Biblical Criticism and the Decline of America's Biblical Civilisation, 1865-1918: 2013 Astor Lecture

The Faculty of Theology and Religion will host Professor Mark Noll (University of Notre Dame) as the Astor Lecturer in Trinity Term 2013. Prof. Noll is one of America's foremost cultural and religious historians, and a recipient of the prestigious National Endowment for the Humanities medal (awarded at a White House ceremony in 2006). His research concerns mostly the history of Christianity in the United States and Canada, but he also teaches courses in the Civil War era, general Canadian history, and the recent world history of Christianity.) He is currently working on a book that combines combine two large narratives about the Bible in American history; first the rise and decline of a biblical civilization defined mostly by activistic, British-origin Protestants; and, second, the ever widening diversity of Bibles, biblical uses, and other sacred Scriptures in a liberal America open to Christian believers of all kinds as well as the adherents of many other authoritative religious texts. His lecture at Oxford extends research published in 'America's God: From Jonathan Edwards to Abraham Lincoln' (Oxford University Press, 2002) and 'The Civil War as a Theological Crisis' (University of North Carolina Press, 2006).