ABSTRACT
The events of the American Civil War were both destructive and transformative for those who lived in the United States. No group was more involved in picking up the pieces of war than recently freed African Americans, many of whom looked to religious organizations for spiritual and practical support in a country still steered by racism and white supremacy. Scientific and technological advances – the fruits of which included the theory of evolution and the industrialization of the economy – compelled many Americans to reconsider the role of religion in a modernizing nation. Some Christians recoiled from the changes that came with the times and found refuge in conservative forms of evangelical Protestantism and charismatic movements like Pentecostalism. Others applied liberal interpretations of Christianity to meet the challenges of poverty and inequality in both urban and rural America. All the while, the tide of European immigration continued to increase the ethnic and religious diversity of the United States, with Catholics and Jews adapting their respective religious beliefs and practices to suit their material circumstances. It was also during this period that the U.S. government issued laws that restricted the immigration of non-Europeans, but not before Hinduism, Buddhism, and other Asian religious traditions grabbed the attention of religiously curious white Americans. And with a population of fewer than 400,000 by the turn of the century, many Native Americans organized pan-Indian revitalization movements as a way to restore cosmic and political order to indigenous communities.
