Early New England

Early New England PDF Author: David A. Weir
Publisher: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing
ISBN: 9780802813527
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 486

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Book Description
The idea of covenant was at the heart of early New England society. In this singular book David Weir explores the origins and development of covenant thought in America by analyzing the town and church documents written and signed by seventeenth-century New Englanders. Unmatched in the breadth of its scope, this study takes into account all of the surviving covenants in all of the New England colonies. Weir's comprehensive survey of seventeenth-century covenants leads to a more complex picture of early New England than what emerges from looking at only a few famous civil covenants like the Mayflower Compact. His work shows covenant theology being transformed into a covenantal vision for society but also reveals the stress and strains on church-state relationships that eventually led to more secularized colonial governments in eighteenth-century New England. He concludes that New England colonial society was much more "English" and much less "American" than has often been thought, and that the New England colonies substantially mirrored religious and social change in Old England.

Religious Liberty, Vol. 1

Religious Liberty, Vol. 1 PDF Author: Douglas Laycock
Publisher: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing
ISBN: 1467434132
Category : Law
Languages : en
Pages : 889

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Book Description
The Collected Works on Religious Liberty comprehensively collects the scholarship, advocacy, and explanatory writings of leading scholar and lawyer Douglas Laycock, illuminating every major religious liberty issue from both theoretical and practical perspectives. / This first volume gives the big picture of religious liberty in the United States. It fits a vast range of disparate disputes into a coherent pattern, from public school prayers to private school vouchers to regulation of churches and believers. Laycock clearly and carefully explains what the law is and argues for what the law should be. He also reviews the history of Western religious liberty from the American founding to Protestant-Catholic conflict in the nineteenth century, using this history to cast light on the meaning of our constitutional guarantees. / Collected Works on Religious Liberty is unique in the depth and range of its coverage. Laycock helpfully includes both scholarly articles and key legal documents, and unlike many legal scholars, explains them clearly and succinctly. All the while, he maintains a centrist perspective, presenting all sides — believers and nonbelievers alike — fairly.

Eighteen Hundred and Froze to Death

Eighteen Hundred and Froze to Death PDF Author: John V H Dippel
Publisher: Algora Publishing
ISBN: 1628941197
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 224

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Book Description
Almost 200 years ago the Northeast endured a dramatic, devastating series of cold spells, destroying crops, forcing thousand to migrate west, and causing many to wonder if their assumptions about a world governed by a beneficial Providence were valid. The so-called "year without a summer" also exposed weaknesses in political and theological authorities, spurring a trend toward scientific inquiry and greater democracy. An endangered New England agriculture gave impetus to that region's manufacturing sector. The alarming threat to existence in that part of the country (as well as most of Western Europe) thus helped usher in the modern era. This book is written with the parallels between 1816 and our current "climate change" in mind: it introduces informed non-specialists to the myriad of social, psychological, political, demographic, and economic consequences which can be brought about by abrupt change. A major meteorological event profoundly affected our nation’s development in 1816. This book shows how this weather phenomenon acted as an accelerator of trends which were just emerging in the early 19th-century - toward greater democracy and the spread of information; settlement of the Western frontier; use of the scientific method to investigate and understand natural phenomena; questioning of long-held religious beliefs as a result of increased knowledge; and industrialization as the means to expand the scope and wealth of the United States. Like all my books, America’s First Climate Crisis is written in an accessible, engaging style, using anecdotes and thumbnail sketches to evoke the mood and important personalities of the day. While thoroughly researched, the book avoids the pitfall of academic writing by appealing to the curiosity of intelligent readers who may be put off by uninspired or technical language. The book is organized around various consequences of the disastrous harvests of 1816: after outlining the nature and scope of this calamity, I describe how it brought about a massive exodus to the Ohio Valley and shift in political and economic might to that region; how it undermined the once-unquestioned authority of New England’s Federalist establishment; how it gave greater credence to scientific explanations for weather events and disasters; how it compelled New England merchants to abandon their opposition to manufacturing; and how it helped create a modern awareness of humanity’s place in the universe.

The New England Soul

The New England Soul PDF Author: Harry S. Stout
Publisher: OUP USA
ISBN: 0199890978
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 407

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Book Description
Harry Stout's groundbreaking study of preaching in colonial New England changed the field when it first appeared in 1986. Here, twenty-five years later, is a reissue of Stout's book: a reconstruction of the full import of the colonial sermon as a multi-faceted institution that served both religious and political purposes and explained history and society to the New England Puritans for one and a half centuries.

The Language of Liberty 1660-1832

The Language of Liberty 1660-1832 PDF Author: J. C. D. Clark
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 9780521449571
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 428

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Book Description
This book creates a new framework for the political and intellectual relations between the British Isles and America in a momentous period which witnessed the formation of modern states on both sides of the Atlantic and the extinction of an Anglican, aristocratic and monarchical order. Jonathan Clark integrates evidence from law and religion to reveal how the dynamics of early modern societies were essentially denominational. In a study of British and American discourse, he shows how rival conceptions of liberty were expressed in the conflicts created by Protestant dissent's hostility to an Anglican hegemony. The book argues that this model provides a key to collective acts of resistance to the established order throughout the period. The book's final section focuses on the defining episode for British and American history, and shows the way in which the American Revolution can be understood as a war of religion.

From Tyndale to Madison

From Tyndale to Madison PDF Author: Michael Farris
Publisher: B&H Publishing Group
ISBN: 9780805426113
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 528

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Book Description
Featuring a cast of thousands--from Tyndale, Henry VIII, Oliver Cromwell, Luther, and Calvin to Thomas Jefferson and James Madison--this sweeping epic traces the history of America's religious rights. Farris looks at both sides of the battle for freedom of worship, exploring which biblical ideas led to liberty and which served the forces of oppression.

Christian America?

Christian America? PDF Author: Daryl C. Cornett
Publisher: B&H Publishing Group
ISBN: 1433674076
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 386

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Book Description
Throughout her history America has possessed a rich religious component largely comprised of different traditions of the Christian faith. This tide of personal religious devotion connected to government observances and policies has ebbed and flowed through time, but it has always been a part of American identity—one that is full of social and political debate. As such, Christian America? presents a hearty point-counterpoint discussion about the nature of the relationship Christianity has had to American politics and culture throughout the country's existence, aiming to determine which of these four differing opinions is most appropriate. David Barton (WallBuilders) supports the idea that America is distinctly Christian based on centuries of authoritative government declarations. Jonathan D. Sassi (College of Staten Island) believes America is distinctly secular based on the nation’s religiously eclectic and secular beginning (particularly the emphasis on "the complete separation of church and state"). William D. Henard (The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary) sees America as essentially Christian, making his case for the nation's crucial faith component while exploring varied interpretations of comments like one made in 2009 by President Barack Obama: "Although... we have a very large Christian population, we do not consider ourselves a Christian nation..." Daryl C. Cornett, the book's editor, argues that America is partly Christian, a nation that was shaped by a blend of religious and non-religious tendencies. He writes, "After the Civil War steady decline in religious adherence was the impetus for evangelicals to mythologize American history and pine for a return to a golden age of Christian faith and virtue at its founding that never existed."

The First Prejudice

The First Prejudice PDF Author: Chris Beneke
Publisher: University of Pennsylvania Press
ISBN: 0812204891
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 408

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Book Description
In many ways, religion was the United States' first prejudice—both an early source of bigotry and the object of the first sustained efforts to limit its effects. Spanning more than two centuries across colonial British America and the United States, The First Prejudice offers a groundbreaking exploration of the early history of persecution and toleration. The twelve essays in this volume were composed by leading historians with an eye to the larger significance of religious tolerance and intolerance. Individual chapters examine the prosecution of religious crimes, the biblical sources of tolerance and intolerance, the British imperial context of toleration, the bounds of Native American spiritual independence, the nuances of anti-Semitism and anti-Catholicism, the resilience of African American faiths, and the challenges confronted by skeptics and freethinkers. The First Prejudice presents a revealing portrait of the rhetoric, regulations, and customs that shaped the relationships between people of different faiths in seventeenth- and eighteenth-century America. It relates changes in law and language to the lived experience of religious conflict and religious cooperation, highlighting the crucial ways in which they molded U.S. culture and politics. By incorporating a broad range of groups and religious differences in its accounts of tolerance and intolerance, The First Prejudice opens a significant new vista on the understanding of America's long experience with diversity.

The Papers of Thomas Jefferson, Volume 36

The Papers of Thomas Jefferson, Volume 36 PDF Author: Thomas Jefferson
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 1400833728
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 815

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Book Description
The period covered by this volume brings to a conclusion Thomas Jefferson's first year as president. On 8 December he communicates his first annual message to Congress: peace between France and England is restored; a rise in population will increase revenue and help abolish internal taxes; the standing army can be done away with; "peace & friendship" prevail with Indian neighbors. He recommends two particular matters to the attention of Congress: a revision of the laws on naturalization and a review of the Judiciary Act. Two delegations of Indian nations hold conferences with Jefferson and Secretary of War Henry Dearborn in Washington. Jefferson observes that it is good for them to "renew the chain of affection." The president receives a "Mammoth Cheese" as a token of esteem from the citizens of Cheshire, Massachusetts, and the letter from the Danbury Baptists arrives. In his famous reply to the Baptists, Jefferson states that "religion is a matter which lies solely between man & his god." Shortly after legislators arrive in town for the opening of Congress, he begins to entertain at the President's House. He uses such occasions to bridge the divide between the executive and legislative branches and foster political understanding between Republicans and Federalists. As he moves into his second year as president, he is optimistic about his legislative program and the Republican majority in Congress.

E Pluribus Unum

E Pluribus Unum PDF Author: William Edward Nelson
Publisher:
ISBN: 0190880805
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 289

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Book Description
In E Pluribus Unum, eminent legal historian William E. Nelson shows that the colonies' gradual embrace of the common law was instrumental to the establishment of the United States. He traces how the diverse legal orders of Britain's thirteen colonies gradually evolved into one system, adding to our understanding of how law impacted governance in the colonial era and beyond.

Biographical Dictionary of Christian Missions

Biographical Dictionary of Christian Missions PDF Author: Gerald H. Anderson
Publisher: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing
ISBN: 9780802846808
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 884

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Book Description
"The book also features cross-references throughout, a bibliography accompanying each entry, an elaborate appendix listing biographies according to particular categories of interest, and a comprehensive index."--BOOK JACKET.