History, Hayden White remarks, has no distinctively historical method, but borrows its models and methods from a variety of other disciplines. These disciplines, however, have varied over time. Latenineteenth-century German historiography looked to the rigorous procedures of the natural sciences to reconstruct the past “as it actually happened“; mid-twentieth-century historians turned to the social sciences, especially to anthropology and sociology, for their models and methods. More recently, historians' appropriation of (and experimentation with) concepts derived from literary and critical theory has occasioned much heated discussion within the field.

Ernst Troeltsch is known to church historians largely for his classic threefold distinction of church, sect, and mysticism. In The Social Teachings of the Christian Churches, Troeltsch describes the church as an institution enmeshed with society and making accommodations to the world's imperfections; the sects, driven by a quest for purity, refuse to make accommodations or compromises, while the mystics stand aside from this conflict and concern themselves with “a purely personal and inward experience” in which “the isolated individual, and psychological abstraction and analysis become everything.” Troeltsch sees mysticism not as a phenomenon naturally at home within the church but rather as one that leads away from the establishment, and it is perhaps this perception in particular that gives his work lasting relevance. The assumption that mysticism veers naturally in an antiecclesial direction, and that its more orthodox manifestations are anomalies requiring explanation, remains very much alive in the literature. Indeed, from the perspective of cultural materialism, it is the political, antiecclesial, subversive bite of mysticism that is its most interesting feature. On this point liberal Protestantism and postmodernism have come together, theology and cultural studies have embraced. Troeltsch's schema thus retains relevance well beyond the sphere of historiography.

In March 1835 Charles Finney told a gathering in New York City: “If the church will do all her duty, the millennium may come in this country in three years.” This statement has often served as an epigram for the era, the motto of that movement for revivalism and social reform that, having already swept the churches, was to so infuse the culture with its moral imperatives as to make a Civil War against slavery inevitable and the hegemony of evangelical Protestantism secure. On this reading Finney's declaration marks the midpoint in a story of triumph—triumph for revival religion, and triumph for a nation that aspired to righteousness.

On New Year's Day 1971 Pasadena, California, basked in its standard smog-tinged sunshine as well over a million people lined the route for the annual Tournament of Roses Parade. That year's grand marshal was America's “Protestant Pope,” evangelist Billy Graham. Consistently voted among America's most admired men and a highly visible spiritual counselor and friend of Richard Nixon, Graham may well have been at the zenith of his national influence. But, as he entered into the gala festivities surrounding the Tournament of Roses, Graham claimed that he was of two minds. Despite the “fanfare, the flag-waving,” Graham wrote later that year, “I have seldom had such mixed emotions as I had that day in Pasadena.” For he claimed he knew “that decadence had settled in. As I savored the grandeur of this great nation I also sensed its sickness.” As the elements of the parade headed down the boulevard, Graham and his wife Ruth waved to the smiling crowds while he, as he said, “watch[ed] the horizon for a cloud of impending revival to restore [America's] spiritual greatness.”

Before I begin to offer my analysis of what the Encyclopedia of the Reformation tells us about Reformation studies, I should first explain my role in its production. I have been one of six senior editors, responsible for what was loosely termed “social history and popular religion.” Four of the other editors have been in charge of specific geographic areas, and David Steinmetz has been in charge of theology, so I have generally thought of my role as the editor for “other.” That meant “my” articles began with “alchemy” and ended with “women,” including in between entries on such topics as capitalism, death, divorce, drama, Jews, miracles, music, polygamy, printing, science, sexuality, and time. I was in charge of fewer entries than most of my coeditors–102 out of 1200–but more words, as I ended up with nearly all the longest articles. That alone, I think, indicates the clear acceptance of one “new approach,” an approach picked up by the marketing department at Oxford, whose banner head describes the Encyclopedia as “the definitive reference on society in early modern Europe.” It was also noted at a very early editors' meeting, where one of the consulting editors commented—not exactly with dismay, but not exactly with triumph either—“do you realize we've given witchcraft more words than Luther?”