Wandering Souls

Wandering Souls
Author: S. Scott Rohrer
Publisher: Univ of North Carolina Press
Total Pages: 323
Release: 2010-03-01
Genre: History
ISBN: 0807895873

Popular literature and frontier studies stress that Americans moved west to farm or to seek a new beginning. Scott Rohrer argues that Protestant migrants in early America relocated in search of salvation, Christian community, reform, or all three. In Wandering Souls, Rohrer examines the migration patterns of eight religious groups and finds that Protestant migrations consisted of two basic types. The most common type involved migrations motivated by religion, economics, and family, in which Puritans, Methodists, Moravians, and others headed to the frontier as individuals in search of religious and social fulfillment. The other type involved groups wanting to escape persecution (such as the Mormons) or to establish communities where they could practice their faith in peace (such as the Inspirationists). Rohrer concludes that the two migration types shared certain traits, despite the great variety of religious beliefs and experiences, and that "secular" values infused the behavior of nearly all Protestant migrants. Religion's role in transatlantic migrations is well known, but its importance to the famed mobility of Americans is far less understood. Wandering Souls demonstrates that Protestantism greatly influenced internal migration and the social and economic development of early America.

A Separate Canaan

A Separate Canaan
Author: Jon F. Sensbach
Publisher: UNC Press Books
Total Pages: 369
Release: 2012-12-01
Genre: History
ISBN: 0807838543

In colonial North Carolina, German-speaking settlers from the Moravian Church founded a religious refuge--an ideal society, they hoped, whose blueprint for daily life was the Bible and whose Chief Elder was Christ himself. As the community's demand for labor grew, the Moravian Brethren bought slaves to help operate their farms, shops, and industries. Moravians believed in the universalism of the gospel and baptized dozens of African Americans, who became full members of tightly knit Moravian congregations. For decades, white and black Brethren worked and worshiped together--though white Moravians never abandoned their belief that black slavery was ordained by God. Based on German church documents, including dozens of rare biographies of black Moravians, A Separate Canaan is the first full-length study of contact between people of German and African descent in early America. Exploring the fluidity of race in Revolutionary era America, it highlights the struggle of African Americans to secure their fragile place in a culture unwilling to give them full human rights. In the early nineteenth century, white Moravians forsook their spiritual inclusiveness, installing blacks in a separate church. Just as white Americans throughout the new republic rejected African American equality, the Moravian story illustrates the power of slavery and race to overwhelm other ideals.

The Destiny of Modern Societies

The Destiny of Modern Societies
Author: Milan Zafirovski
Publisher: BRILL
Total Pages: 633
Release: 2009
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 9004176292

This book is a sociological analysis of the relationship between modern society, in particular America, and Calvinism in the Weberian tradition. While the book continues this tradition, it further expands, elaborates on, and goes beyond earlier sociological analyses. The book examines the impact of Calvinism on modern society as a whole, thus extending, elaborating on, and going beyond the previous analyses of the influence of the Calvinist religion only on the capitalist economy. It analyzes how Calvinism has determined most contemporary social institutions, including political, civic, cultural, and economic, in its respective societies, particularly, through its derivative Puritanism, America. For that purpose, the book applies the idea of the destiny of societies or nations to American society in particular. It argues, demonstrates, and illustrates the Calvinist societal "predestination," through the Puritan determination, of American society .

Hope's Promise

Hope's Promise
Author: S. Scott Rohrer
Publisher: University of Alabama Press
Total Pages: 303
Release: 2014-04
Genre: History
ISBN: 0817357769

A fresh perspective on the interaction of religious ideals and social change in rural settlements of the Moravian colony of Wachovia.

Pious Pursuits

Pious Pursuits
Author: Michele Gillespie
Publisher: Berghahn Books
Total Pages: 282
Release: 2007
Genre: History
ISBN: 9781845453398

Essays re members of the Moravian Church; although many of these Protestant immigrants spoke German, they originated in various countries.

Serving Two Masters

Serving Two Masters
Author: Elisabeth W. Sommer
Publisher: University Press of Kentucky
Total Pages: 333
Release: 2021-12-14
Genre: History
ISBN: 0813189497

The eighteenth century was a time of significant change in the perception of marriage and family relations, the emphasis of reason over revelation, and the spread of political consciousness. The Unity of the Brethren, known in America as Moravians, experienced the resulting tensions firsthand as they organized their protective religious settlements in Germany. A group of the Brethren who later settled in Salem, North Carolina, experienced the stresses of cultural and generational conflict when its younger members came to think of themselves as Americans. The Moravians who first immigrated to America actively maintained their connections to those who remained in Europe and gave them the authority for deciding religious, social, and governmental issues. But, as the children born in Salem became acclimated to more freedoms, particularly in the wake of the American Revolution, a series of disputes intensified the problems of transatlantic governance. While the group's leadership usually associated Enlightenment principles with rebellion and religious skepticism, the younger Brethren were drawn to its message of individual autonomy and creative expression. Elisabeth Sommer traces the impact of this generational and cultural change among Moravians on both sides of the Atlantic and examines the resulting debate over the definition of freedom and faith.

Theocracy and Toleration

Theocracy and Toleration
Author: Douglas Nobbs
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 297
Release: 2012-07-19
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 1107609445

This 1938 book gives an engaging account of the main controversies within Dutch Calvinism between 1600 and 1650. Although the relation of Church and state was debated throughout the seventeenth century in the Netherlands, two disputes in the first half were most significant, and the book provides detailed information on both.

Forsyth

Forsyth
Author: Adelaide L. Fries
Publisher: UNC Press Books
Total Pages: 517
Release: 2018-07-25
Genre: History
ISBN: 1469644002

This is a carefully researched and completely rewritten version of Adelaide Fries's 1949 history that traced the Forsyth story from its Moravian beginnings through the joining of Winston and Salem and concluded with a forward look to Wake Forest College as a key to future cultural growth. The authors emphasize the contributions of the county beyond the city limits, reflecting the growing social and economic importance of the suburban and rural area in the past twenty-five years. Originally published in 1976. A UNC Press Enduring Edition -- UNC Press Enduring Editions use the latest in digital technology to make available again books from our distinguished backlist that were previously out of print. These editions are published unaltered from the original, and are presented in affordable paperback formats, bringing readers both historical and cultural value.

Nonbeliever Nation

Nonbeliever Nation
Author: David Niose
Publisher: St. Martin's Press
Total Pages: 271
Release: 2012-07-17
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 1137055286

A new group of Americans is challenging the reign of the Religious Right Today, nearly one in five Americans are nonbelievers - a rapidly growing group at a time when traditional Christian churches are dwindling in numbers - and they are flexing their muscles like never before. Yet we still see almost none of them openly serving in elected office, while Mitt Romney, Rick Santorum, and many others continue to loudly proclaim the myth of America as a Christian nation. In Nonbeliever Nation, leading secular advocate David Niose explores what this new force in politics means for the unchallenged dominance of the Religious Right. Hitting on all the hot-button issues that divide the country – from gay marriage to education policy to contentious church-state battles – he shows how this movement is gaining traction, and fighting for its rights. Now, Secular Americans—a group comprised not just of atheists and agnostics, but lapsed Catholics, secular Jews, and millions of others who have walked away from religion—are mobilizing and forming groups all over the country (even atheist clubs in Bible-belt high schools) to challenge the exaltation of religion in American politics and public life. This is a timely and important look at how growing numbers of nonbelievers, disenchanted at how far America has wandered from its secular roots, are emerging to fight for equality and rational public policy.

Religious Traditions of North Carolina

Religious Traditions of North Carolina
Author: W. Glenn Jonas, Jr.
Publisher: McFarland
Total Pages: 344
Release: 2018-10-23
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 1476676461

This book presents most of the religious traditions North Carolinians and their ancestors have embraced since 1650. Baptists, Presbyterians, Catholics, Methodists, Episcopalians, Jews, Brethren, Quakers, Lutherans, Mennonites, Moravians, and Pentecostals, along with African American worshippers and non-Christians, are covered in fourteen essays by men and women who have experienced the religions they describe in detail. The North Caroliniana Society is a nonprofit, nonsectarian, membership organization dedicated to the promotion of increased knowledge and appreciation of North Carolina's heritage through the encouragement of scholarly research and writing and the teaching of state and local history, literature and culture.