Religions of the United States in Practice

by McDannell, Colleen

• ISBN13: 9780691009995
• ISBN10: 0691009996
• Edition: Reprint
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2001-11-05
• Publisher: Princeton Univ Pr

Summary

Religions of the United States in Practiceis a rich anthology of primary sources with accompanying essays that examines religious behavior in America. From praying in an early American synagogue to performing Mormon healing rituals to debating cremation, Volume 1 explores faith through action from Colonial times through the nineteenth century. The documents and essays consider the religious practices of average people--praying, singing, healing, teaching, imagining, and persuading. Some documents are formal liturgies while other texts describe more spontaneous religious actions. Because religious practices also take place in the imagination, dreams, visions, and fictional accounts are also included. Accompanying each primary document is an essay that sets the religious practice in its historical and theological context--making this volume ideal for classroom use and accessible to any reader. The introductory essays explain the various meanings of religious practices as lived out in churches and synagogues, in parlors and fields, beside rivers, on lecture platforms, and in the streets. Religions of the United States in Practiceoffers a sampling of religious perspectives in order to approximate the living texture of popular religious thought and practice in the United States. The history of religion in America is more than the story of institutions and famous people. This anthology presents a more nuanced story composed of the everyday actions and thoughts of lay men and women.

Table of Contents

Princeton Readings in Religions	v
Contributors	ix
Introduction	1	(10)
Colleen McDannell
Praying: Individual and Communal Worship
The Amidah in Colonial American Synagogues	11	(11)
Dianne Ashton
Seventeenth-Century Puritan Conversion Narratives	22	(10)
Elizabeth Reis
The Book of Common Prayer and Eighteenth-Century Episcopalians	32	(16)
Robert Bruce Mullin
The Green Corn Ceremony of the Muskogees	48	(19)
Joel W. Martin
The Way of Holiness: The Friday Meeting	67	(7)
A. Gregory Schneider
Reception of Novices into the Order of the Sisters of St. Benedict	74	(15)
Patricia O'Connell Killen
Singing: Songs of Devotion, Praise, and Protest
English Hymnody in Early America	89	(19)
Michael J. McClymond
The 1842 Hymnal of Penina Moise	108	(14)
Dianne Ashton
Catholic Song in the Antebellum United States	122	(16)
Robert R. Grimes, S.J.
African American Spirituals	138	(12)
Paul Harvey
Ojibwe Funerary Hymn Singing	150	(8)
Michael D. McNally
Temperance Songs and Hymns	158	(13)
Carolyn DeSwarte Gifford
Teaching: Learning How to Live Correctly
The Celebration of Marriage in the Dutch Reformed Church	171	(10)
Daniel James Meeter
The Visions of Plenty-coups	181	(16)
Joel W. Martin
Mary Anne Sadlier's Advice for Irish Catholic Girls	197	(21)
Liz Szabo Hernadi
John Humphrey Noyes, the Oneida Community, and Male Continence	218	(16)
Michael J. McClymond
Is Life Worth Living?	234	(19)
Paul Jerome Croce
In His Steps: A Social Gospel Novel	253	(16)
Janet C. Olson
Healing: Health, Happiness, and the Miraculous
The Spiritual Meanings of Illness in Eighteenth-Century New England	269	(30)
Kenneth P. Minkema
Supernaturalism and Healing in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints	299	(11)
Grant Underwood
Christian Physiology and Diet Reform	310	(10)
Peter Gardella
Sickness, Death, and Illusion in Christian Science	320	(17)
Craig R. Prentiss
The Miracles of St. Anthony of Padua	337	(10)
Timothy J. Meagher
Imagining: The Unseen World
The Life and Death of Mother Marie de Saint Joseph	347	(19)
Julia Boss
Possession, Witchcraft, and the Demonic in Puritan Religious Culture	366	(36)
Kenneth P. Minkema
Speech of Sose-Ha-Wa and the Code of Handsome Lake	402	(15)
Matthew Dennis
A Methodist Dream of Heaven and Homeland	417	(9)
A. Gregory Schneider
African-American Vision Stories	426	(19)
Elizabeth Reis
Persuading: Witnessing, Controversies, and Polemics
Native American Visionary Experience and Christian Missions	445	(7)
Michael D. McNally
American Anti-Catholic Pornography	452	(14)
Peter Gardella
The Christian Doctrine of Slavery	466	(17)
Paul Harvey
Trance Lecturers in Antebellum America	483	(9)
Ann Braude
The Cremation versus Burial Debate	492	(13)
Stephen Prothero
Index	505