Booknotes: Lutheranism and American Culture

New Arrival:

• Lutheranism and American Culture: The Making of a Distinctive Faith in the Civil War Era by Timothy D. Grundmeier (LSU Press, 2026).

Timothy Grundmeier’s Lutheranism and American Culture broadly "examines the transformation of the nation’s third-largest Protestant denomination" between 1830 and 1900. The project is noteworthy not only for its ambition but for its topical freshness. "In the vast corpus of works on the Civil War era and American religious history, scholars have almost entirely overlooked the views and experiences of Lutherans", making Grundmeier's study of "a previously unexplored subject" a major new contribution to the literature.

According to the author's analysis, the Civil War era marked a major turning point in Lutheranism's religious, social, and political pathways in the United States. From the description: "In the antebellum era, leading voices within the church believed that the best way to become American was by modifying certain historic doctrines deemed too Catholic and cooperating with Anglo-evangelicals in revivalism and social reform. However, by the mid-1870s, most Lutherans had rejected this view. Though they remained proudly American, most embraced a religious identity characterized by a commitment to their church’s confessions, isolation from other Christians, and a conservative outlook on political and social issues."

Three of the book's six chapters, one covering the social and political conflicts of the 1850s and two addressing the secession and Civil War years, center a transitional period in American Lutheranism that was in many ways, like the Civil War conflict itself, a struggle between conservative and radical ideologies. More from the description: "Throughout the Civil War and early years of Reconstruction, disputes over slavery and politics led to quarrels about theology and church affairs. During the war and immediately after, the Lutheran church in the United States experienced two major schisms, both driven by clashing views on the national conflict. In the postbellum years, Lutherans adopted increasingly conservative positions in theology and politics, mainly in reaction to the perceived “radicalism” of the era. By the final decades of the nineteenth century, Lutherans had established a rigorously conservative and definitively American form of the faith, distinct from their coreligionists in Europe and other Protestants in the United States."

Grundmeier's work on this topic also offers critical engagement with Protestant denominations outside Lutheranism as well as other important societal forces. More: "Although Grundmeier focuses on a single religious tradition, his study has implications for several areas of Civil War scholarship. First, it demonstrates how the Lutheran experience diverged from that of other Protestant groups, thereby expanding our understanding of how American Christians responded to the era’s crises, including slavery, sectionalism, and national identity. In addition, his work reinforces and extends many of the findings in other historical fields: the political culture of the Mid-Atlantic and Midwest, the views of German and Scandinavian immigrants, and the various forms of conservatism among white northerners."