1950 : Crossroads Of American Religious Life

1. Journey To The Heart Of A Century
2. Heir Of The 1930s And 1940s: Depression, World’s Fair, And War
3. Things Old And New: Intellectual Life In 1950
4. Lies, Spies, And The Junior Senator From Wisconsin
5. The Protestant Establishment
6. The Church Of The Triple Crown
7. The Week The World Might Have Ended
8. African American Religion Before The Beginning
9. Evangelicals On The Rise
10. Judaism In Midpassage
11. Getting Ready For The 1950s And 1960s

Additional Info
The year 1950 saw the height of the postwar religious boom in America and also the depths of the Cold War. It was a year when religious enthusiasm and postwar affluence coexisted with anxiety about global communism and an ever-present nuclear threat. McCarthyism, the advent of the hydrogen bomb, and the onset of the Korean War provoked ardent and diverse responses from religious leaders and occasioned lively debate in flourishing religious journalism.

Ellwood’s 1950 is a cultural time capsule, recovering the impetus for many of today’s trends, remembering endings and beginnings, and documenting many other developments in American religious life fifty years ago. It highlights the parallels and divergences between religious culture then and now.