Modern American Religion, Volume 3: Under God, Indivisible, 1941-1960 by Martin E. Marty (review)

530BOOK REVIEWS Modern American ReligionNolxxme 3: Under God, Indivisible, 1941-1960. By Martin E. Marty. (Chicago: University of Chicago Press. 1996. Pp. xii, 548. $34.95.) At five-year intervals Martin Marty has presented us with his nuanced understanding of reUgion in America in the twentieth century. Taking roughly two decades at a time, he has now Ui three volumes moved to the opening of the 1960's.We can confidently expect to seeVolume 4 appear on schedule in 2001, at which point the prolific University ofChicago professor wUl have retired and the twentieth century itself wUl be history. Each volume in this series has turned out to be longer than its predecessor, a witness chiefly to the growing complexity of the age. Indeed, one wonders at Marty's abUity to find a handle for what must often seem like a bathtub ofwarm jeUo. But organize and synthesize he does, to the boundless benefit of the reader. One organizing principle that helps in the 1940's and 1950's is the centripetal tendencies manifest: coming together in the large-scale effort ofWorld War II, coming together in the heady optimism of the ecumenical movement, and coming together in cold-war opposition to communism and Protestant opposition to (or at least wariness regarding) Roman Catholicism. Of course, not aU is sweetness and light, especiaUy in matters of ethnicity, race, and gender, but these issues wUl be explored in greater depth inVolume 4 as centrifugal forces take over. Marty here writes neither social nor inteUectual history,but"cultural history" (p. 8).This raises the question of whether it is high culture or popular culture that one finds; Marty clearly intends that it be both. He recognizes, however, that by the nature of this kind ofhistory he will necessarily concentrate on the "articulated element of the populace" (p. 10).This wiU bring him repeatedly to the Niebuhr brothers but also to BUIy Graham, to Paul Tillich and Walter Ong, but also to Martin Luther King and Paul Blanshard.This is not a history ofprivate devotional reUgion, nor is it history from "the bottom up." It is a history ofwhat aroused the pubUc, made the news, and left a clear imprint on the times, at the time. Professor Marty approaches the past with respect and on its own terms. He deUberately rejects the unfair advantage that hindsight brings, even as he disdains the current pattern of proving how much brighter we are than were the benighted folks who preceded us. He recognizes limits and distortions and reckless rhetoric, but he knows that these can be found in every time, including our own.The 1940's and 1950's deserve to be evaluated in terms ofthe presuppositions and "received wisdom" of their own day. WlU Herberg's widely popular Protestant-Catholic-Jew, pubUshed Ui 1955, provides a kind offrame for this volume.Marty discusses most issues and events in terms of the three reUgious perspectives, adding to that trinity, however, much attention to ethnicity and race. He does not have a great deal to say about gender here,because in this period the public debate was carried on almost ex- BOOK REVIEWS531 clusively by men.Women had few outlets for the expression oftheir views and fewer leadership roles."While some women had voices in reUgious journalism, only one or two were tenured in theological schools, and not many taught in religious studies departments, even Ui women's colleges" (p. 232). With the election ofJohn F. Kennedy in 1960, the era ofProtestant hegemony may be said to have ended. Culture became plural and one nation "indivisible" turned into a coUection of interests and factions, infinitely divisible. Edwin S. Gaustad University ofCalifornia, Riverside (Emeritus) Being Right:Conservative Catholics in America. Edited by MaryJoWeaver and R. ScottAppleby. (Bloomington: Indiana University Press. 1995. Pp. xiv, 352. $18.95.) After years ofrelative neglect, conservativeAmerican CathoUcs are starting to attract attention from scholars. First, Patrick AUltt's American Catholics and Conservative Politics, 1950-1985, appeared In 1993· NowWeaver andAppleby have produced this volume.Whüe AUitt focused on the political ideas of a smaU number of influential CathoUcs—most of whom had ties to the National Review —Weaver and Appleby examine...