New World Metaphysics: Readings on the Religious Meaning of the American ExperienceGiles Gunn From the days of discovery, when America was for Europeans more dream than reality, to our own days of disillusionment and faltering hope, poets, philosophers, historians, novelists, and theologians have drawn on religious themes and images to express the meaning of their encounter with America. Here, in more than one hundred selections, is the record of their quest for a New World metaphysics -- a spiritual vision or ultimate idea of order expressive of the American experience. |
Contents
PREPARATIONS 16071740 | 39 |
LOOMINGS 17401830 | 87 |
REALIZATIONS 18301915 | 167 |
REJECTIONS AND REVISIONS 19151950 | 337 |
RECOVERIES 19501980 | 403 |
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Common terms and phrases
American appear atheism beauty believe body Boon called Chief Christ Christian church civil common consciousness death Deism divine doctrine earth Emily Dickinson ence eternal evil existence experience express eyes fact faith father fear feel give glory God's Goodman Brown H. L. Mencken hand hath heart heaven henotheism Herman Melville holy human idea ideal Indian Jesus Jonah knew Kobotsky land laws live look Lord Malcolm X man's Marianne Moore McCaslin meaning ment metaphysics mind monotheism moral nation nature Negro ness never night persons philosophy Pioneers prayer principle Puritan reason relation religion religious scripture seemed sense slaves social Social Gospel soul speak spirit stand sweet T. S. Eliot theology things thou thought tion true truth uncon unto virtue Walt Whitman whole wilderness words Young Goodman Brown
Popular passages
Page 101 - In that hour Jesus rejoiced in spirit, and said, I thank thee, O Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that thou hast hid these things from the wise and prudent, and hast revealed them unto babes: even so. Father; for so it seemed good in thy sight.
Page 278 - There runs not a drop of my blood in the veins of any living creature. This called on me for revenge. I have sought it : I have killed many : I have fully glutted my vengeance. For my country I rejoice at the beams of peace. But do not harbor a thought that mine is the joy of fear.
Page 258 - If we shall suppose that American slavery is one of those offenses which, in the providence of God, must needs come, but which, having continued through His appointed time, He now wills to remove, and that He gives to both North and South this terrible war, as the woe due to those by whom the offense came, shall we discern therein any departure from those divine attributes which the believers in a living God always ascribe to Him? Fondly do we hope, fervently do we pray, that this mighty scourge...
Page 278 - I appeal to any white man to say, if ever he entered Logan's cabin hungry, and he gave him not meat, if ever he came cold and naked, and he clothed him not.
Page 228 - I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived...
Page 132 - ... to suffer the civil magistrate to intrude his powers into the field of opinion, and to restrain the profession or propagation of principles on suppostion of their ill tendency, is a dangerous fallacy, which at once destroys all religious liberty...
Page 141 - Speak not but what may benefit others or yourself; avoid trifling conversation. 3. — ORDER. Let all your things have their places ; let each part of your business have its time. 4. — RESOLUTION. Resolve to perform what you ought ; perform without fail what you resolve.
Page 127 - He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected; whereby the Legislative powers, incapable of Annihilation, have returned to the People at large for their exercise; the State remaining, in the meantime, exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within.
Page xxiii - The land was ours before we were the land's. She was our land more than a hundred years Before we were her people. She was ours In Massachusetts, in Virginia, But we were England's, still colonials, Possessing what we still were unpossessed by, Possessed by what we now no more possessed.
References to this book
A Muslim in Victorian America: The Life of Alexander Russell Webb Umar F. Abd-Allah Limited preview - 2006 |