Title The last Puritans : mainline Protestants and the power of the past / Margaret Bendroth

Edition 1st [edition] Published Chapel Hill, NC : University of North Carolina Press, 2015

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Description 1 online resource Contents Protestant saints: the power of congregational memory -- Sons of the pilgrim fathers: how Congregationalists claimed their history -- The Boston Council of 1865 -- The Pilgrim Jubilee and what came of it -- Scribes and scholars: the careers of Henry Martyn Dexter and Williston Walker -- Coming to terms with the pilgrim fathers -- The end of one epoch and the beginning of another -- History and the politics of merger -- History and mainline Protestants: the United Church of Christ comes of age Summary Congregationalists, the oldest group of American Protestants, are the heirs of New England's first founders. While they were key characters in the story of early American history, from Plymouth Rock and the founding of Harvard and Yale to the Revolutionary War, their luster and numbers have faded. But Margaret Bendroth's critical history of Congregationalism over the past two centuries reveals how the denomination is essential for understanding mainline Protestantism in the making. 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 Bibliography Includes bibliographical references and index Notes Print version record Subject Congregational churches -- United States -- History Protestantism -- United States -- History RELIGION -- Christianity -- Presbyterian. RELIGION -- Christianity -- Calvinist. Congregational churches Protestantism SUBJECT United States -- Church history. http://id.loc.gov/authorities/subjects/sh85139926 Subject United States Verenigde Staten. Genre/Form Church history History Form Electronic book ISBN 9781469624020 1469624028 9781469624013 146962401X

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