Making Monday Matter: American Evangelicalism and the Deprivatization of Economic Orientations in the 20th Century

• In Event: 2218 - Public Religions in Comparative-Historical Perspective

Abstract

While Max Weber brought great attention to the economic orientations of 17th and 18th century Protestantism, far less attention has been devoted to the economic orientations of later forms of American Protestantism. The present project works to fill this lacuna by applying a comparative-historical approach to cultural frameworks for Conservative Protestants across the 20th century, comparing turn-of-the-century White Protestant Fundamentalism with mid-century Evangelicalism. Over eighty lay texts from two different eras—1889 to 1929 and 1939-1979—were coded and analyzed for themes around work, occupations, and secular callings in the economic sphere. Comparison of texts from these two eras reveal a narrative of drastic evolution as Protestant theological writers grappled with economic and social changes of the 20th century. Drawing on Casanova’s understanding of deprivatization, I argue this evolution is best understood as a quietest “fundamentalist work ethic” giving way to a more public Evangelical work ethic. Central to this shift is a reflexive awareness of the moral crisis of the “Sunday-Monday” gap, which authors observed would obstruct the religious laity’s efforts to practice a consistent faith across life. Four distinct frameworks of deprivatized theologies take on this gap different ways, declaring work, respectively, a mission field, as part of an ordained economic order, as work as sacred activity, or work as a site of cultural transformation. This project illuminates how these four frameworks each carved out a new path for neo-Evangelicalism to inject values and practices into the economic sphere while adjusting to the changing work circumstances of late modern capitalism.

Author

• Andrew Paul Lynn, University of Virginia