Yale > Religious Studies > About the Faculty

Jon Butler

Howard R. Lamar Professor of American Studies, History, and Religious Studies

Dean, Graduate School of Arts and Sciences

Yale University

Brief Vitae - Fall 2007

Personal Information

Born June 4, 1940; married, two children.

Mailing Address: Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, Yale University, P. O. Box 208236, New Haven, CT 06520-8336.

Telephones: Graduate School: (203) 432-2733; Fax: (203) 432-2442; Cell Phone: (203) 314-9058.

Dean's Office: 112 Hall of Graduate Studies; Personal Faculty Office: 300D Hall of Graduate Studies.

Home address: 98 Woodlawn Street, Hamden CT 06517. Telephone: (203) 287-1707; Email: jon.butler@yale.edu
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Academic Career and Education

Yale University: Professor of American Studies, History, and Religious Studies, 1985-1990; named William Robertson Coe Professor of American Studies and History, 1990—; named Howard R. Lamar Professor of American Studies, History, and Religious Studies, 2004; Chair, American Studies Program, 1988-93; Director, Division of Humanities, 1997-1999; Chair, Department of History, 1999-2004; Dean, Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, 2004-.

University of Illinois at Chicago: Assistant Professor to Professor, Department of History, 1975-1985

California State College, Bakersfield: Assistant Professor of History, 1971-1975

University of Minnesota: B.A., 1964; Ph.D., 1972
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Fellowships, Grants, Honors

Doctor of Science, honoris causis, University of Minnesota, December 2006

Distinguished Lecturer, Organization of American Historians, 2001-2007

Co-Director (with Harry S. Stout), Yale Center for the Advanced Study of Religion, 1998-2002, funded by a $2.2 million grant from The Pew Charitable Trusts, Philadelphia

Co-Director (with Harry S. Stout), Pew Program in Religion and American History, nationally competitive fellowship program funded by $3.2 million in grants from The Pew Charitable Trusts, Philadelphia, 1993-1999.

John Simon Guggenheim Fellow, 1987-1988

Yale Senior Faculty Fellowship, 1987-1988

National Endowment for the Humanities, Education Grant, "New World Civilization, 1400-1980," $65,000. Project Director, Department of History, University of Illinois at Chicago, 1983-1985

Senior Fellow, Institute for the Humanities, University of Illinois at Chicago, 1983-1984

National Endowment for the Humanities, Fellowship for Independent Study and Research, 1977-1978
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Books and Edited Volumes

Religion in American Life: A Short History (with Grant Wacker and Randall Balmer) (New York: Oxford University Press, 2002)

Becoming America: The Revolution Before 1776 (Cambridge, Mass., Harvard University Press, 2000; paperback edition, 2001)

French edition forthcoming from Editions Belin (Paris) December 2005
History Book Club selection
Honorable Mention, Cawelti Award, American Culture Association
Los Angeles Times Bestseller List
Sections on slavery reprinted as "The Evolution of Slavery in Colonial America," in David Reimers and Frederick M. Binder, The Way We Lived: Essays and Documents in American Social History (New York: Houghton Mifflin, 2003), I, Religion in American History: A Reader, edited with Harry S. Stout (New York, Oxford University Press, 1998)

Guest editor, William and Mary Quarterly, special issue, Religion in Early America, October 1997

Awash in a Sea of Faith: Christianizing the American People (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1990; paperback edition 1992)

Beveridge Prize, American Historical Association, Best Book in American History, 1990
Outler Prize, American Society of Church History, 1989
Honorable Mention, Society of Colonial Wars Distinguished Book Award, 1992
Los Angeles Times Book Prize finalist, History, 1990
Harvard University Press nominee, Pulitzer Prize in History
History Book Club, alternate selection
source for 4-pt British ITV documentary, "The Fate of Faith: Religion in Britain and America," broadcast in England, July 1991
source for PBS documentary on American Spiritualism, "Telegrams from the Dead," broadcast Oct. 19, 1994
Chap. 7, "A Revolutionary Millennium?" abridged in Brown, ed., Major Problems in the Era of the American Revolution, 366-377
Chap. 6, "Plural Origins of American Revivalism," abridged in Morgan, ed., Diversity and Unity in Early North America, 149-177

The Huguenots in America: A Refugee People in New World Society (Cambridge, Mass: Harvard University Press, 1983; paperback edition 1993)

Theodore Saloutos Prize, Immigration History Society, 1983
Gilbert Chinard Prize, Society for French Historical Studies, 1983

Power, Authority and the Origins of American Denominational Order: The English Churches in the Delaware Valley, 1680-1730, American Philosophical Society, Transactions, v. 68, pt. 2 (1978)
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Books for Adolescent Readers

Religion in American Life, a 16-volume historical series published by Oxford University Press for high school and junior high school readers, co-edited with Harry S. Stout, volumes published 1998-2002

Religion in Colonial America, a volume in the Religion in American Life series (New York: Oxford University Press, 2000)
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Articles and Book Chapters

"Theory and God in Gotham," History and Theory, 45 (December 2006), 47-61

"Three Minds, Three Books, Three Years: Reinhold Niebuhr, Perry Miller, and Mordecai Kaplan on Religion," Jewish Social Studies: History, Culture, Society, n.s., no. 2 (Winter 2006), 17-29

"Huguenots," in Encyclopedia of New England (New Haven: Yale Universtiy Press, 2005), 1308-1309

"Religion in New York City: Faith That Could Not Be," U.S. Catholic History, 22 (Spring 2004), 51-62

"Jack-in-the-Box Faith: The Religion Problem in Modern American History," Journal of American History, 90 (March 2004), 1357-1378

"The Huguenots and the American Immigrant Experience," in Bertrand van Ruymbeke, ed., Memory and Identity: The Huguenots in France and the Atlantic Diaspora (Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 2003), 194-207

"The New York World of Myer Myers," in David L. Barquist, Jon Butler, and Jonathan D. Sarna, Myer Myers: Jewish Silversmith in Colonial New York (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2001), 1-7

"Jacob Rader Marcus and the Revival of Early American History, 1930-1960, American Jewish Archives, 50 (1998 [publ. 2000], 28-39.

"The Spiritual Importance of the Eighteenth Century," in Hartmut Lehmann, Hermann Wellenreuther, and Renate Wilson, eds., In Search of Peace and Prosperity: New Settlements in Eighteenth-Century Europe and America (University Park, Pa., 2000), 101-114

"Why Revolutionary America Wasn't a Christian Nation," in James H. Hutson, ed., Religion in the New Republic (Rowman & Littlefield, 1999), 187-202.

"Africans' Religions in British America, 1650-1840," Church History, 68 (1999), 118-127

"The Christianization of Modern America," Kirchliche Zeitgeschichte, 11 (1998): 143-155

"Revivalism," in Encyclopedia of Politics and Religion, ed. Robert Wuthnow, et al. (Washington, D. C., 1998): 640-643

"Protestant Success in the New American City, 1870-1920; The Anxious Secrets of Rev. Walter Laidlaw, Ph.D.," in Harry S. Stout and Darryl G. Hart, eds., New Directions in American Religious History (New York, Oxford University Press, 1997), 296-333

"Church Formation in Colonial America: Era of Expansion, 1680-1770," "Sacralizing the Landscape: Toward Ecclesiastical Splendor," and "Church Membership: Less than God-Fearing," in Mapping America's Past, ed. Mark C. Carnes and John A. Garraty (New York: Henry Holt, 1996), 46-51

The Records of the First "American" Denomination: The Keithians of Pennsylvania, 1694-1700," Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography, 120(1996), 89-105

"The Great Awakening," Companion to American Thought, ed. Richard W. Fox and James Kloppenberg (Cambridge, Mass.: Basil Blackwell, 1995), 283-284

"The Midnight Cry," in Mark Fackler and Charles H. Lippy, eds., Popular Religious Magazines of the United States (Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Publishing Group, 1995), 331-335

"Religion," Encyclopedia of Social History, ed. Peter Stearns (Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1994), 621-623

"Coercion, Miracle, Reason: Rethinking Religion in the Revolutionary Age," in Religion in the Revolutionary Age, ed. Ronald Hoffman (Charlottesville, Va.: University Press of Virginia, 1994), 1-30

"Protestant Pluralism," Scribners Encyclopedia of Colonial America, ed. Jacob E. Cooke, et al., (New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1993), 609-631

"Thomas Teackle's 333 Books: A Great Library on Virginia's Eastern Shore, 1697," William and Mary Quarterly 94 (1992), 449-491

"Historiographical Heresy: Catholicism as a Model for American Religious History," in Belief in History: Innovative Approaches to European and American Religion, ed. Thomas Kselman (Notre Dame, Ind.: University of Notre Dame Press, 1991), 286-309

"Thinking about Dutch-English Religious Interaction in New York and Connecticut," Joshua W. Lane, ed., The Impact of New Netherlands upon the Colonial Long Island Basin: Report of a Yale-Smithsonian Seminar . . . May 3-5, 1990 (New Haven, 1993), 51-58

"Whitefield in America: A Two Hundred Fiftieth Commemoration," Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography, 113 (October 1989), 515-526

"Transatlantic Pieties: Connections and Disconnections," Journal of British Studies, 28 (October 1989), 411-418. Review essay.

"Huguenots [and Slavery]," in Randall M. Miller and John David Smith, eds., Dictionary of Afro-American Slavery (New York: Greenwood Press, 1988), 346-347

"The Revocation of the Edict of Nantes and Huguenot Emigration to South Carolina," in Richard Golden, ed., The Huguenot Connection: The Edict of Nantes, Its Revocation, and Early French Migration to South Carolina (Amsterdam: Martinus Nijhoff, 1987), 63-87

"The Future of American Religious History: Prospectus, Agenda, Transatlantic Problématique," William and Mary Quarterly, 3d ser., 42 (April 1985), 167-183

"Witchcraft, Healing, and Historians' Crazes," Journal of Social History, 18 (1984-85), 111-118. Review essay.

"Enlarging the Bonds of Christ: Slavery, Evangelism, and the Christianization of the White South, 1680-1760," in The Evangelical Tradi-tion in America, ed. Leonard I. Sweet (Macon, Ga.: Mercer University Press, 1984), 87-112

"The Dark Ages of American Occultism, 1760-1850," in The Occult in America: New Historical Perspectives (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1983), 58-79

"Enthusiasm Described and Decried: The Great Awakening as Interpretative Fiction," Journal of American History, 69 (1982-1983), 302-325

"Magic, Astrology, and the Early American Religious Heritage, 1600-1760," American Historical Review, 84 (1979), 317-346

"Les 'Hymnes ou cantiques sacrez' d'Elie Neau: Un nouveau manuscrit du 'grand mystique des galères,'" Bulletin de la société de l'histoire du protestantisme français, 124 (1978), 416-423

"The People's Faith in Europe and America: Four Centuries in Review," Journal of Social History, 12 (1978-1979), 159-167. Review essay.

"A Bicentennial Harvest: Four Early American Community Studies," Journal of Urban History, 4 (1978), 485-497. Review essay.

"Into Pennsylvania's Spiritual Abyss: The Rise and Fall of the Later Keithians, 1693-1704," Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biogra-phy, 101 (1977), 151-170

"Sir Walter Raleigh in Defense of Quaker Orthodoxy: A Phineas Pemberton Letter of 1694," Quaker History, 66 (1977), 106-115

"'Gospel Order Improved': The Keithian Schism and the Exercise of Quaker Ministerial Order in Pennsylvania," William and Mary Quar-terly, 3d ser., 31 (1974), 431-452

"Two 1642 Letters from Virginia Puritans," Massachusetts Historical Society, Proceedings, 84 (1974), 99-109

"Religion and Witchcraft in Early American Society," (St. Louis: Forum Press, 1974). Pamphlet essay, 4000 copies sold, 1974-1981

"Congregations and Communities: The Black Church in St. Paul, 1860-1900," Journal of Negro History, 56 (1971), 118-134
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Reviews

Reviews of about 110 books in review articles in Church History (1999), Wilson Quarterly (1992), Journal of British Studies (1989), Journal of Social History (1978-79, 1984-85), Journal of Urban History (1978) and in individual reviews in journals ranging from the American Historical Review to the Wilson Quarterly, Yale Review,and Reviews in American History.
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Papers, Lectures, Professional Service

American Historical Association (1983, 1992, 2003); Organization of American Historians (1978, 1981, 1984, 1985, 1993, 1997); Social Science History Association (1979, 1980); Newberry Library Early American History Colloquium (1976, 1981, 1982); American Academy of Religion (1975); Johns Hopkins University—Harwichport Seminar in American Religious History (1974); Notre Dame Seminar in American Religious History (1981, 1984, 1990); Colgate-Rochester Divinity School Conference on the 150th anniversary of the Finney Revivals; Krefeld, Germany: International Conference on the Tercentenary of German Immigration to America, 1983; Johns Hopkins University (1987); U.S. Capitol Historical Society (1988); University of Utah, Conference on American Religion, (1990); Harvard Divinity School (1992); Wingspread Conference: New Directions in American Protestant History (1993). Lectures: Univ. of Pennsylvania (1982, 1986, 1997); Indiana-Purdue University, Indianapolis (1984, 1992); Wheaton College (1984); Charles Warren Center, Harvard (1985); Charleston, S.C. and Clemson University (1985); Staten Island Historical Society (1986); University of Notre Dame (1987); Columbia University Early American History Seminar (1988); Shaker Museum, Old Chatham, N.Y. (1990); Drew University (1990); University of Minnesota (1991); New Haven Public Library (1993); Washington Hebrew Congregation (1993); Judaic Studies Center, Phila. (1997); Conf. on Huguenot Diaspora, Charleston, S.C. (1997); Symposium, “Religion in the Founding of the Republic,” Library of Congress, June 1998; University of Minnesota (1998); OIEAHC Conf., University of Texas (1999); University of Colorado (1999); International Social Sciences Conference, Amsterdam (2000); University of Florida (2000); Princeton University (2000); University of Notre Dame (2001); American Society of Church History Conference, Duke University (2001); OIEAHC Conf., Univ. of Glasgow (2001); Montana State University (2001); FREAHCS (Free Range Early American History Consortium), Jackson Hole, WY (2001); International Social Sciences Conf., The Hague (2002); Gotham History Conference (NYC, 2001); Catholic University of Leuven, Belgium (2002); Chicago Historical Society (2002); Conf. On Centers for Advanced Study, IUPUI (2002); George Mason University (2002); Religion and the City, Fordham University (2003); Mordecai Kaplan's Judaism as a Civilization at Seventy, Stanford University (2004)
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Editorial Boards

Church History, 1995-; Mid-America, 1983-1996; Social Science History, 1991-94; William and Mary Quarterly, 1992-95; chair, 1994-95; Studies in Am. Religious History, Oxford Univ. Press, 1989-; Studies in Religion and Culture, Univ. Press of Virginia, 1987-; Works of Jonathan Edwards, 1987-; Exec. Committee, 1989-
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In Progress

God in Gotham: The Miracle of Religion in Modern Manhattan (under contract with Harvard University Press). A history of religion in New York City, 1870-1960.
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Television/Radio/Journalism

Featured commentator, "Mormons," 4-hour documentary produced by Helen Whitney for PBS, aired April 30 & May 1, 2007.

Featured commentator, "Koran Report," on the use of Thomas Jefferson's copy of the Qu'ran in the U.S. House of Representatives swearing-in ceremonies, BBC News, The World, broadcast January 3, 2007.

Guest commentator, Talk of the Nation, NPR, August 11, 2005.

Featured commentator, Nina Totenberg, NPR, broadcast April 28, 2005.

Featured commentator for "Religion in America: PBS Flash-points," with Bryant Gumbel and Gwen Iffel. Broadcast on PBS January 27, 2004. Arlene Dillon, producer.

Interview Guest on "Odyssey," Chicago Public Radio, WBEZ, January 19, 2004 (Martin Luther King Day), one hour radio conversation.

Interviewed for "Sacred Stone: Temple on the Mississippi," PBS documentary by Groberg Communications, broadcast spring 2003.

Interviewed for "Saints and Strangers [Religion in America]" FamilyNet documentary for ABC Television, broadcast January 2003.

"Synthetic Rewards," Common-Place, April 2001 URL: http://www.common-place.org/

Interview, "On the United States as a Modern Society--in 1776," Mars Hill Audio Journal, #48, Jan-Feb 2001.

"Massive Midwest Recount of [the] 1960s," Hartford Courant, November 14, 2000.

National Public Radio, interview on Becoming America,July 4, 2000.

C-SPAN, "Close Up," Discussion of teaching American religious history in secondary schools, broadcast April 2-4, 1999.

C-SPAN, "Was Revolutionary America a Christian Nation?" from Library of Congress Symposium, "Religion in the Founding of the Republic," June 16-18, 1998; broadcast June, Sept, 1998.

NBC Today Show, discussion of New Age religion, with Katie Couric, July 2, 1996, Stephanie Saft, producer.

NBC Dateline, story on modern miracles, by Dennis Miller, reporter, broadcast October 1995 and several subsequent times, including December 1998, Stephanie Saft, producer.

Interviewed on PBS documentary on American Spiritualism, "Telegrams from the Dead," broadcast Oct. 19, 1994.

Interviewed in Williamsburg, Virginia for 4-part British ITV documentary, "The Future of Religion: Britain and America," broadcast in Great Britain August 1991.