Crosses, candles, choir vestments, sanctuary flowers, and stained
glass are common church features found in nearly all mainline
denominations of American Christianity today. Most Protestant
churchgoers would be surprised to learn, however, that at one time
these elements were viewed with suspicion as foreign implements
associated strictly with the Roman Catholic Church. Blending
history with the study of material culture, Ryan K. Smith sheds
light on the ironic convergence of anti-Catholicism and the Gothic
Revival movement in nineteenth-century America.
Smith finds the source for both movements in the sudden rise of
Roman Catholicism after 1820, when it began to grow from a tiny
minority into the country's largest single religious body. Its
growth triggered a corresponding rise in anti-Catholic activities,
as activists representing every major Protestant denomination
attacked "popery" through the pulpit, the press, and politics. At
the same time, Catholic worship increasingly attracted young,
genteel observers around the country. Its art and its tangible
access to the sacred meshed well with the era's romanticism and
market-based materialism.
Smith argues that these tensions led Protestant churches to break
with tradition and adopt recognizably Latin art. He shows how
architectural and artistic features became tools through which
Protestants adapted to America's new commercialization while
simultaneously defusing the potent Catholic "threat." The results
presented a colorful new religious landscape, but they also
illustrated the durability of traditional religious boundaries.