Religion played an important role in the American revolutionary era, but only recently have historians focused on its impact. The historians analyzed in this paper concluded that a double revolution took place during the late eighteenth century. The democratic ideals that formed the foundation of the birth of the new nation found their expression in religious thought as well. Various methodologies have been employed to address this issue, each approach has its benefits and limitations.
Rhys Isaac uses an ethnographic approach to the issue of religion and the American Revolution. In order to make as accurate translation as possible of the meaning of life during this era, Isaac gives equal weight to religious and political records. The author bases his research chiefly on accounts of activities of the populace during the period under study: "Actions must be viewed as statements" (Isaac 324). Since the social historian is dealing with past events, he or she must rely on sources or informants who documented such actions. The limitation of this approach is that the biases of such sources must be understood and taken into consideration before inferences can be made.
Isaac's task is the translation of relevant action statements in a process that presents a Catch-22 dilemma: "Ethnographers cannot understand and translate action-statements unless they have some comprehension of the culture; but such grasp can only be effectively acquired by close attention to particular action-statements" (Isaac 325). The best that the historian can hope for is an approximate reconstruction of limited aspects of the experiences of the subjects being studied based on various social scientific models.
As an example of the benefits of this approach, Isaac gives a newspaper report of the burial of a deceased governor in Williamsburg, Virginia in 1770. The description of the placement of the coffin on the hearse, the funeral procession, the pr...