The word enthusiasm has undergone a near total reversal of meaning – or at least of its emotional penumbra – since the seventeenth century. In the world of English Anglicanism at the time, to be labelled an “enthusiast” was derogatory in the extreme. It denoted extremism and fanaticism, as opposed to the orderly, rational, Lockean, Age-of-Enlightenment moderation of the Established Church. Methodists were enthusiasts; Quakers were, too, and any other nonconformists who dared involve the heart as well as the... Read more