Trouble with history based on the data at hand

This week, perhaps as much as (or even more than) last week, assessing the content of the readings turns on how satisfied we are with historical accounts that confine themselves to the concrete data that has endured concerning historical events. On the one hand, Morgan and Mead seem on very secure footing in ridiculing Heimert's thesis. Morgan and Mead can point to concrete, written evidence that has endured from the revolutionary period as proof that Heimert over-reaches when he claims to neatly distinguish republican evangelicals from loyalist anti-evangelicals. On the other hand, Stout points out that Heimert's thesis can be read in a much more plausible way, provided that one is not preoccupied with the written evidence on which Morgan and Mead trade so extensively. Indeed, the written word (so Stout seems to argue) is a lagging indicator, not a driving force, and in this context what is known of the evangelicals' hortatory strategies seems to support Heimert's thesis. Our own evaluation turns on whether or not we are willing to turn from the certainty of written evidence to plausible (but only probable) speculation about the effects and effectiveness of oral communication in the revolutionary period.

I am sorely tempted to attach significance to the fact that Murrin, who openly acknowledges that his account is a flight of fancy, is rather circumspect in his hypotheses, save his (I think doubtful) hypothesis that the United States owes its civil war almost altogether to the Great Awakening. Tabling the last item, Murrin seems reluctant to credit the Great Awakening with critical impact based on literature, conjecture about oral communications, or anything else. This middle road seems appropriate where, as Stout and evidently Heimert emphasize, we have good reason to doubt the comprehensiveness of the written data at hand, but where also, as Morgan and Mead stress, we cannot help but speculate when filling in the gaps.