Washington University in St. Louis Washington University Open Scholarship Arts & Sciences Electronic Theses and Dissertations Arts & Sciences Spring 5-2018 Selections from the Seedbed of Cultural Creativity: Where “the Religious” and “the Secular” Converge. or How We Went from Antebellum Post- millennialism to Cold War “Armageddon Theology.” Mary Bigham-Bartling Washington University in St. Louis Follow this and additional works at: https://openscholarship.wustl.edu/art_sci_etds Part of the Christianity Commons Recommended Citation Bigham-Bartling, Mary, "Selections from the Seedbed of Cultural Creativity: Where “the Religious” and “the Secular” Converge. or How We Went from Antebellum Post-millennialism to Cold War “Armageddon Theology.”" (2018). Arts & Sciences Electronic Theses and Dissertations. 1277. https://openscholarship.wustl.edu/art_sci_etds/1277 This Thesis is brought to you for free and open access by the Arts & Sciences at Washington University Open Scholarship. It has been accepted for inclusion in Arts & Sciences Electronic Theses and Dissertations by an authorized administrator of Washington University Open Scholarship. For more information, please contact [email protected]. WASHINGTON UNIVERSITY IN ST. LOUIS University College Selections from the Seedbed of Cultural Creativity: Where “the Religious” and “the Secular” Converge. or How We Went from Antebellum Post-millennialism to Cold War “Armageddon Theology.” by Mary Lee Bigham-Bartling A thesis presented to The Graduate School of Washington University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Liberal Arts May 2018 St. Louis, Missouri © 2018, Mary Lee Bigham-Bartling Table of Contents Acknowledgments ………………………………………………………………………… iii Abstract …………………………………………………………………………………….... iv Chapter 1: Well, How Did We Get Here? ………………………………………………... 1 Chapter 2: What Can Any Individual Do? ……………………………………………… 13 Chapter 3: The World is a Wrecked Vessel. ……………………………………………... 99 Chapter 4: Once More into the “Seedbed.” …………………………………………….... 172 Works Cited ………………………………………………………………………………… 205 ii Acknowledgments Projects of this nature do not take place in a vacuum, and this one is no different. I would like to thank members of my thesis committee, Dr. Abram van Engen, Dr. Leigh Schmidt, and Dr. Henry Schvey for agreeing to take part in this endeavor. They helped focus and refine my topic, and as director, Dr. Abram van Engen’s insight and detailed commentary made this thesis stronger, and more cohesive. My advisor, Dr. Harriet Stone has provided invaluable advice, and support, throughout my time in the Doctor of Liberal Arts program. I also owe a great deal of gratitude to Dr. Frank Flinn, whose mentorship over the years influenced my thinking considerably. My son, Adam Bartling, engaged in seemingly endless dialogues about liminality, myth, and apocalyptic media. And my husband, Andy Bartling, provided a veritable mountain of support during the research and writing of this thesis, regardless of whether I had control over it, or it had control of me (which, a time or two, seemed to have been the case). Mary Bigham-Bartling Washington University in St. Louis May 2018 Thesis Examination Committee: Dr. Abram Van Engen, Chair Dr. Leigh Schmidt Dr. Henry Schvey iii ABSTRACT OF THE THESIS Selections from the Seedbed of Cultural Creativity: Where “the Religious” and “the Secular” Converge. or How We Went from Antebellum Post-millennialism to Cold War “Armageddon Theology.” by Mary Lee Bigham-Bartling Doctor of Liberal Arts University College Washington University in St. Louis, 2018 Dr. Abram Van Engen, Chair This thesis examines a particular strand of American Protestantism, the shift from the “commonly received doctrine” being post-millennialism, founded on gradual improvement and reforming the world, to a significant number of Americans adhering to the form of pre-millennial dispensationalism that has been referred to as “Armageddon theology.” This transition is considered through the filter of the sentiment Talal Asad encapsulates in his observation that “the ‘religious’ and the iv ‘secular’ are not essentially fixed categories,” contending that, over time these domains influence and shape one another. “The secular” is viewed in a bifurcated fashion, comprised of popular media, as well as historical events, with the contention that both categories of this sector shape, and are shaped, by the “religious” sphere. This position is grounded in Victor Turner’s assertion that modern genres, like literature, “play” with cultural elements such as religion, and reshape the normative order. The influence each of these spheres exerts on the others is examined through the process turner associates with transformative events and the human experiences they provoke. Chapter one outlines this project’s structure, and speaks to foundational concepts. As a means of establishing the environment from which this eschatological transition emerged, chapter two contains a close reading of Harriet Beecher Stowe’s Uncle Tom’s Cabin, which embodies post-millennial thought in terms of the novel’s form, as well as its message. Contemplating why this eschatological shift occurred, chapter three begins with a brief historical overview of the transition from antebellum post-millennialism to Cold War “Armageddon Theology.” Correlations are drawn to concepts within Robert J. Lifton’s work regarding impaired spiritual and psychological connections that stem from broken symbol structures, relating them to Hans Blumenberg’s work on mythology as necessary to human orientation. These concepts are further aligned with the pattern Turner applies to transformative human experience. v The literary selection for this chapter, Russell Hoban’s post-apocalyptic novel Riddley Walker, conveys this process, also in the context of the nuclear reality of the society in question. Chapter four considers “where we go next,” and contains a survey of new images, and perspectives that emerge in a variety of media as “Armageddon theology” engages the “secular.” This sampling demonstrates the level to which concepts with this form of pre-millennial dispensationalism have become entrenched in American culture at large. vi Chapter 1: Hey, How Did We Get Here? Borrowing David Byrne’s query in the Talking Heads song, Once in a Lifetime, I pose the question, “Well, how did we get here?” By “here” I refer to the shift in a particular strand of American Protestantism,* from the “commonly received doctrine” being founded on gradual improvement and reforming the world, to a significant number of Americans adhering to the form of pre-millennial dispensationalism that has been referred to as “Armageddon theology.” 1 This Cold War eschatology is grounded in a reading of scripture, that, as Paul Boyer writes, turns the bible into a “manual of atomic age combat.”2 How, and more importantly, why this transition occurred is a complicated question. And any attempt to answer it will necessarily be equally complex. 1“History of Opinions Respecting the Millennium.” American Theological Review, 4 (November, 1859), 655; Finney, Charles Grandison. “Letters on Revivals.” No. 23. The Gospel Truth. https://www.gospeltruth.net/1846OE/46_lets_art/460121_let_on_revival_23.htm. (accessed: March 2, 2017); “Armageddon Theology and Presidential Decision-Making: Religious Leaders’ Concern.” Transcript of a Press Conference for Religious Issues ’84. (San Francisco Press Club: in Association with Conference on the fate of the Earth and Washington Research Center, October 24, 1984). http://www.rumormillnews.com/ARMAGEDDON%20THEOLOGY.htm (accessed: July 3, 2017). *Use of the term “shift,” is not intended to indicate movement in American Protestantism as a whole, as if it is a monolithic entity. Therefore, I do not contend that pre-millennial thought is non-existent within nineteenth-century Protestantism prior to the events in question. Nor do I suggest that post- millennialism ceases to exist following the advent of pre-millennial dispensationalism. I do, however, pull on a particular strand within American Protestantism, and consider its development. Over the course of this thesis, I examine the thread that connects antebellum post-millennialism to Cold War “Armageddon Theology.” 2 Boyer, Paul. When Time Shall Be No More: Prophecy Belief in Modern American Culture. (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1992), 127. eBook Academic Collection (EBSCOhost), EBSCOhost. (Accessed: March 4, 2017). 1 I consider the question of “how we got here” through the filter of the sentiment Talal Asad encapsulates in his observation that “the ‘religious’,” (the object of which is the sacred) and “the ‘secular’ are not essentially fixed categories. ” 3 These terms have been viewed as standing in opposition to one another since “secular’s” Latin precursor, saeculum, (an age of approximately one hundred years) evolved to be used in the Christian Latin of medieval times to distinguish the temporal, material world from the eternal realm of God.4 I maintain that these domains (as Asad further states), “depend” on each other.5 Consequently, I hold (as is implicit in Asad’s statement), that in order to understand and define one sphere, you have to, in the process, understand and define the other. I further contend, that, over time these sectors influence and shape one another. Arguably, this claim has already been demonstrated (at least to some degree) by historians writing on evangelicalism during this period. Scholars such as Paul Boyer, Matthew Avery