• Urban Religion’s 20th-Century Renaissance
• Glenn C. Altschuler (bio)

In 1887, at an Evangelical Alliance Conference on “National Perils and Opportunities,” Methodist bishop Edward Andrews put an exclamation point on the perils. Andrews warned his fellow Protestants about “the city disproportionately enlarging; immigration increasing beyond our powers of assimilation; . . . a foreign church hostile to American principles, fortifying itself among us; . . . [and] alienation of great masses of the people from the Church . . . facts portentous of disaster and, if unchecked, of ruin” (p. 13). Reverend Samuel Lane Loomis, a Congregationalist, agreed. Acknowledging that great cities offered opportunities for philanthropy, music, art, libraries, lectures, and even Christian fellowship, Loomis maintained that at a time of social and political upheaval, when “the nation’s civilization depends upon the purity of its faith,” cities had failed, in no small measure, because “Protestant churches, as a rule, have no following among the working men” (p. 23).

Citing bigotry and, ironically, the promise and practice of religious freedom, long-settled Catholics and Jews, Jon Butler indicates, also expressed concern about the continuation of religion in America. So did many “new immigrants,” who worried that America’s openness and prosperity posed a threat to their customs and their faith. In God and Gotham, Butler—an emeritus professor of history at Yale, and the author, among other books, of Becoming America (2000) and Awash in a Sea of Faith (1990)—argues that New Yorkers in the first half of the twentieth century responded to the looming crisis facing organized religion “in intriguing, unexpected, and vibrant ways” (p. 31). Manhattan’s Protestants, Catholics and Jews, Butler claims, “deepened their traditional ritual, theological, and spiritual identities by committing to institutional orders and employing modernity” to address pluralism, anonymity, mobility, density, and indifference (p. 34).

Provocative and contrarian, God in Gotham is based on the (now self-evident) premise that those who predicted the imminent demise of religion in America at the turn of the twentieth century got it wrong. The book will— and should—force [End Page 63] historians to reassess the relationship between modernity, urbanization, and religion in the United States.¹

By the turn of the century, Protestantism was no longer the majority faith in New York City. A study by the Census Bureau in 1922 found that their share of the city’s worshipers had fallen to 35% (with Catholics accounting for 35% and Jews 30%). Conversion initiatives did not succeed. Attempts by Presbyterian minister Charles Stelzle to attract workers to his Labor Temple led ultimately to censure and his resignation. Nonetheless, Butler claims, urban mainline Protestants found the marketing techniques he used, including advertising and the cultivation of newspaper reporters and editors, “a comfortable fit with ideals and goals that were themselves adaptations to a new age” (p. 49).

Although Catholicism was organized around a hierarchical authority, Butler points out that in the United States it did not establish a centralized ecclesiastical system. Beginning in the nineteenth century—and accelerating with successive waves of Irish, Italian, and Eastern European immigrants—bishops allowed parishes organized by nationality to exist alongside traditional territorial parishes. In the twentieth century, New York City hosted a range of Catholic orders found nowhere else outside of Rome. Nuns were responsible for expanding—and modernizing—schools, hospitals, and Catholic charities (for orphans, homeless, and indigent people. Their efforts, Butler writes, “pulled Catholics into church-related activities, and ultimately worship” (p. 58).

Far more than Protestantism and Catholicism, Judaism in the United States was shaped from the bottom up, with the laity organizing congregations and hiring rabbis. In Manhattan, Butler demonstrates, decentralization allowed for the development of institutions suited both to traditionalists and modernizers. The most transformative of them was the United Synagogue of America, founded in 1913 by Rabbi Solomon Schechter. Seeking a faith that married Orthodoxy’s intensity with Reform’s organization and method, training in the Talmud and Hebrew literature with scientific research and social service, United Synagogue continued to thrive after Schechter’s untimely death in 1915, and, along with its Rabbinical Assembly, became...

• 城市宗教的20世纪复兴
• Glenn C.Altschuler（生物）

1887年，在有关“国家危险与机遇”的福音派同盟会议上，卫理公会主教爱德华·安德鲁斯（Edward Andrews）对危险进行了感叹。安德鲁斯（Andrews）警告他的新教徒：“这座城市成比例地扩大；移民人数超出了我们的同化能力；。。。反对美国原则的外国教会，在我们中间巩固自己；。。。并把广大人民从教会中疏远了出来。。。灾难性的事实，如果不加遏制，就是毁灭性的事实”（第13页）。众议员塞缪尔·莱恩·鲁米斯（Samuel Lane Loomis）牧师对此表示同意。卢米斯（Loomis）意识到大城市为慈善，音乐，艺术，图书馆，演讲甚至是基督徒团契提供了机会，因此坚持认为，在社会和政治动荡时期，“国家的文明取决于信仰的纯度，

久违的天主教徒和犹太人引用了偏执，讽刺地是宗教自由的承诺和实践，乔恩·巴特勒（Jon Butler）表示，他也对美国宗教的持续发展表示关注。许多“新移民”也是如此，他们担心美国的开放和繁荣对他们的习俗和信仰构成威胁。在《上帝与哥谭》一书中，巴特勒（耶鲁大学的名誉历史学教授）着有《Becoming America（2000）》和《信仰之海》中的Awash等著作。（1990年）—认为20世纪上半叶纽约人以“有趣，出乎意料和充满活力的方式”应对了有组织的宗教面临的迫在眉睫的危机（第31页）。巴特勒声称，曼哈顿的新教徒，天主教徒和犹太人“致力于制度秩序并运用现代性，加深了他们的传统仪式，神学和精神认同”，以解决多元性，匿名性，流动性，密度和冷漠（p。34）。

哥谭的上帝具有挑衅性和逆向性，它基于（现在不言而喻）的前提，即那些预言了二十世纪初美国宗教即将消亡的人弄错了。这本书将-和应力[尾页63]历史学家重新评估在美国的现代性，城市化和宗教之间的关系。^1个

到世纪之交，新教已不再是纽约市的多数信仰。人口普查局1922年的一项研究发现，他们在该市的信徒中所占的比例已降至35％（其中天主教徒占35％，犹太人占30％）。转换计划没有成功。长老会部长查尔斯·斯泰兹勒（Charles Stelzle）试图将工人吸引到他的劳动圣殿，最终导致了谴责和辞职。尽管如此，巴特勒声称，城市主流新教徒发现了他使用的营销技巧，包括广告以及报纸记者和编辑的培养，“与理想和目标相适应，而这些理想和目标本身就是适应新时代的”（第49页）。

尽管天主教是围绕等级制度组织的，但是巴特勒指出，在美国，天主教并未建立集中的教会制度。从19世纪开始，随着爱尔兰，意大利和东欧移民的不断涌入，主教允许按国籍组织的教区与传统的领土教区并存。在20世纪，纽约市托管了一系列天主教命令，在罗马以外的其他地方都找不到。尼姑负责扩大学校，医院和天主教慈善机构的规模并使之现代化（针对孤儿，无家可归者和贫困人群。巴特勒写道，他们的努力“将天主教徒拉入了教会相关活动，并最终朝拜”（第58页） 。

在美国，犹太教的意义远不只是新教和天主教，而是自下而上地塑造出来的，由犹太人组织会众并雇用拉比。巴特勒证明，在曼哈顿，权力下放可以发展适合传统主义者和现代化主义者的体制。其中最具变革性的是1913年拉比·所罗门·谢赫特（Rabbi Solomon Schechter）建立的美国联合犹太教堂。为了寻求一种使东正教的力量与改革的组织和方法相结合的信念，通过科学研究和社会服务来培训塔木德和希伯来文学，联合犹太教堂在谢赫特（Schechter）于1915年过世去世后继续蓬勃发展，并随同其犹太教大会而成立。 。