The Last Puritans
Mainline Protestants and the Power of the Past
Margaret Bendroth
Publisher: University of North Carolina Press
Imprint: The University of North Carolina Press
Published: 08/2015
Pages: 258
Subject: Religion, History
| University of North Carolina
Print ISBN: 9.78E+12
eBook ISBN: 9781469624013
DESCRIPTION
Bendroth chronicles how the New England Puritans, known for their moral and doctrinal rigor, came to be the antecedents of the United Church of Christ, one of the most liberal of all Protestant denominations today. The demands of competition in the American religious marketplace spurred Congregationalists, Bendroth argues, to face their distinctive history. By engaging deeply with their denomination's storied past, they recast their modern identity. The soul-searching took diverse forms--from letter writing and eloquent sermonizing to Pilgrim-celebrating Thanksgiving pageants--as Congregationalists renegotiated old obligations to their seventeenth-century spiritual ancestors. The result was a modern piety that stood a respectful but ironic distance from the past and made a crucial contribution to the American ethos of religious tolerance.