Jane Addams was not a theologian or a minister; she held no university position. However, in her role as head resident of the Hull-House settlement she became a social theorist of democracy and one of its most influential interpreters. Her primary interest was not in religious institutions, but in the moral and ethical concerns of public life in American society. Was it a good society? Did the people share in a common life? Were the least of them nurtured and protected? In 1892, Addams declared, “This renaissance of the early Christian humanitarianism is going on in America, in Chicago, if you please, without leaders who write or philosophize, without much speaking, but with a bent to express in social service and in terms of action the spirit of Christ.”

The young scholars who proposed a dialogue between John Modern and myself, and who then contributed sparkling insights of their own to that dialogue, deserve hearty thanks. They have taken seriously the main arguments, along with many of the details, in Modern's Secularism in Antebellum America and my America's God: From Jonathan Edwards to Abraham Lincoln. In so doing, they spotlighted lacunae, advanced new perspectives, and proposed the best kind of questions for probing the complicated religious-political-personal-social-economic relationships in antebellum America. I am particularly indebted to them for pointing out aspects of my work that require clarification and for helping me see more clearly what John Modern's work accomplished.