"In the nineteenth century, many American Protestants expected almost limitless, orderly progress as Christianity and democracy spread and as technology and prosperity increased. Yet they also believed that, many centuries hence, after progress had run its course, the Second Coming of Jesus and a supernatural End to the world would occur."--BOOK JACKET. "As the old century faded and the new century took hold, the delicate balance represented by this view was lost."--BOOK JACKET. "As James H. Moorhead shows in this study, the change in the view of the last things was symptomatic of a series of major transformations in American religion and culture. It demonstrated the triumph of critical biblical scholarship and revealed the new face of Protestant piety, in which the fear of hell disappeared, heaven became the best of this world writ large, and death lost some of its sting. It reflected the ethos of an emerging consumer culture; it shaped the foreign missions movement, the social gospel, and ecumenical endeavor; and it encouraged churches to adopt the ideal of businesslike efficiency and bureaucratic operation."--BOOK JACKET.