@article{ref1,
title=""A battle not man's but God's": origins of the American temperance crusade in the struggle for religious authority",
journal="Journal of studies on alcohol",
year="1995",
author="Schmidt, L. A.",
volume="56",
number="1",
pages="110-121",
abstract="Major theories of the origins of American temperance have emphasized materialist explanations without taking seriously enough the independent role of ideas--and, in particular, religious ideas--in stimulating the reform. This article develops a new interpretation, focusing on the religious origins of temperance in a &quot;crisis of contested authority&quot; that befell the Protestant denominations descended from Puritanism during the early years of the 19th century. One outgrowth of the crisis over the authority of traditional religious ideas was a new theology focused on religious salvation through the suppression of vice. This new religious ideology provided a core of beliefs and powerful justification for organizing a public crusade to &quot;exterminate&quot; vice, and one that for ideological reasons ultimately narrowed its focus to the specific vice of intemperance. The crusade against vice in the early republic offered clergymen a &quot;solution&quot; to their problems of contested authority by providing new strategies and an organizational base of voluntary societies for carrying out what they perceived to be their sacred duties: winning souls to God, guarding collective salvation and leveraging government to promote obedience to religious prohibitions on vice. At least initially, temperance was part of a new kind of effort to assert the authority of religious ideas in the public sphere, and to regroup religious forces under auspices outside the church.<p /><p>Language: en</p>",
language="en",
issn="0096-882X",
doi="",
url="http://dx.doi.org/"
}