tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37589721331585843.post2654501267410768100..comments2024-03-26T11:33:59.219-06:00Comments on Religion in American History: Beyond Religious Boundaries: Thoughts on David Cannadine's "The Undivided Past"Paul Harveyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13881964303772343114noreply@blogger.comBlogger2125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37589721331585843.post-75797551254226646542013-07-07T06:45:27.631-06:002013-07-07T06:45:27.631-06:00Thanks, Mark. I think you're absolutely right:...Thanks, Mark. I think you're absolutely right: personal temperament and perspective plays a huge role in questions of continuity, difference, and commonality. While I like Cannadine's suggestion for a reorientation toward commonality, I struggle with him on precisely this issue. Perspective matters, and in all of these matters - not just religion, but race, class, gender - there are matters of power that risk not being addressed, and a whole host of voices that risk not being seriously heard, in an effort to rescue histories of humanity's potential unity.<br /><br />The F-M conflicts would certainly merit some good questions in this regard, and your point about institutional change is very interesting. Perhaps the best place to test Cannadine's argument in that respect is at the ground level: in congregations, or even small towns, where the level of intimacy between neighbors and congregation members makes division over theology and cultural issues something truly threatening to community integrity. I suppose Cannadine would want us to simply shift our perspective and emphasis: who works to avoid or negotiate through such conflicts? To dampen their effects? How do we measure the true "depth" of such conflict?Trevor Burrowshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09152840020978882789noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37589721331585843.post-9642883746814571252013-07-05T11:24:43.650-06:002013-07-05T11:24:43.650-06:00Thought-provoking post as usual, Trevor. I think ...Thought-provoking post as usual, Trevor. I think Cannadine's point about elite conflict obscuring continuity would certainly apply to the Fundamentalist-Modernist controversy of the 1920s, an event remarkable for how little institutional shake-up actually occurred. Of course, to your point about overemphasizing continuity, those close to the PCUSA-OPC-Princeton Seminary-Westminster Seminary fights would say I'm mistaken. Isn't this partly an issue of personal temperament: There are scholars of continuity, and there are scholars of difference, and that divide is as much a matter of interpretation as it is "evidence?"Mark T. Edwardshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13687874101232569510noreply@blogger.com