American Religion
THE title of this book is misleading, as is that of the series Under- standing America, of which it is the first volume to appear. The reader will find here not a general study of religious life in America but a penetrating diagnosis of the present condition of the Christian and Jewish faiths -in the United States. Dean Sperry, a former Rhodes scholar, is admirably qualified to interpret to English readers a state of affairs in which similarities are more superficial, and differences less radical, than might at first appear. No reviewer can hope to surpass the admirable review of his book which Dean Sperry himself has given in his preface: I finally decided that the book had best be an implied conversa- tion between myself here in America and you in England. . . . America is an informal couutry, and these pages would 'be a wholly
false transcript of our life, if they were too formally dressed up to go abroad. I have come to you therefore in our everyday clothes, rather than in Sabbath-day guise. . . . A disproportionate amount of space in the pages which follow has been given to the small sects in America. . . I have thought that you would be more interested to know about religious movements and institutions which are not paralleled in England, than to be told about denomina- tions with which you are already familiar, and which differ from yours only in local nuances.
The book which follows is urbane, humorous, informative, acute, balanced, self-critical, modest ; in fact there is scarcely an end to the laudatory adjectilles which might be piled on it. Dean Sperry takes on the whole a hopeful view of the prospects of Christianity in his country. Since 193o, the genial optimism and belief in individual effort which characterised American religion no less than Amercan life, and largely determined its politics, have been severely shaken by the catastrophes of the depression and of the war, and deep reconstruction of national modes of thought is going on, without immediately visible results. But the nation has not to any great extent abandoned Christianity, and is still deeply influenced by its own rather activist and humanistic interpretation of the Christian faith. The increase in Church membership in all the main denominations is more rapid than the general increase of the population. But Christian educationists, there as here, are beginning to be seriously concerned about " how to begin all over again the ' evangelisation of the native races' in our colleges and universities." On one matter only Dean Sperry failed to enlighten me. I looked eagerly for a reference to the " Amish Mennonites in Pennsylvania, who for religious reasons fasten their garments with hooks and eyes rather than with buttons! " and here they are on pages 4 and 103. But what are the religious reasons?
One thing this book makes abundantly clear. If American religion is still, as Dean Sperry candidly states, adolescent, American theology is now without doubt adult. The change from adolescence to full manhood has taken place somewhere between the years 1914 and 1945. It is perhaps the most significant new factor in the
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