Red-Hot and Righteous: The Urban Religion of the Salvation Army

by Diane Winston

Book Overview

In this engrossing study of religion, urban life, and commercial culture, Diane Winston shows how a (self-styled "red-hot") militant Protestant mission established a beachhead in the modern city. When The Salvation Army, a British evangelical movement, landed in New York in 1880, local citizens called its eye-catching advertisements "vulgar" and dubbed its brass bands, female preachers, and overheated services "sensationalist." Yet a little more...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0674003969
• ISBN13: 9780674003965
• Release Date: October 2000
• Publisher: Harvard University Press
• Length: 304 Pages
• Weight: 1.14 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.8" x 6.0" x 9.1"

Customer Reviews

Historical Research that Reads Like a Novel

I'm delighted with Winston's work. Currently I'm writing a novel in which the Salvation Army is prominent and I needed to be sure I had some early facts verified. Winston gives me the facts I need and has confirmed some of my own material. I particularly appreciated her emphasis on performances and the Army's proclamation of all space as God's own. Her explanation of the secularization of religion, the bringing of religion out of the clouds and into everyday life, provides a whole new perspective on religious belief. A time when the religious experience was fun.

Required but fun

Required for a history class years ago. One of the better social histories out there.

Where do I sign up?

I thought this back was very interesting. It presents the history of the Salvation Army from its inception in England in the nineteenth century through a good part of the twentieth century. Its focus is on the female leadership. It is interesting to note that though men are mentioned in the text, they are only briefly so. You learn a lot about the Booth women and their role in the Army but little about what their husbands where doing. It is a positive perspective of the movement and the ways in which it has helped Americans both here and abroad during the World Wars.