Revolutionary deists : early America's rational infidels /
Walters, Kerry S.
Walters, Kerry S.Rational infidels.
Amherst, N.Y. : Prometheus Books,
2011.
For roughly eighty-five years-between 1725 and 1810-America was agitated by what can only be described as a revolutionary movement. This was not the well-know political revolution that culminated in the War of Independence, but a revolution in religious and ethical thought. Its proponents called their radical viewpoint "deism." They challenged Christian orthodoxy and instead endorsed a belief system that celebrated the power of human reason and saw nature as God's handiwork and the only "revelation" of divine will.
Rev. ed. of: Rational infidels.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
The "age of licentious liberty" : deism in America -- The ambivalent deist : Benjamin Franklin -- The frontier deist : Ethan Allen -- The iconoclastic deist : Thomas Paine -- The deistic Christian : Thomas Jefferson -- The crusader for deism : Elihu Palmer -- Deism's poet : Philip Freneau -- Zion restored : the decline and fall of American deism.
For roughly eighty-five years-between 1725 and 1810-America was agitated by what can only be described as a revolutionary movement. This was not the well-know political revolution that culminated in the War of Independence, but a revolution in religious and ethical thought. Its proponents called their radical viewpoint "deism." They challenged Christian orthodoxy and instead endorsed a belief system that celebrated the power of human reason and saw nature as God's handiwork and the only "revelation" of divine will.
Deism