The Opening of the Protestant Mind

Mark Valeri is the Reverend Priscilla Wood Neaves Distinguished Professor of Religion and Politics at Washington University in St. Louis. His book Heavenly Merchandize: How Religion Shaped Commerce in Puritan America, received the 2011 Philip Schaff Prize from the American Society of Church History. He was a National Endowment for the Humanities fellow at the American Antiquarian Society and a Los Angeles Times Distinguished Fellow in the Culture of the Americas at the Huntington Library.

• Introduction Chapter One: Disorder and ConfessionalismSources for Restoration-era WritersEngland's Confessional IdeologyConfessional Descriptions of the World's Religions Chapter Two: Praying IndiansConversion within English Protestant CommunitiesMissions to Algonquian Communities in New England Chapter Three: Revolution and TolerationApologists for the Revolution of 1688Religious Comparison and the Idea of TolerationTravel and Religious Encounters Chapter Four: Empire and Whig MoralismImperial AgendasWhig Criteria for Religious AuthenticityNew Studies of the World's ReligionsEighteenth-century Travelers Chapter Five: Power, Ceremony, and Roman CatholicismFrench Whigs and the Critique of CeremonialismDescriptions of Ceremonial PowerImages of the World's ReligionsReligious Diversity and Roman Catholicism Chapter Six: Indian ConversionsThe Great Awakening and Moral FreedomNative American Moral ConscienceMissionaries' Critique of AnglicizationThe Moral Appeal of ChristianityDisaffiliation and Affiliation EpilogueHannah Adams and the Revolutionary NationConclusion: Limits and Paradoxes Index

The Opening of the Protestant Mind provides a new origin story for the idea of freedom of conscience, demonstrating its intertwined roots in eighteenth-century political and religious concerns. Eschewing portrayals of puritans as pillars of intolerance, Valeri takes readers deep inside the minds of English Protestants during the colonial conquests that created the British Empire, introduced the comparative study of religion, and paved the way for missionary movements and argues that the imperialism of the nineteenth century was far from inevitable.