The Power of Mammon is an excellent contribution to Baptist history and more broadly the history of secularization. (Note: My book God's Rascal: J. Frank Norris and the Beginnings of Southern Fundamentalism, Second Edition, is also part of the America's Baptists series.) The Baptists of New York kept meticulous records that make it possible for Curtis Johnson to track their congregations over more than a century. He does this with skill and painstaking attention to detail, working through the records of forty-two congregations, the “New York sample” as he calls it, and some 19,000 church members. The consistency of these records allows him to produce some instructive tables and charts showing everything from total baptisms for various periods of time, types of religious revivals and awakenings and how effective they were, and even what Johnson names “authoritarian” versus “collaborative” church polity. He sets this study of nineteenth-century New York Baptists within the current scholarly conversation concerning secularization, including the decline of religious affiliation in twenty-first century America.
Johnson sets out to track the correlation between material prosperity related to the nineteenth-century market revolution and the decline of religious commitment among his subjects. In doing so he defines secularization not as an abandonment of religious affiliation, but rather as “a process of religious decentering in which an individual or a religious group modifies, rejects, or abandons core principles that were once central to their identity” (xiv). For his subjects this entailed a weakening of Baptist institutions in the wake of challenges wrought by “forces such as media, politics, individualism, and consumerism.” This, the main thrust of his thesis, is well documented. A bit less persuasive is Johnson's claim that his study shows that the “seeds of American religion's current [that is, twenty-first century] fading influence were actually sown two hundred years ago” (xv).
So what are the markers of religious decline and secularization among nineteenth-century New York Baptists? The most significant is the move away from congregations as “covenanted communities” where members had mutual obligations and were subject to community discipline. This resulted in congregations becoming mere “voluntary societies.” In the latter, members joined and left as they pleased based on their own level of satisfaction. Until 1850, for example, New York Baptists employed a “church tax,” pegged to the value of a family's property, and people tended to submit to this assessment, or “average,” as it was called. As congregations moved toward a voluntary society model, however, such a tax became impossible to enforce. After 1850 it all but disappeared as church members came to view themselves as consumers who hired their minister and paid his (and in a few occasions her) salary voluntarily and therefore had the right to critique the preaching and even leave the church if they were unsatisfied. On the flipside of this were the preachers who increasingly came to view themselves as professionals worthy of pay that kept pace with market forces. The rise in preacher pay corresponded to the increase in pastoral authority over the laity as shared discipline declined.
The gendered aspect of these changes tracks with the move away from an agricultural to a consumer and industrial economy where the roles of women were increasingly circumscribed and confined within a “separate spheres” view of gender relations. As this happened in the larger culture, so too did the Baptist churches of New York restrict the roles of women—that is, until the late nineteenth century when the decline of male participation in congregations created once again the need for more female involvement. Whereas chapter six is called “Women Lose Their Place,” chapter thirteen is called “Women to the Rescue.” In the earlier period of Johnson's study, 1790–1820, he is able to define and quantify churches that qualified as “collaborative patriarchies,” where women shared in governance, versus those that were “authoritarian patriarchies.” In the latter part of this period, collaborative churches were briefly in the majority with women's participation peaking in 1816. Over time collaborative patriarchy disappeared, but pervasive female involvement reappeared in the period from the 1870s to 1920. “The key that opened the door for women,” Johnson writes of this return to women's participation in governance, “was the churches’ need for money.” In short, when voluntary contributions replaced the church tax, “women became indispensable solicitors” (155). As women's participation in churches declined, Baptist ministers also sought to control the behavior of males by disciplining them for participation in Masonry and alcohol consumption. Indeed, whereas moderation was the standard at the beginning of the period of Johnson's study, abstinence became the norm as the temperance movement kicked in during the 1830s and 1940s. Once again, New York Baptists mirrored the larger culture around them.
On race, New York's white Baptist churches opposed slavery but were still racist. This led to the rise of black Baptist churches, including the historic Abyssinian Baptist Church in New York City. Most black churches were in urban centers, as the African American population was too dispersed across rural areas to sustain separate congregations. Once again, as on almost every issue, Johnson finds New York Baptist life mirroring American culture, whether on race or in the turn toward individualism and consumerism.
It is not particularly surprising that New York Baptists rarely questioned the course of the wider culture, nor had a sustained conversation about how that culture might be at odds with the gospel of Jesus Christ. Such is usually the case with American Christianity. But Johnson tracks this story with remarkable detail, telling us how and why the expected occurred. Anyone wanting to understand America's Baptists and nineteenth-century American religion will want to read this book.
