Kategoria BISAC: Religion >> Christianity - Denominations

"Hamm has simply produced the best book on Quaker history in recent years." --Quaker History

..". will stand as one of the most important works in the field." --American Historical Review

In this prize-winning study of the sacred and profane in Puritan New England, Richard P. Gildrie seeks to understand not only the fears, aspirations, and moral theories of Puritan reformers but also the customs and attitudes they sought to transform. Topics include tavern mores, family order, witchcraft, criminality, and popular religion. Gildrie demonstrates that Puritanism succeeded in shaping regional society and culture for generations not because New Englanders knew no alternatives but because it offered a compelling vision of human dignity capable of incorporating and adapting...

Winner, 2004 Dale W. Brown Book Award for Outstanding Scholarship in Anabaptist and Pietist Studies

Winner, 2005 Outstanding Publication, Communal Studies Association

Co-published with the Pennsylvania German Society/Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht

The Ephrata Cloister was a community of radical Pietists founded by Georg Conrad Beissel (1691-1768), a charismatic mystic who had been a journeyman baker in Europe. In 1720 he and a few companions sought a new life in William Penn's land of religious freedom, eventually settling on the banks of the Cocalico Creek in what is now...

Over the past few decades, mainline Protestant denominations in North America have been experiencing a significant decline in membership, active participation, and financial contributions. In the midst of this decline, these denominations have been caught up in a variety of controversial religious, ecclesiastical, and social issues--a shift from neo-orthodox to liberal theology, the advent of inclusive liturgical and biblical language, denominational support for often controversial social issues, and heated debates around human sexuality, particularly the place of homosexuals in the...

Is evil a state of mind that can be changed? Is there a latent divinity in us all? Is there a personal God? The answers to these questions given by the mind sciences: groups such as Christian Science, Religious Science, and the Unity School of Christianity are not the same ones given by orthodox Christianity. Moreover, these mind sciences appeal to many people who seek cures to illness that conventional medicine and Christianity do not offer. Can we put our trust in them? Why this series? This is an age when countless groups and movements, old and new, mark the religious landscape in our...

The Unification Church and its founder, Dr. Sun Myung Moon, have been in the center of controversy because of their recruiting practices, their financial holdings, and their authoritarian style--including arranged, mass marriages. Most controversial in terms of its teachings in Dr. Moon's claim to be a new Messiah who will finish what Jesus left "undone." Is he the Messiah, and is his Diving Principle the third testament of the Bible? Why this series? This is an age when countless groups and movements, old and new, mark the religious landscape in our culture, leaving many people confused...

The Doukhobors emerged in Russia as a sect of dissident peasants separating themselves during the 18th century from the Orthodox Church. The first groups of Doukhobors arrived in Canada in 1899 seeking land and freedom from the control of any government. The intensity of the problem of Doukhobor adjustment to life in British Columbia led to the formation of the Doukhobor Research Committee upon whose final report this book is based.

This timely and fascinating historical study of Protestant women will increase the appreciation of their continuing struggle for acceptance within their churches and of their contribution to the success of the Protestant movement. An introductory chapter traces the origins of female subordination and exclusion from the preaching ministry, a practice that was reinforced by Protestant interpretations of Scripture. In essays contributed by recognized specialists, women's roles both in the early development of Protestant sects and in supporting established churches are examined, and their...

The thesis of this study is that Christian Science was a manifestation of the unrest gripping the United States after the Civil War. The age in which the movement flowered was, at once, sordid and gilded, commercial and optimistic. The stormy way through which the new religion passed was, in a sense, the road upon which all new ideas and schemes are tried. Mrs. Eddy's vision was subjected to reasoned and irrational scrutiny for 40 years. In truth, Christian Science belonged only tenuously to a modern era. It reflected the prevailing optimism, progressivism, utopianism, and feminism of the...

What is Ecumenism? How and when did it start? What are its goals and how will they affect the future of the Christian churches? This book answers these questions and examines the remarkable story of new encounters between Orthodox, Roman Catholic, Anglican, Old Catholic, and most Protestant churches. Most of these churches have been divided for centuries over issues of theology, faith, and practice. Ecumenism seeks to reconcile these differences and to bring the churches together into a new unity based on their commonalities and their understanding of Christian faith. Here, FitzGerald...

Protestants have been the dominant religious group since the colonial period, and they remain a vibrant and influential cultural force in the United States. But the term Protestant encompasses people with a vast range of beliefs, backgrounds, politics, and experiences, and this books provides an accessible introduction to this complex situation. "The Protestant Experience in America" lays out the history of Protestants in America, the core beliefs and common practices that they mostly share, the major events and controversies, and long-term trends for the future of Protestants in the...