Response to McClay and Kuklick

July/August 2004 · Historically Speaking1 9 Response to McClay and Kuklick George Marsden I am grateful for these perceptive responses, each ofwhich points out some ambiguities in my essay and offers the opportunity to sort out and clarify the issues. Both respondents note some duality of purpose inmyessay. On the onehand, I claim prescriptivelythat the studyofAmerican historywould be enriched ifmore attention were paid to the role ofexclusivistreligion, ofwhich Jonathan Edwards is a notable and particularlyinfluential exemplar. At the same time, I also make some more normative claims. I say that if students of American history were exposed to the Edwardsean heritage, they might learn some profitable things about the nature ofreality, includingsome usefulinsights thatmightbe applied tohistorical studyitself. Although there is nothingmutually exclusive about these two types ofemphases, theirpresence together raises the legitimate question as to what I am really up to. Since we are all historians, perhaps the best way to answer that question is to reflect on the origins of the essay. It grows out of that self-serving enterprise oftrying to explain to people why they should care about one's book. In doingthatIhave imagined two audiences whom I am addressing simultaneously. First, there are those who are mainly interested in American history, to whom I want to say that Jonathan Edwards ought to be restored to the principal canon. The other audience is made up ofthose who have serious religious sensibilities. So for them, I have wanted to emphasize what might be learned from the sometimes off-putting Edwards. In adapting these thoughts to professional historians who mightread this publication, I have presumed thatI amspeakingto an audience thatis similarlydivided in religious commitments . So I am grateful to the commentators for helping me to clarify my dual purposes. I hope that readers will recognize that my recommendations for integrating a certain type ofreligious historyinto the field are not dependent on mynormative stances. Perhaps I should nothave conjoined the two purposes in one essay. Nonetheless, thatconjunction had the happy effect ofsharpening these two responses. Sometimes I think thatWilfred McClay has a clearer perspective on what I am doing than I myself do. He is correct, first of all, that I am not proposing a radical newnarrative , but only that we improve the present narrative. I think ofmyself as a realist and hope to provide a leaven for the profession, not to convince people to introduce a whole new paradigm. When McClay raises the prospect ofanAmerican historynarrative that can be integrated into the thought of Edwards, his suggestion helps clarify exactly the problem involved in introducing a radicallynew (or old) standard. Edwards read history as, roughlyspeaking, an extension ofthe Old Testament, with God bringing judgments or fulfilling promises through kings and armies, as well as through the spread of the Gospel. Isee novalue in such an approach to American historytoday. For one thing, we do not have the requisite prophetic revelation on which to base such interpretations. Moreover, I am entirely in agreement with Kuklick's warnings about the pitfalls ofappropriating such traditions for national purposes. I still do think that we can learn byselectively appropriating a few dimensions ofsuch outlooks , like their critique of some aspects of Enlightenment self-confidence. Nonetheless, I make that recommendation onlyin the context of recognizing well-known dangers of more or less equating America with ancient Israel. I do believe (and here Bruce Kuklick is on record elsewhere as strongly disagreeing) that Christians (or other religious believers) might "derive a cognitive benefit" from their religious beliefs. Here I would correct McClays formulationwhen he describes that benefitas bringingreligious believers "within range ofinsights that are simplynot accessible to those holding to a materialist or secularist perspective." Since Kuklick's objection has been against this same construction, I realize that I must underscore my response. Deriving a cognitive benefitfrom a particular source doesnotentail thatothersmightnotderive a similar cognitive benefitfrom anothersource. Saying that one can gain pain relief from aspirin does not imply that one cannot also gain similar relief from Ibuprofen. So, for instance, in my essay I argue that historians might gain from the Edwardsean tradition an alertness to the role ofhuman depravity as an elementinhistorical explanation. That in no way implies that historians might not gain...