
Practicing Protestants
Histories of Christian Life in America, 1630-1965
Johns Hopkins University Press
Published on 23. October 2006
Book
Hardback
376 pages
978-0-8018-8361-3 (ISBN)
Description
This collection of essays explores the significance of practice in understanding American Protestant life. The authors are historians of American religion, practical theologians, and pastors and were the twelve principal researchers in a three-year collaborative project sponsored by the Lilly Endowment. Profiling practices that range from Puritan devotional writing to twentieth-century prayer, from missionary tactics to African American ritual performance, these essays provide a unique historical perspective on how Protestants have lived their faith within and outside of the church and how practice has formed their identities and beliefs. Each chapter focuses on a different practice within a particular social and cultural context. The essays explore transformations in American religious culture from Puritan to Evangelical and Enlightenment sensibilities in New England, issues of mission, nationalism, and American empire in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, devotional practices in the flux of modern intellectual predicaments, and the claims of late-twentieth-century liberal Protestant pluralism.
Breaking new ground in ritual studies and cultural history, Practicing Protestants offers a distinctive history of American Protestant practice.
Breaking new ground in ritual studies and cultural history, Practicing Protestants offers a distinctive history of American Protestant practice.
Reviews / Votes
Each of the essays in Practicing Protestants offers rewarding insights into some facet of American religion. -- David Fillingim Studies in American Culture 2007 Thoughtful, thought provoking, well researched, well written, and engaging... A wonderful showcase of the scholarship of American church historians. -- Kenneth B. Bedell Journal of Contemporary Religion 2008 A unique perspective into a burgeoning field... Will undoubtedly provide a scholarly benchmark from which other historical and theoretical studies in practice theory can be examined. -- Emily Wright H-Net Reviews 2007 Practicing Protestants is both comprehensive in its introduction to the study of religious practice and specialized in its consideration of many and varied subjects pertaining to religion in America. It is a book long overdue, and thus a starting point for more collaborative efforts to understand the complicated lives of American Christians. -- Michael Pasquier Historian 2008 A very readable and theoretically astute collection of essays that brings to light valuable conclusions drawn from original research. Readers will really appreciate the value of this volume for teaching and research. -- Sylvester Johnson Church History 2008More details
Series
Language
English
Place of publication
Baltimore, MD
United States
Target group
College/higher education
Product notice
Unsewn / adhesive bound
Paper over boards
Illustrations
23 s/w Photographien bzw. Rasterbilder
23 Halftones, black and white
Dimensions
Height: 237 mm
Width: 154 mm
Thickness: 26 mm
Weight
626 gr
ISBN-13
978-0-8018-8361-3 (9780801883613)
DOI
10.1353/book.3267
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Other editions
Additional editions

Laurie F. Maffly-Kipp | Leigh E. Schmidt | Mark Valeri
Practicing Protestants
Histories of Christian Life in America, 1630-1965
E-Book
10/2006
Johns Hopkins University Press
€23.49
Available for download

Laurie F. Maffly-Kipp | Leigh E. Schmidt | Mark Valeri
Practicing Protestants
Histories of Christian Life in America, 1630-1965
Book
10/2006
Johns Hopkins University Press
€33.00
Article not available for order
Persons
Laurie F. Maffly-Kipp is an associate professor of religious studies and American studies at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Leigh E. Schmidt is a professor of religion at Princeton University. Mark Valeri is the E. T. Thompson Professor of Church History at the Union Theological Seminary and Presbyterian School of Christian Education.
Editor
Distinquished Professor and Interim Dean and Vice Provost for Graduate EducationWashington University in St. Louis
Distinguished Professor in HumanitiesWashington University in St. Louis
Reverend Priscilla Wood Neaves Distinguished Professor of Religion and PoliticsWashington University in St. Louis
Content
Preface
Acknowledgments
Introduction
Part I: Puritan and Evangelical Practice in New England, 1630-1800
Chapter 1. Writing as a Protestant Practice: Devotional Diaries in Early New England
Chapter 2. Forgiveness: From the Puritans to Jonathan Edwards
Part II: Mission, Nation, and Christian Practice, 1820-1940
Chapter 3. Assembling Bodies and Souls: Missionary Practices on the Pacific Frontier
Chapter 4. Honoring Elders: Practices of Sagacity and Deference in Ojibwe Christianity
Chapter 5. Nurturing Religious Nationalism: Korean Americans in Hawaii
Chapter 6. Re-Forming the Church: Preservation, Renewal, and Restoration in American Christian Architecture in California
Part III: Devotional Practices and Modern Predicaments, 1880-1920
Chapter 7. "Acting Faith": Practices of Religious Healing in Late-Nineteenth-Century Protestantism
Chapter 8. Observing the Lives of the Saints: Sanctification as Practice in the Church of God in Christ
Chapter 9. The Practice of Prayer in a Modern Age: Liberals, Fundamentalists, and Prayer in the Early Twentieth Century
Part IV: Liberal Protestants and Universalizing Practices, 1850-1965
Chapter 10. Cosmopolitan Piety: Sympathy, Comparative Religions, and Nineteenth-Century Liberalism
Chapter 11. The Practice of Dance for the Future of Christianity: "Eurythmic Worship" in New York's Roaring Twenties
Chapter 12. Taste Cultures: The Visual Practice of Liberal Protestantism, 1940-1965
Notes
List of Contributors
Index
Acknowledgments
Introduction
Part I: Puritan and Evangelical Practice in New England, 1630-1800
Chapter 1. Writing as a Protestant Practice: Devotional Diaries in Early New England
Chapter 2. Forgiveness: From the Puritans to Jonathan Edwards
Part II: Mission, Nation, and Christian Practice, 1820-1940
Chapter 3. Assembling Bodies and Souls: Missionary Practices on the Pacific Frontier
Chapter 4. Honoring Elders: Practices of Sagacity and Deference in Ojibwe Christianity
Chapter 5. Nurturing Religious Nationalism: Korean Americans in Hawaii
Chapter 6. Re-Forming the Church: Preservation, Renewal, and Restoration in American Christian Architecture in California
Part III: Devotional Practices and Modern Predicaments, 1880-1920
Chapter 7. "Acting Faith": Practices of Religious Healing in Late-Nineteenth-Century Protestantism
Chapter 8. Observing the Lives of the Saints: Sanctification as Practice in the Church of God in Christ
Chapter 9. The Practice of Prayer in a Modern Age: Liberals, Fundamentalists, and Prayer in the Early Twentieth Century
Part IV: Liberal Protestants and Universalizing Practices, 1850-1965
Chapter 10. Cosmopolitan Piety: Sympathy, Comparative Religions, and Nineteenth-Century Liberalism
Chapter 11. The Practice of Dance for the Future of Christianity: "Eurythmic Worship" in New York's Roaring Twenties
Chapter 12. Taste Cultures: The Visual Practice of Liberal Protestantism, 1940-1965
Notes
List of Contributors
Index