Butler, Jon 1940–

PERSONAL:

Born June 4, 1940, in Fort Smith, AR; son of Harold J. (an engineer and farmer) and Genevieve (a homemaker) Butler; married Roxanne Deuser (a teacher), July 18, 1970; children: Benjamin Jon, Peter Francis. Education: University of Minnesota, B.A., 1964, Ph.D., 1972.

ADDRESSES:

Home—Hamden, CT. Office—Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, Yale University, P.O. Box 208236, New Haven, CT 06520-8236. E-mail—jon.butler@yale.edu.

CAREER:

California State College, Bakersfield, assistant professor of history, 1971-75; University of Illinois at Chicago Circle, Chicago, began as assistant professor, became professor of history, 1975-85; Yale University, New Haven, CT, professor, 1985-2004, Howard R. Lamar Professor of American Studies, History, and Religious Studies, 2004—, senior faculty fellow, 1987-88, chair of American studies program, 1988-93, department chair, 1999-2004, dean of Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, 2004—. Guest on television programs, including the Today Show and Dateline.

MEMBER:

American Historical Association, Organization of American Historians, American Society of Church History.

AWARDS, HONORS:

National Endowment for the Humanities, fellowship, 1977-78, grant, 1983-85; Theodore Saloutos Prize, Immigration History Society, 1983; Gilbert Chinard Prize, Society for French Historical Studies, 1983, for The Huguenots in America: A Refugee People in New World Society; senior fellow of Institute for the Humanities, University of Chicago, 1983-84; Guggenheim fellow, 1987-88; Albert C. Outler Prize, American Society of Church History, 1989, and Albert J. Beveridge Prize, best book in American history, American Historical Association, 1990, both for Awash in a Sea of Faith; Pew Charitable Trusts program grants, 1993-99, 1998-2002; honorary Sc.D., University of Minnesota, 2006.

WRITINGS:

Power, Authority, and the Origins of American Denominational Order: The English Churches in the Delaware Valley, 1680-1730, American Philosophical Society (Philadelphia, PA), 1978.

The Huguenots in America: A Refugee People in New World Society, Harvard University Press (Cambridge, MA), 1983.

Awash in a Sea of Faith: Christianizing the American People, Harvard University Press (Cambridge, MA), 1990.

(Editor, with Harry S. Stout) Religion in American History: A Reader, Oxford University Press (New York, NY), 1998.

Becoming America: The Revolution before 1776, Harvard University Press (Cambridge, MA), 2000.

(With Grant Walker and Randall Balmer) Religion in American Life: A Short History, Oxford University Press (New York, NY), 2000, updated edition, 2007.

Religion in Colonial America, Oxford University Press (New York, NY), 2000.

Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness: American Art from the Yale University Art Gallery, Yale University Press (New Haven, CT), 2007.

New World Faiths: Religion in Colonial America, Oxford University Press (New York, NY), 2007.

Also author of the booklet "Religion and Witchcraft in Early American Society," Forum Press, 1974. Coeditor of the series "Religion in American Life," Oxford University Press (New York, NY). Contributor to encyclopedias and other books, including Mapping America's Past, edited by Mark C. Carnes and John A. Garraty, 1996; and Myer Myers: Jewish Silversmith in Colonial New York, by David L. Barquist, Yale University Press (New Haven, CT), 2001. Contributor to history journals.

ADAPTATIONS:

Awash in a Sea of Faith was a source for a four-part British television documentary, The Fate of Faith: Religion in Britain and America, broadcast in England in 1991, and for the PBS documentary special, Telegrams from the Dead, broadcast in 1994.

SIDELIGHTS:

Jon Butler is the author of Becoming America: The Revolution before 1776. A Publishers Weekly contributor who reviewed the book said that Butler "shows that the colonies were developing distinct ways of spending, building, praying, decorating, and politicking even then—a cultural revolution that anticipated the political revolution that was to follow." "This detailed overview brings fresh insight to the era," wrote Grant A. Fredericksen in Library Journal.

In Religion in American Life: A Short History (which, at nearly 550 pages, is not as superficial as the title might imply), Butler and his coauthors look at the impact of religious faith and practices on a highly diverse population over several centuries. New England Protestant Christianity figures prominently in this study, as it does in American history, but is not the central focus of the book. Butler, in particular, turns his attention to non-white, non-Protestant elements of colonial North America. Philip Jenkins reported in Books and Culture that Butler and his colleagues "offer a wonderfully polychrome account, giving the most extensive coverage I have ever seen in such a general history of Native spiritual traditions and their interactions with Catholic authorities." The book also covers African American practices, which often occurred outside the traditional church setting, as well as Roman Catholic worship as it was conducted by Spanish and French settlers. Library Journal contributor James A. Overbeck offered a different opinion of the book, citing scant coverage of Jewish, Muslim, and Asian religions in American life. Jenkins expressed reservations about the part of the book that offered commentary by coauthor Randall Balmer about the more recent elements of American religious practice (New Age groups, for instance, or the Promise Keepers) and how well his coverage of potentially transitory movements will stand the test of time. Church History contributor Peter W. Williams wrote, however, that "in the realm of American religious history, one can hardly do better than Religion in American Life." He recommended the book particularly to "the uninitiated," adding: "The initiated, however, might also read it for its felicity of narrative and the moments of illumination that fine scholars can inject even into stories we have all heard before."

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

American Historical Review, December, 1995, Charles H. Lippy, "Religion in a Revolutionary Age," p. 1669.

American Studies International, February, 2001, Joel Hodson, review of Becoming America: The Revolution before 1776, p. 144.

Books and Culture, January-February, 2003, Philip Jenkins, review of Religion in American Life: A Short History, p. 19.

Church History, March, 2004, Peter W. Williams, review of Religion in American Life, p. 239.

English Historical Review, September, 2001, Simon Middleton, review of Becoming America, p. 968.

History: Review of New Books, spring, 2000, Alan D. Watson, review of Becoming America, p. 109.

Journal of Southern History, February, 2002, Jack P. Greene, review of Becoming America, p. 153.

Kliatt, March, 2002, John E. Boyd, review of Becoming America, p. 33.

Library Journal, March 15, 2000, Grant A. Fredericksen, review of Becoming America, p. 102; December, 2002, James Overbeck, review of Religion in American Life, p. 134.

Los Angeles Times Book Review, January 7, 1990, review of Awash in a Sea of Faith: Christianizing the American People, p. 9.

New York Times Book Review, April 1, 1990, Jan Lewis, review of Awash in a Sea of Faith, p. 33.

Publishers Weekly, February 21, 2000, review of Becoming America, p. 73.