Shaping of American Congregationalism 1620-1957

Shaping of American Congregationalism 1620-1957 PDF

Author: John Von Rohr

Publisher: The Pilgrim Press

Published: 2009-08-04

Total Pages: 645

ISBN-13: 0829820779

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A fresh retelling of the denomination's pilgrimage through history. This comprehensive chronicle is informed by the latest scholarship and bolstered by contemporary insights from a distinguished historian. John von Rohr has captured the spirit and life of a significant and influential American denomination from its beginnings in Great Britain to its participation in forming the United Church of Christ.

The Congregationalists

The Congregationalists PDF

Author: J. William T. Youngs

Publisher: Greenwood

Published: 1990-10-24

Total Pages: 400

ISBN-13:

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A chronological survey of Congregationalism throughout the course of its history and a collection of biographies of significant Congregationalists form the core of this reference/volume. J. William T. Youngs demonstrates how the Puritan way of seeing God, humanity, and salvation has continued to influence Americans and how the unique spiritual sensibility of the early Puritans endured throughout the Colonial period and long afterwards. The volume is divided into two parts. Part One contains a ten-chapter historical essay that summarizes basic information about the Church and also provides original interpretations of particular episodes in Church history or on Congregationalism as a whole, offering new insights and ideas about such issues as the genesis of the idea of visible saints and the significance of Horace Bushnell. The continuity of Congregationalism from colonial times through the 19th and 20th centuries is stressed. Part Two, the biographical dictionary, emphasizes the personal experiences of Congregationalists, and several score representative lives, both ministers and lay persons, famous and ordinary, illustrate and amplify points made in Part One. This exploration of the personal spiritual experiences of John Winthrop, Jonathan Edwards, Horace Bushnell, and others, based on autobiographies, funeral sermons, books, and journals, conveys a feeling for the religious life of Congregationalists. To enhance further study, the volume includes a separate bibliographic essay. As both a reference work and an interpretive essay, The Congregationalists provides a useful introduction to the Church for the general reader and will also provoke fellow scholars to consider new ways of exploring Puritan history.

Congregations in America

Congregations in America PDF

Author: Mark Chaves

Publisher: Harvard University Press

Published: 2009-07-01

Total Pages: 304

ISBN-13: 0674029445

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More Americans belong to religious congregations than to any other kind of voluntary association. What these vast numbers amount to--what people are doing in the over 300,000 churches, synagogues, mosques, and temples in the United States--is a question that resonates through every quarter of American society, particularly in these times of "faith-based initiatives," "moral majorities," and militant fundamentalism. And it is a question answered in depth and in detail in Congregations in America. Drawing on the 1998 National Congregations Study--the first systematic study of its kind--as well as a broad range of quantitative, qualitative, and historical evidence, this book provides a comprehensive overview of the most significant form of collective religious expression in American society: local congregations. Among its more surprising findings, Congregations in America reveals that, despite the media focus on the political and social activities of religious groups, the arts are actually far more central to the workings of congregations. Here we see how, far from emphasizing the pursuit of charity or justice through social services or politics, congregations mainly traffic in ritual, knowledge, and beauty through the cultural activities of worship, religious education, and the arts. Along with clarifying--and debunking--arguments on both sides of the debate over faith-based initiatives, the information presented here comprises a unique and invaluable resource, answering previously unanswerable questions about the size, nature, make-up, finances, activities, and proclivities of these organizations at the very center of American life.

The Last Puritans

The Last Puritans PDF

Author: Margaret Bendroth

Publisher: UNC Press Books

Published: 2015-08-12

Total Pages: 259

ISBN-13: 146962401X

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Congregationalists, the oldest group of American Protestants, are the heirs of New England's first founders. While they were key characters in the story of early American history, from Plymouth Rock and the founding of Harvard and Yale to the Revolutionary War, their luster and numbers have faded. But Margaret Bendroth's critical history of Congregationalism over the past two centuries reveals how the denomination is essential for understanding mainline Protestantism in the making. Bendroth chronicles how the New England Puritans, known for their moral and doctrinal rigor, came to be the antecedents of the United Church of Christ, one of the most liberal of all Protestant denominations today. The demands of competition in the American religious marketplace spurred Congregationalists, Bendroth argues, to face their distinctive history. By engaging deeply with their denomination's storied past, they recast their modern identity. The soul-searching took diverse forms--from letter writing and eloquent sermonizing to Pilgrim-celebrating Thanksgiving pageants--as Congregationalists renegotiated old obligations to their seventeenth-century spiritual ancestors. The result was a modern piety that stood a respectful but ironic distance from the past and made a crucial contribution to the American ethos of religious tolerance.

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