The People Are Kind

A Religious History of Iowa

Bill R. Douglas

• Publisher: Resource Publications
• Year: 2024
• Print ISBN:
  9798385224456
  9798385224463
• eBook ISBN:
  9798385224470
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Christian Denominations

What religion the newly opened, recently indigenous territory of Iowa would become was a matter of concern to German Lutherans, Austrian and French Catholics, and New England Congregationalists. But their funding proved no match for the myriad of choices Iowans had. Methodists were everywhere, and Inspirationists, Freethinkers, and Meskwakis all added to the chorus suggesting that hegemony was not a possibility and cooperation a better strategy. Religious Iowans Black Hawk, Amelia Bloomer, Annie Wittenmeyer, James B. Weaver, Billy Sunday, John R. Mott, Luigi Ligutti, Henry A. Wallace, Ann Landers, Harold Hughes, and Robert Ray all make appearances. How did Sioux City pastor George Haddock get his name on streets in California? How did Rev. George Slater contribute to civil rights? Which state was the go-to for journalists looking for an American religious consensus? How did Dubuque seminary professors feel about nuclear weapons? How did Sr. Pat Farrell parry Vatican accusations of heresy? The answers to those and many other questions the reader never thought to ask lie within. With humor, incisive analysis, and sympathy, Douglas paints a tapestry that contributes not just to religious history but argues for its importance to the history of Iowa.

Table of contents

• Title Page
• Acknowledgements
• Abbreviations Used in the Footnotes
• Introduction: Defining Religion
• Chapter 1: Land, and the Native Americans on It
• Chapter 2: Contact
• Chapter 3: “To Build a House by Eating”
• Chapter 4: German Dissent and Iowa Diversity
• Chapter 5: Outside Influences
• Chapter 6: Reactions to Democratic Religion, Religious Competition, and the Failure to Establish Dominance
• Chapter 7: The Civil War and the Making of a People
• Chapter 8: The Holiness Explosion
• Chapter 9: Quick Turnaround
• Chapter 10: Questions of Land and Equality
• Chapter 11: The Kingdom Movement(s) of George Herron, George Augustus Gates, and George W. Slater, and the Social Gospel in Iowa
• Chapter 12: Social Justice and Holiness
• Chapter 13: The Landscape of Fin de Siècle Iowa Religion
• Chapter 14: From Farmland as Eden to “Badly Overchurched”
• Chapter 15: “We Had To Create Our Own”
• Chapter 16: “Unprogressive, Peaceful, and Religious Habits”
• Chapter 17: The New Assertiveness of Roman Catholicism
• Chapter 18: The Counter-Narrative
• Chapter 19: Alternative Counter-Narratives
• Chapter 20: Leaving the Porch Light On
• Chapter 21: Protestantism at Zenith
• Chapter 22: Complicating the Consensus
• Chapter 23: The Counter-Narrative Strikes Back
• Chapter 24: After All
• Bibliography