Three Questions for American Literature and Religion

Once upon a time, we had a very stable myth of religion's place in American literature. The Puritans left a legacy of Calvinism; that became Unitarianism; and Unitarianism finally gave birth to Transcendentalism and the American Renaissance, leading finally to later nineteenth-century attempts by some authors to replace religion altogether with literature. This story was mapped onto a narrative of secularization: the passing of Calvinism reflected the broader collapse of religion and the coming of a secular culture. It was a pleasing myth because it was so elegant and coherent, and because it "did" seem to explain certain select writers who were revered, in part, because they could be so well explained by this myth.