Timothy Verhoeven – författare

Religious masculinity is a ground-breaking study that demonstrates how male piety became a crucial battleground in the culture wars of the French Third Republic. The book explores the attempts of Catholic, Jewish and Protestant reformers to revive the faith of men, who had long been regarded as the sceptical sex. It brings to light a religious ideal of masculinity that acted as a rival to secular alternatives. Moreover, it demonstrates that the culture wars pitting republicans against Catholics revolved around competing visions of masculinity. In the face of republican attacks on their Church as effeminate, Catholics aimed to project an image of virility and strength. Drawing on a rich set of judicial archives, the book also uncovers the impact of clerical sexual abuse scandals in fuelling this contest.

This book shows how, through a series of fierce battles over Sabbath laws, legislative chaplains, Bible-reading in public schools and other flashpoints, nineteenth-century secularists mounted a powerful case for a separation of religion and government. Among their diverse ranks were religious skeptics, liberal Protestants, members of minority faiths, labor reformers and defenders of slavery. Drawing on popular petitions to Congress, a neglected historical source, the book explores how this secularist mobilization gathered energy at the grassroots level. The nineteenth century is usually seen as the golden age of an informal Protestant establishment. Timothy Verhoeven demonstrates that, far from being crushed by an evangelical juggernaut, secularists harnessed a range of cultural forces—the legacy of the Revolutionary founders, hostility to Catholicism, a belief in national exceptionalism and more—to argue that the United States was not a Christian nation, branding their opponents as fanatics who threatened both democratic liberties as well as true religion.

This book shows how, through a series of fierce battles over Sabbath laws, legislative chaplains, Bible-reading in public schools and other flashpoints, nineteenth-century secularists mounted a powerful case for a separation of religion and government. Among their diverse ranks were religious skeptics, liberal Protestants, members of minority faiths, labor reformers and defenders of slavery. Drawing on popular petitions to Congress, a neglected historical source, the book explores how this secularist mobilization gathered energy at the grassroots level. The nineteenth century is usually seen as the golden age of an informal Protestant establishment. Timothy Verhoeven demonstrates that, far from being crushed by an evangelical juggernaut, secularists harnessed a range of cultural forces—the legacy of the Revolutionary founders, hostility to Catholicism, a belief in national exceptionalism and more—to argue that the United States was not a Christian nation, branding their opponents as fanatics who threatened both democratic liberties as well as true religion. 

This book explores a vital though long-neglected clash between republicans and Catholics that rocked fin-de-siècle France. At its heart was a mysterious and shocking crime. In Lille in 1899, the body of twelve-year-old Gaston Foveaux was discovered in a school run by a Catholic congregation, the Frères des Écoles Chrétiennes. When his teacher, Frère Flamidien, was charged with sexual assault and murder, a local crime became a national scandal.  The Flamidien Affair shows that masculinity was a critical site of contest in the War of Two Frances pitting republicans against Catholics. For republicans, Flamidien’s vow of chastity as well as his overwrought behaviour during the investigation made him the target of suspicion; Catholics in turn constructed a rival vision of masculinity to exonerate the accused brother. Both sides drew on the Dreyfus Affair to make their case.