Download or read book Pietisms in the American Wilderness written by Hermann Wellenreuther and published by LIT Verlag Münster. This book was released on 2022-08 with total page 298 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The study attempts to find out how and to what extent two Pietisms transfered from the Old World to North America changed due to political, social, and cultural conditions in the years 1742-1800. Two individuals, the German Lutheran pastor Heinrich Melchior Mühlenberg (1711-1787) sent from the Glauchasche Anstalten in Halle/Saale and the Moravian missionary David Zeisberger (1721-1808) from Herrnhut, serve as protagonists through which concepts, ways of life, and religious ideas of the two Pietisms are analyzed. The geographic limits of this study are Pennsylvania, the middle Atlantic colonies of British North America/states within the USA, and what after the American Revolution was called the Northwest Territory. The chapters focus on key concepts with regard to Pietisms like environment, missions, realities, faith and conversion. Special regard is given to the impact of the American Revolution on the Halle’s pastors Heinrich Melchior Mühlenberg and his colleagues, and on their Moravian counterpart David Zeisberger, his mission congregations in the Ohio Valley or Bethlehem as the leading Moravian congregation in Pennsylvania.

Download or read book Pietisms in the American Wilderness written by Hermann Wellenreuther and published by LIT Verlag. This book was released on 2023-01-23 with total page 298 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The study attempts to find out how and to what extent two Pietisms transfered from the Old World to North America changed due to political, social, and cultural conditions in the years 1742-1800. Two individuals, the German Lutheran pastor Heinrich Melchior Mühlenberg (1711-1787) sent from the Glauchasche Anstalten in Halle/Saale and the Moravian missionary David Zeisberger (1721-1808) from Herrnhut, serve as protagonists through which concepts, ways of life, and religious ideas of the two Pietisms are analyzed. The geographic limits of this study are Pennsylvania, the middle Atlantic colonies of British North America/states within the USA, and what after the American Revolution was called the Northwest Territory. The chapters focus on key concepts with regard to Pietisms like environment, missions, realities, faith and conversion. Special regard is given to the impact of the American Revolution on the Halle’s pastors Heinrich Melchior Mu?hlenberg and his colleagues, and on their Moravian counterpart David Zeisberger, his mission congregations in the Ohio Valley or Bethlehem as the leading Moravian congregation in Pennsylvania. Hermann Wellenreuther (1941- 2021) held the chair of German, British, American, and Atlantic Early Modern History at the Georg-August University in Göttingen.

Download or read book The Word in the Wilderness written by Alexander Lawrence Ames and published by Penn State Press. This book was released on 2021-05-13 with total page 265 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Once a vibrant part of religious life for many Pennsylvania Germans in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, Fraktur manuscripts today are primarily studied for their decorative qualities. The Word in the Wilderness takes a different view, probing these documents for what they tell us about the lived religious experiences of the Protestant communities that made and used them and opening avenues for reinterpretation of this well-known, if little understood, set of cultural artifacts. The resplendent illuminated religious manuscripts commonly known as Fraktur have captivated collectors and scholars for generations. Yet fundamental questions about their cultural origins, purpose, and historical significance remain. Alexander Lawrence Ames addresses these by placing Fraktur manuscripts within a “Pietist paradigm,” grounded in an understanding of how their makers viewed “the Word,” or scripture. His analysis combines a sweeping overview of Protestant Christian religious movements in Europe and early America with close analysis of key Pennsylvania devotional manuscripts, revealing novel insights into the religious utility of calligraphy, manuscript illumination, and devotional reading as Protestant spiritual enterprises. Situating the manuscripts in the context of transatlantic religious history, early American spirituality, material culture studies, and the history of book and manuscript production, Ames challenges long-held approaches to Pennsylvania German studies and urges scholars to engage with these texts and with their makers and users on their own terms. Featuring dozens of illustrations, this lively, engaging book will appeal to Fraktur scholars and enthusiasts, historians of early America, and anyone interested in the material culture and spiritual practices of the German-speaking residents of Pennsylvania.

Download or read book The American Pietism of Cotton Mather written by Richard F. Lovelace and published by Wipf and Stock Publishers. This book was released on 2007-09-01 with total page 360 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Cotton Mather is probably best known for his contributions to the Puritanism of colonial America. Yet the subject of this book is Mather's theology of Christian experience, usually associated with continental Pietism, a dynamic movement of reform and renewal in the Lutheran church. Richard Lovelace summarizes the basic thrust of Mather's treatment of spiritual rebirth, sanctification, pastoral and social ministry, the need for spiritual awakening, and the effects he believed this awakening should produce in Christianity and the mission of the church. In Mather, the two great strains of American Evangelical Protestantism--Puritanism and Pietism--were combined, influencing Jonathan Edwards and American religion in general throughout the Great Awakening and subsequent revivals. Thus, the book is unique in tracing the roots of modern Evangelicalism beyond nineteenth-century Arminianism to the seventeenth- and eighteenth-century blend of Puritant-Pietist thought.

Download or read book The Radical Pietists written by Delburn Carpenter and published by . This book was released on 1975 with total page 292 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Continental Pietism and Early American Christianity written by F. Ernest Stoeffler and published by Wipf and Stock Publishers. This book was released on 2007-02-01 with total page 277 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: American has been shaped from a variety of rich traditions, many of which continue to influence her life and institutions. With this pluralistic emphasis in mind, F. Ernest Stoeffler has brought together these essays on Pietism, each written by a scholar with professional interest in the area treated. Without denying the importance of the Puritan heritage on early America, Stoeffler hopes to show that Pietism too made a crucial contribution to American religious life. Contrary to some twentieth-century misconceptions, Pietism was activistic, political, social, and educational in orientation. It penetrated mainline denominations like the Lutheran, Reformed, and Mennonite churches. It played an important role in the Brethren and Methodist traditions and in the formation of the Moravian Church. And radical Pietism flourished in a variety of Christian communist communities, like the one at Ephrata. Pietism contributed to religious practice by promoting evangelism, social action on behalf of the poor, and experiential base for religion, a biblical foundation for theology and ethics, the development of Protestant hymnody, ecumenical understanding, and democracy. This study is an important first step toward filling a serious gap in understanding America's religious history.

Download or read book The Oxford Handbook of Early Evangelicalism written by Jonathan Yeager and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2022 with total page 681 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Evangelicalism, a worldwide interdenominational movement within Protestant Christianity, is one of the most popular and diverse religious movements in the world today. Evangelicals maintain the belief that the essence of the Gospel consists of the doctrine of salvation by grace, through faith in Jesus' atonement. Evangelicals can be found on every continent and among nearly all Christian denominations. The origin of this group of people has been traced to the turn of the eighteenth century, with roots in the Puritan and Pietist movements in England and Germany. The earliest evangelicals could be found among Anglicans, Baptists, Congregationalists, Methodists, Moravians, and Presbyterians throughout North America, Britain, and Western Europe, and included some of the foremost names of the age, such as Jonathan Edwards, John Wesley, and George Whitefield. Early evangelicals were abolitionists, historians, hymn writers, missionaries, philanthropists, poets, preachers, and theologians. They participated in the major cultural and intellectual currents of the day, and founded institutions of higher education not limited to Dartmouth College, Brown University, and Princeton University. The Oxford Handbook of Early Evangelicalism provides the most authoritative and comprehensive overview of the significant figures and religious communities associated with early evangelicalism within the contextual and cultural environment of the long eighteenth century, with essays written by the world's leading experts in the field of eighteenth-century studies.

Download or read book Pietism in Germany and North America 1680 1820 written by Hartmut Lehmann and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2016-12-05 with total page 289 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This collection explores different approaches to contextualizing and conceptualizing the history of Pietism, particularly Pietistic groups who migrated from central Europe to the British colonies in North America during the long eighteenth century. Emerging in German speaking lands during the seventeenth century, Pietism was closely related to Puritanism, sharing similar evangelical and heterogeneous characteristics. Dissatisfied with the established Lutheran and Reformed Churches, Pietists sought to revivify Christianity through godly living, biblical devotion, millennialism and the establishment of new forms of religious association. As Pietism represents a diverse set of impulses rather than a centrally organized movement, there were inevitably fundamental differences amongst Pietist groups, and these differences - and conflicts - were carried with those that emigrated to the New World. The importance of Pietism in shaping Protestant society and culture in Europe and North America has long been recognized, but as a topic of scholarly inquiry, it has until now received little interdisciplinary attention. Offering essays by leading scholars from a range of fields, this volume provides an interdisciplinary overview of the subject. Beginning with discussions about the definition of Pietism, the collection next looks at the social, political and cultural dimensions of Pietism in German-speaking Europe. This is then followed by a section investigating the attempts by German Pietists to establish new, religiously-based communities in North America. The collection concludes with discussions on new directions in Pietist research. Together these essays help situate Pietism in the broader Atlantic context, making an important contribution to understanding religious life in Europe and colonial North America during the eighteenth century.

Download or read book Pietism and the Sacraments written by Peter James Yoder and published by Penn State Press. This book was released on 2020-12-22 with total page 291 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Considered by many to be one of the most influential German Pietists, August Hermann Francke lived during a moment when an emphasis on conversion was beginning to produce small shifts in how the sacraments were defined—a harbinger of later, more dramatic changes to come in evangelical theology. In this book, Peter James Yoder uses Francke and his theology as a case study for the ecclesiological stirrings that led to the rise of evangelicalism and global Protestantism. Engaging extensively with Francke’s manuscript sermons and writings, Yoder approaches Francke’s life and religious thought through his theology of the sacraments. In doing so, Yoder delivers key insights into the structure of Francke's Pietist thought, providing a rich depiction of his conversion-driven theology and how it shaped his views of the sacraments and the church. The first in-depth study of Francke’s theology written for an English-speaking audience, this book supports recent scholarship in English that not only challenges long-held assumptions about Pietism but also argues for the role of Pietism’s influence on the changing religious landscape of the eighteenth century. Through his examination of Francke’s theology of the sacraments, Yoder presents a fresh view into the eighteenth-century ecclesiological developments that caused a rupture with the dogmas of the Reformation. Original and vital, this study recognizes Francke’s importance to the history of Pietism in Germany and beyond. It will become the standard reference on Francke for American audiences and will influence scholarship on Lutheranism, Pietism, early modern German studies, and eighteenth-century history and religion.

Download or read book Wilderness Lost written by David Ross Williams and published by Susquehanna University Press. This book was released on 1987 with total page 306 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book establishes that there is a consistent tradition of wilderness imagery in American literature, A psychological reading of theology is applied to the writings of such authors as Thomas Hooker, Jonathan Edwards, Thoreau, Hawthorne, Melville, and Dickinson.

Download or read book Reclaiming Pietism written by Roger E. Olson and published by Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing. This book was released on 2015-01-08 with total page 204 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The historical movement known as Pietism emphasized the response of faith and inward transformation as crucial aspects of conversion to Christ. Unfortunately, Pietism today is often equated with a holier-than-thou spiritual attitude, religious legalism, or withdrawal from involvement in society. In this book Roger Olson and Christian Collins Winn argue that classical, historical Pietism is an influential stream in evangelical Christianity and that it must be recovered as a resource for evangelical renewal. They challenge misconceptions of Pietism by describing the origins, development, and main themes of the historical movement and the spiritual-theological ethos stemming from it. The book also explores Pietism s influence on contemporary Christian theologians and spiritual leaders such as Richard Foster and Stanley Grenz. Watch a 2015 interview with the authors of this book here:

Download or read book Birth of Missions in America written by Charles L. Chaney and published by Wipf and Stock Publishers. This book was released on 2012-12-07 with total page 352 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "In one blow this stout book replaces all previous vague, brief, and seriously erroneous summaries of the origins of missions in America . . . a definitive treatment." Ralph D. Winter "Contemporary Christian missions, desperately in need of a theology of mission, will benefit form a serious study of this book. Neglected episodes of missionary history are eruditely exploited to provide theological undergirding . . . Missiology . . . needs this stabilizing historical doctrinal emphasis." Justice C. Anderson "Charles Chaney makes an important contribution to the understanding of the development of the American missionary movement from its beginning . . . He demonstrates the unity and interaction of Indian, home and overseas missions in a single worldwide enterprise. Here is a wealth of knowledge organized and interpreted for our illumination which will give almost every reader an entirely new understanding of the mission of the American church." R. Pierce Beaver "I am writing to express my enthusiasm in view of the publication of The Birth of Missions in America. I shall be making use of it in my classes . . . a solid work in a neglected area and time period that will meet a need." Hugo H. Culpeper ". . . an immense volume . . . meticulously documented and representing exhaustive research. It presents the most excellent primary source material that this reviewer has seen in a long time." Helen E. Falls

Download or read book A Companion to German Pietism 1660 1800 written by Douglas Shantz and published by BRILL. This book was released on 2014-11-06 with total page 585 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A Companion to German Pietism offers an introduction to recent Pietism scholarship on both sides of the Atlantic, in German, Dutch, and English. The focus is upon early modern German Pietism, a movement that arose in the late 17th century German Empire within both Reformed and Lutheran traditions. It introduced a new paradigm to German Protestantism that included personal renewal, new birth, women-dominated conventicles, and millennialism. The “Introduction” offers a concise overview of modern research into German Pietism. The Companion is then organized according to the different worlds of Pietist existence—intellectual, devotional, literary-cultural, and social-political.

Download or read book Errand into the Wilderness written by Perry Miller and published by Harvard University Press. This book was released on 1956-01-01 with total page 270 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The title of this book by Perry Miller, who is world-famous as an interpreter of the American past, comes close to posing the question it has been Mr. Miller's lifelong purpose to answer: What was the underlying aim of the first colonists in coming to America? In what light did they see themselves? As men and women undertaking a mission that was its own cause and justification? Or did they consider themselves errand boys for a higher power which might, as is frequently the habit of authority, change its mind about the importance of their job before they had completed it? These questions are by no means frivolous. They go to the roots of seventeenth-century thought and of the ever-widening and quickening flow of events since then. Disguised from twentieth-century readers first by the New Testament language and thought of the Puritans and later by the complacent transcendentalist belief in the oversoul, the related problems of purpose and reason-for-being have been central to the American experience from the very beginning. Mr. Miller makes this abundantly clear and real, and in doing so allows the reader to conclude that, whatever else America might have become, it could never have developed into a society that took itself for granted. The title, Errand into the Wilderness, is taken from the title of a Massachusetts election sermon of 1670. Like so many jeremiads of its time, this sermon appeared to be addressed to the sinful and unregenerate whom God was about to destroy. But the original speaker's underlying concern was with the fateful ambiguity in the word errand. Whose errand? This crucial uncertainty of the age is the starting point of Mr. Miller's engrossing account of what happened to the European mind when, in spite of itself, it began to become something other than European. For the second generation in America discovered that their heroic parents had, in fact, been sent on a fool's errand, the bitterest kind of all; that the dream of a model society to be built in purity by the elect in the new continent was now a dream that meant nothing more to Europe. The emigrants were on their own. Thus left alone with America, who were they? And what were they to do? In this book, as in all his work, the author of The New England Mind: The Seventeenth Century; The New England Mind: From Colony to Province, and The Transcendentalists, emphasizes the need for understanding the human sources from which the American mainstream has risen. In this integrated series of brilliant and witty essays which he describes as "pieces," Perry Miller invites and stimulates in the reader a new conception of his own inheritance.

Download or read book The Bible in Early Transatlantic Pietism and Evangelicalism written by Ryan P. Hoselton and published by Penn State Press. This book was released on 2022-06-29 with total page 307 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This collection of essays showcases the variety and complexity of early awakened Protestant biblical interpretation and practice while highlighting the many parallels, networks, and exchanges that connected the Pietist and evangelical traditions on both sides of the Atlantic. A yearning to obtain from the Word spiritual knowledge of God that was at once experiential and practical lay at the heart of the Pietist and evangelical quest for true religion, and it significantly shaped the courses and legacies of these movements. The myriad ways in which Pietists and evangelicals read, preached, translated, and practiced the Bible were inextricable from how they fashioned new forms of devotion, founded institutions, engaged the early Enlightenment, and made sense of their world. This volume provides breadth and texture to the role of Scripture in these related religious traditions. The contributors probe an assortment of primary source material from various confessional, linguistic, national, and regional traditions and feature well-known figures—including August Hermann Francke, Cotton Mather, and Jonathan Edwards—alongside lesser-known lay believers, women, people of color, and so-called radicals and separatists. Pioneering and collaborative, this volume contributes fresh insight into the history of the Bible and the entangled religious cultures of the eighteenth-century Atlantic world. Along with the editors, the contributors to this volume include Ruth Albrecht, Robert E. Brown, Crawford Gribben, Bruce Hindmarsh, Kenneth P. Minkema, Adriaan C. Neele, Benjamin M. Pietrenka, Isabel Rivers, Douglas H. Shantz, Peter Vogt, and Marilyn J. Westerkamp.

Download or read book Religious Melancholy and Protestant Experience in America written by Julius H. Rubin and published by Oxford University Press, USA. This book was released on 1994 with total page 321 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This thought-provoking study examines an apparent paradox in the history of American Protestant evangelical religion. Fervent believers who devoted themselves completely to the challenges of making a Christian life, who longed to know God's rapturous love, all too often languished in despair, feeling forsaken by God. Indeed, some individuals became obsessed by guilt, terror of damnation, and the idea that they had committed an unpardonable sin. Ironically, those most devoted to fostering the soul's maturation seemingly neglected the well-being of the psyche. Drawing upon many sources, including unpublished diaries, spiritual narratives, and case studies of patients treated in nineteenth-century asylums, Julius Rubin thoroughly explores religious melancholy - as a distinctive stance toward life, a grieving over the loss of God's love, and an obsession and psycho pathology associated with the spiritual itinerary of conversion. The varieties of this spiritual sickness include sinners who would fast unto death ("evangelical anorexia nervosa"), religious suicides, and those obsessed with unpardonable sin. From colonial Puritans like Michael Wigglesworth to contemporary evangelicals like Billy Graham, Rubin shows that religious melancholy has shaped the experience of self and identity for those who sought rebirth as children of God. Religious Melancholy and Protestant Experience in America offers a fresh and revealing look at a widely recognized phenomenon. It will be of interest to scholars and students of religious studies, American history, psychology, and sociology of religion.

Download or read book Wilderness and Paradise in Christian Thought written by George H. Williams and published by Wipf and Stock Publishers. This book was released on 2016-11-01 with total page 265 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Paradise or wasteland--the wilderness has always been a challenge to Westerners. Wilderness and Paradise in Christian Thought traces the exciting theme of the quest for the wilderness--both physical and metaphysical--to create a new and important perspective for understanding Christian civilization. With a wealth of knowledge, a renowned historian presents the biblical understanding of the religious and ethical significance of the desert and how this understanding has influenced later Christian history and culture. Dr. Williams specifically applies the paradise theme to the university today and shows the continuing vitality of this ancient concept.