American Denominational History
American Denominational History
Perspectives on the Past, Prospects for the Future
Fruitful questions that are posed by the positions and experiences of the various groups are carefully examined. American Denominational History points the way for the next decade of scholarly effort.
This collection of scholarly essays by church historians focuses on the history of Christian denominations within the United States. Inspired to update William Warren Sweet’s Religion on the American Frontier, published between 1931 and 1946, editor Keith Harper expands Sweet’s original coverage of four denominations (Congregationalists, Presbyterians, Baptists, and Methodists) to include essays on Catholic and Mormon historiography and on Black Protestant, Pentecostal, and Evangelical religious movements. Each essay discusses recent research and publications and has extensive bibliographical notes. This is a good starting point for the study of denominational history.’
—Congregational Libraries Today
Preface
Introduction
1. Catholic Distinctiveness and the Challenge of American Denominationalism
Amy Koehlinger
2. New Directions on the Congregational Way
Margaret Bendroth
3. Presbyterians in America: Denominational History and the Quest for
Identity
Sean Michael Lucas
4. From the Margin to the Middle to Somewhere In Between: An Overview of
American Baptist Historiography
Keith Harper
5. "Everything Arose Just as the Occasion Offered": Defining Methodist
Identity through the History of Methodist Polity
Jennifer L. Woodruff Tait
6. Black Protestantism: A Historiographical Appraisal
Paul Harvey
7. Mormon Historiography
David J. Whittaker
8. Interpreting American Pentecostal Origins: Retrospect and Prospect
Randall J. Stephens
9. "We're All Evangelicals Now": The Existential and Backward Historiography
of Twentieth-Century Evangelicalism
Barry Hankins
Contributors
