We often dismiss history as dull or irrelevant, but our modern disengagement from the past puts us fundamentally out of step with the long witness of the Christian tradition. Yet, says Margaret Bendroth, the past tense is essential to our language of faith, and without it our conversation is limited and thin.
This accessible, beautifully written book presents a new argument for honoring the past. The Christian tradition gives us the powerful image of a vast communion of saints, all of God's people, both living and dead, in vital conversation with each other. This kind of connection with...

Andover Newton Theological School is the oldest graduate theological institution in the United States. Margaret Lamberts Bendroth here offers a compelling account of this historic institution and its two original sources. Andover Seminary, a Congregational school established in 1807, opened in 1808 and served as a model for American theological education. Newton Theological Institution, a Baptist school, was founded in 1825. The book offers entirely new material on the development of Andover Newton after those two original schools united in 1931. As part of Andover Newton's storied 200-year...

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...