Keepers of the Covenant : Frontier Missions and the Decline of Congregationalism, 1774-1818.
Title:
Keepers of the Covenant : Frontier Missions and the Decline of Congregationalism, 1774-1818.
Author:
Rohrer, James R.
ISBN:
9780195357950
Personal Author:
Physical Description:
1 online resource (214 pages)
Series:
Religion in America
Contents:
Contents -- 1. Historians and Congregational Evangelism -- 2. The Missionary Impulse -- 3. The Committee on Missions, 1792-1797 -- 4. The Connecticut Missionary Society -- 5. CMS Missionaries and Revivalism -- 6. The CMS and the Republican Frontier -- 7. The CMS and Republican Religion -- 8. Congregational Declension Reconsidered -- Notes -- Bibliography -- Index -- A -- B -- C -- D -- E -- F -- G -- H -- I -- J -- K -- L -- M -- N -- O -- P -- Q -- R -- S -- T -- U -- V -- W -- Y.
Abstract:
The first book-length treatment of its topic, this study is aimed at abolishing the old cliche that Congregationalism failed to adapt to the democratizing culture of the westward migration. Drawing on hundreds of previously unused letters, journals, and sermons, the author argues that Congregational missionaries were aggressive evangelists who successfully adjusted to the egalitarian demands of the early republican frontier. Keepers of the Covenant critically examines the various explanations for the decline of Congregationalism after the American Revolution, and in the process, overturns generalizations that have prevailed for years. The conclusion offers a reinterpretation of Congregationalist decline that challenges much conventional wisdom about church growth. It will interest not only church historians and students of early republican America, but also sociologists and all those concerned with the decline of the Protestant "mainline" today.
Local Note:
Electronic reproduction. Ann Arbor, Michigan : ProQuest Ebook Central, 2017. Available via World Wide Web. Access may be limited to ProQuest Ebook Central affiliated libraries.
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