1840s. I\u2019ll be interested to see how he fits Nat Turner<\/a> into the mix: the Joseph Smith parallels are really quite striking.<\/p>\n

I look forward to writing more when I actually have a copy to hand.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"