The Course of God’s Providence

A well-researched, engagingly written, and convincingly argued book … Koch’s interpretation of eighteenth-century religious ideas about health is nuanced, sophisticated, and (it should go without saying) historically grounded. It stands on its own. But if we were to seek lessons in the book that apply to the COVID-19 pandemic, we might look no further than Koch’s argument that communities reveal their priorities and identities as they respond to disease. ~Nursing Clio

A beautifully written cultural and intellectual history focused on intersections between lived theology and medicine in 18th-century America. With an eye toward the realities of today (including the COVID-19 pandemic), Koch dives deeply into the hearts and minds of Enlightenment-era Protestants who “depended on, doubted, challenged, and celebrated God’s providence” as they contended with experiences of sickness and health. She draws on a variety of sources—including pastoral manuals, journals, letters, epidemic narratives, and medical treatises—to show how belief in divine providence shifted perceptions of illness and death, helped people claim agency in their medical treatment, and shaped approaches to midwifery and childbirth. ~Christian Century

In The Course of God’s Providence, Philippa Koch brings to life believers from this era who were confident of God’s direction in their earthly affairs. Koch argues that 18th-century Protestants upheld trust in God’s providence in distinctive ways during sickness ... The idea Koch excavates from the 18th century is serviceable for our time too. Narrative is a necessary response to sickness. ~Christianity Today

Philippa Koch’s moving history of religion and medicine is as timely as it is gorgeously written. Her book speaks not only to the creative ways early Americans narrated the role of providence in medicine and health but also to the longstanding and so very human need we have, past and present, to make sense of sickness, suffering, and health. ~Anthony Petro, author of After the Wrath of God: AIDS, Sexuality, and American Religion

A model of a new kind of intellectual history that links the ideas of elites with the bodily experience of ordinary people. Against the notion that the scientific revolution and the Enlightenment were already eroding providentialism by the early eighteenth century, Philippa Koch shows that trust in a divine plan persisted throughout the colonial period as Protestants interpreted health, illness, and childbirth. A splendid achievement and a must-read for anyone interested in lived religion in early America. ~Peter J. Thuesen, author of Tornado God: American Religion and Violent Weather

Provides a theologically sophisticated yet immensely readable exploration of how religion helped eighteenth-century people understand disease. But it is far more than that. Koch offers profoundly humane insights into how the stories people told themselves in times of suffering made—and still make—sense of life and death, of selfhood and agency. Her book is a remarkable accomplishment. ~Daniel K. Richter, McNeil Center for Early American Studies, University of Pennsylvania

Reading across the fuzzy line of theological and scientific texts, The Course of God’s Providence reveals the importance of embodied knowledge for early American settler understandings of health and healing. This book offers a bold rethinking of the stakes and meaning of thinking across religion and health care at a time when such perspectives are desperately needed. ~Pamela E. Klassen, author of The Story of Radio Mind: A Missionary’s Journey on Indigenous Land

The Course of God’s Providence is a model of thorough scholarship crafted by a historian practiced in the art of identifying long-neglected sources of eighteenth-century thought and experience, listening carefully and sensitively to what they have to say about their thoughts and experiences, and organizing her findings into a faithful, persuasive exposition. ~Timothy D. Hall, Samford University, Christian Scholar's Review

Koch’s accomplishments are numerous. By narrowing her focus to the (still capacious) topic of health and the body, she has brought coherence to the sprawling topic of providence. And by placing narrative strategies at the heart of her argument, she has convincingly demonstrated the active role that sufferers and their caretakers played in making sense of sickness—what they viewed as God’s intervention in the world. ~Early American Literature