The Presbyterian Churches and the Federal Union, 1861-1869

The Presbyterian Churches and the Federal Union, 1861-1869 PDF Author: Lewis George Vander Velde
Publisher: Harvard University Press
ISBN: 9780674701519
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 598

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Book Description
This book deals with the history of the particular American religious sect which, because of its large and varied membership, its intellectual vigor, and the part played by its clergy in shaping public thought, affords the richest field for a study of the influence of religious organizations upon American life. The story of the struggle of the Old School Presbyterian leaders to choose between their desire to avoid a break in their church and their feeling that it was their duty to voice their loyalty to the Union forms an interesting and illuminating commentary on the problems of the troublous times of the War of the Rebellion. The minor Presbyterian groups played varying parts, but always occupied more than their proportionate share of public attention because each met its own problems with a characteristically Presbyterian individuality. Professor Vander Velde's monograph is important not only for American religious history but also for the fact that it illustrates how closely Church and State were related during the Civil War period.

The Presbyterian Churches and the Federal Union, 1861-1869

The Presbyterian Churches and the Federal Union, 1861-1869 PDF Author: Lewis George Vander Velde
Publisher: Harvard University Press
ISBN: 9780674701519
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 598

Get Book Here

Book Description
This book deals with the history of the particular American religious sect which, because of its large and varied membership, its intellectual vigor, and the part played by its clergy in shaping public thought, affords the richest field for a study of the influence of religious organizations upon American life. The story of the struggle of the Old School Presbyterian leaders to choose between their desire to avoid a break in their church and their feeling that it was their duty to voice their loyalty to the Union forms an interesting and illuminating commentary on the problems of the troublous times of the War of the Rebellion. The minor Presbyterian groups played varying parts, but always occupied more than their proportionate share of public attention because each met its own problems with a characteristically Presbyterian individuality. Professor Vander Velde's monograph is important not only for American religious history but also for the fact that it illustrates how closely Church and State were related during the Civil War period.

Princeton Seminary in American Religion and Culture

Princeton Seminary in American Religion and Culture PDF Author: James H. Moorhead
Publisher: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing
ISBN: 0802867529
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 577

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Book Description
The story of Princeton Theological Seminary, the Presbyterian Church's first seminary in America, begins in 1812, shortly after the United States had entered into its second war against Great Britain. Princeton went on to become a model of American theological education, setting the standard for subsequent seminaries and other religious higher education institutions. Princeton's story is uniquely intertwined with American religious and cultural history, the history of theological education, the Presbyterian church, and conceptions of ministry in general. Thus, this volume will interest not only those with links to Princeton but also historians of religion, Presbyterians, leaders within seminaries and Christian colleges, and all who are interested in the history of Christian thought in America.

The Rivers Ran Backward

The Rivers Ran Backward PDF Author: Christopher Phillips
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0199720177
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 528

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Book Description
Most Americans imagine the Civil War in terms of clear and defined boundaries of freedom and slavery: a straightforward division between the slave states of Kentucky and Missouri and the free states of Illinois, Indiana, Ohio, and Kansas. However, residents of these western border states, Abraham Lincoln's home region, had far more ambiguous identities-and contested political loyalties-than we commonly assume. In The Rivers Ran Backward, Christopher Phillips sheds light on the fluid political cultures of the "Middle Border" states during the Civil War era. Far from forming a fixed and static boundary between the North and South, the border states experienced fierce internal conflicts over their political and social loyalties. White supremacy and widespread support for the existence of slavery pervaded the "free" states of Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois, which had much closer economic and cultural ties to the South, while those in Kentucky and Missouri held little identification with the South except over slavery. Debates raged at every level, from the individual to the state, in parlors, churches, schools, and public meeting places, among families, neighbors, and friends. Ultimately, the pervasive violence of the Civil War and the cultural politics that raged in its aftermath proved to be the strongest determining factor in shaping these states' regional identities, leaving an indelible imprint on the way in which Americans think of themselves and others in the nation. The Rivers Ran Backward reveals the complex history of the western border states as they struggled with questions of nationalism, racial politics, secession, neutrality, loyalty, and even place-as the Civil War tore the nation, and themselves, apart. In this major work, Phillips shows that the Civil War was more than a conflict pitting the North against the South, but one within the West that permanently reshaped American regions.

Religion and the American Civil War

Religion and the American Civil War PDF Author: Randall M. Miller
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0199923663
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 437

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Book Description
The sixteen essays in this volume, all previously unpublished, address the little considered question of the role played by religion in the American Civil War. The authors show that religion, understood in its broadest context as a culture and community of faith, was found wherever the war was found. Comprising essays by such scholars as Elizabeth Fox-Genovese, Drew Gilpin Faust, Mark Noll, Reid Mitchell, Harry Stout, and Bertram Wyatt-Brown, and featuring an afterword by James McPherson, this collection marks the first step towards uncovering this crucial yet neglected aspect of American history.

Abolitionism and American Religion

Abolitionism and American Religion PDF Author: John R. McKivigan
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
ISBN: 9780815331063
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 424

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Book Description
First Published in 2000. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

Rebuilding Zion

Rebuilding Zion PDF Author: Daniel W. Stowell
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0199923876
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 289

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Book Description
Both the North and the South viewed the Civil War in Christian terms. Each side believed that its fight was just, that God favored its cause. Rebuilding Zion is the first study to explore simultaneously the reaction of southern white evangelicals, northern white evangelicals, and Christian freedpeople to Confederate defeat. As white southerners struggled to assure themselves that the collapse of the Confederacy was not an indication of God's stern judgment, white northerners and freedpeople were certain that it was. Author Daniel W. Stowell tells the story of the religious reconstruction of the South following the war, a bitter contest between southern and northern evangelicals, at the heart of which was the fate of the freedpeople's souls and the southern effort to maintain a sense of sectional identity. Central to the southern churches' vision of the Civil War was the idea that God had not abandoned the South; defeat was a Father's stern chastisement. Secession and slavery had not been sinful; rather, it was the radicalism of the northern denominations that threatened the purity of the Gospel. Northern evangelicals, armed with a vastly different vision of the meaning of the war and their call to Christian duty, entered the post-war South intending to save white southerner and ex-slave alike. The freedpeople, however, drew their own providential meaning from the war and its outcome. The goal for blacks in the postwar period was to establish churches for themselves separate from the control of their former masters. Stowell plots the conflicts that resulted from these competing visions of the religious reconstruction of the South. By demonstrating how the southern vision eventually came to predominate over, but not eradicate, the northern and freedpeople's visions for the religious life of the South, he shows how the southern churches became one of the principal bulwarks of the New South, a region marked by intense piety and intense racism throughout the twentieth century.

A People Called Cumberland Presbyterians

A People Called Cumberland Presbyterians PDF Author: Ben M. Barrus
Publisher: Wipf and Stock Publishers
ISBN: 1579101003
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 641

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Book Description
Light on a people's forward path comes from behind - from the past. Because Cumberland Presbyterians are eager for illumination for their ongoing mission this set of books have been written. In ÒA People Called Cumberland PresbyteriansÓ three writers have endeavored to directly and effectively present the convictions, dedication and purpose that formed this Presbyterian denomination on the American frontier and have impelled it through more than 160 years to the present. The books illuminate some of the most distinctive traits of the church. Many persons and events come to life in it. Not only the better known heroes and heroines of the movement are presented, but also many of the lesser known who play colorful and significant roles, and details typical of the ongoing life of the church are here, along with accounts of the stirring hours of its history.

Broken Churches, Broken Nation

Broken Churches, Broken Nation PDF Author: C. C. Goen
Publisher: Mercer University Press
ISBN: 9780865541870
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 216

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Book Description
In the first comprehensive treatment of the role of churches in the processes that led to the American Civil War, C.C. Goen suggests that when Presbyterian, Methodist, and Baptist churches divided along lines of North and South in the antebellum controversy over slavery, they severed an important bond of national union. The forebodings of church leaders and other contemporary observers about the probability of disastrous political consequences were well-founded. The denominational schisms, as irreversible steps along the nation's tortuous course to violence, were both portent and catalyst to the imminent national tragedy. Caught in a quagmire of conflicting purposes, church leadership failed and Christian community broke down, presaging in a scenario of secession and conflict the impending crisis of the Union. As the churches chose sides over the supremely transcendent moral issue of slavery, so did the nation. Professor Goen, an eminent historian of American religion, does not seek in these pages the "causes" of the Civil War. Rather, he establishes evangelical Christianity as "a major bond of national unity" in antebellum America. His careful analysis and critical interpretation demonstrate that antebellum American churches -- committed to institutional growth, swayed by sectional interests, and silent about racial prejudice -- could neither contain nor redirect the awesome forces of national dissension. Their failure sealed the nation's fate. - Publisher.

Religion, Race, and the Making of Confederate Kentucky, 1830-1880

Religion, Race, and the Making of Confederate Kentucky, 1830-1880 PDF Author: Luke E. Harlow
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1107000890
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 257

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Book Description
This book places religious debates about slavery at the centre of American political culture before, during and after the Civil War.

New Perspectives on Civil War-Era Kentucky

New Perspectives on Civil War-Era Kentucky PDF Author: John David Smith
Publisher: University Press of Kentucky
ISBN: 0813197813
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 359

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Book Description
As a Unionist but also proslavery state during the American Civil War, Kentucky occupied a contentious space both politically and geographically. In many ways, its pragmatic attitude toward compromise left it in a cultural no-man's-land. The constant negotiation between the state's nationalistic and Southern identities left many Kentuckians alienated and conflicted. Lincoln referred to Kentucky as the crown jewel of the Union slave states due to its sizable population, agricultural resources, and geographic position, and these advantages, coupled with the state's difficult relationship to both the Union and slavery, ultimately impacted the outcome of the war. Despite Kentucky's central role, relatively little has been written about the aftermath of the Civil War in the state and how the conflict shaped the commonwealth we know today. New Perspectives on Civil War–Era Kentucky offers readers ten essays that paint a rich and complex image of Kentucky during the Civil War. First appearing in the Register of the Kentucky Historical Society, these essays cover topics ranging from women in wartime to Black legislators in the postwar period. From diverse perspectives, both inside and outside the state, the contributors shine a light on the complicated identities of Kentucky and its citizens in a defining moment of American history.