The Making Of American Religious Experience

The American Religious Experience offers a short, accessible introduction to American religious history by an award-winning writer. Recognizing the inter-denominational, inter-religious and multi-cultural perspectives that all contribute to the American religious landscape, this book explores the tension between the central, dominant streams of American Christianity and those groups relegated to the periphery. On the edges of the American mainstream we find the histories of groups rooted in visionary traditions, emotionalized forms of religious practice, and ever-expanding ethnic and racial perspectives. The complexity of the religious scene in the United States now, ongoing tensions between identity and diversity, and the many voices that inform American religious practice today grow directly out of the dynamic history that unfolds in these pages.

In light of the curious compulsion to stress Protestant dominance in America's past, this book takes an unorthodox look at religious history in America. Rather than focusing on the usual mainstream Protestant churches--Episcopal, Congregationalist, Methodist, Baptist, and Lutheran--Moore instead turns his attention to the equally important "outsiders" in the American religious experience and tests the realities of American religious pluralism against their history in America. Through separate but interrelated chapters on seven influential groups of "outsiders"--the Mormons, Catholics, Jews, Christian Scientists, Millennialists, 20th-century Protestant Fundamentalists, and the African-American churches--Moore shows that what was going on in mainstream churches may not have been the "normal" religious experience at all, and that many of these "outside" groups embodied values that were, in fact, quintessentially American.

* A serious look at the larger cultural, theological, and philosophical issues that face black religion today * A new way of evaluating slave narratives, suffering, and the role of the churches

Twenty years ago, Anthony Pinn‘s engrossing survey highlighted the rich diversity of black religious life in America, revealing expressions of an ever-changing black religious quest. Based on extensive research, travel, and interviews, Pinn‘s work provides a fascinating look especially at Voodoo, Santeria, the Nation of Islam, and black humanism in the United States and uses the diversity of religious belief to begin formulation of a comparative black theology-the first of its kind. This twentieth-anniversary edition is an expanded version, including a new preface and a new concluding chapter. An important contribution to classroom studies!

Dreams and visions, prophetic words from God about "dusty souls," speaking in tongues while "in the spirit"—narratives of these and similar events comprise the heart of Every Time I Feel the Spirit. This in-depth study of a Black congregation in Charleston, South Carolina provides a window into the tremendously important yet still largely overlooked world of African American religion as the faith is lived by ordinary believers. For decades, scholars have been preoccupied with the relation between Black Christianity, civil rights, and social activism. Every Time I Feel the Spirit is about black religion as religion. It focuses on the everyday experience of religion in the church, congregants' relationships with God, and the role that God and Satan play in congregants' lives—not only as objects of belief but as actual agents. It explores the concepts of religious experience and religious ritual, while emphasizing the attributions that people make to the operation of spiritual forces and beings in their lives. Through interviews and field work, Nelson uncovers what religious people themselves see as important about their faith while extending and refining sociological understandings of religious ritual and religious experience.

The books in the Florida and the Caribbean Open Books Series demonstrate the University Press of Florida’s long history of publishing Latin American and Caribbean studies titles that connect in and through Florida, highlighting the connections between the Sunshine State and its neighboring islands. Books in this series show how early explorers found and settled Florida and the Caribbean. They tell the tales of early pioneers, both foreign and domestic. They examine topics critical to the area such as travel, migration, economic opportunity, and tourism. They look at the growth of Florida and the Caribbean and the attendant pressures on the environment, culture, urban development, and the movement of peoples, both forced and voluntary. The Florida and the Caribbean Open Books Series gathers the rich data available in these architectural, archaeological, cultural, and historical works, as well as the travelogues and naturalists’ sketches of the area in prior to the twentieth century, making it accessible for scholars and the general public alike. The Florida and the Caribbean Open Books Series is made possible through a grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities and the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, under the Humanities Open Books program.

Harvard psychologist and philosopher William James' The Varieties of Religious Experience: A Study in Human Nature explores the nature of religion and, in James' observation, its divorce from science when studied academically. After publication in 1902 it quickly became a canonical text of philosophy and psychology, remaining in print through the entire century. "Scientific theories are organically conditioned just as much as religious emotions are; and if we only knew the facts intimately enough, we should doubtless see 'the liver' determining the dicta of the sturdy atheist as decisively as it does those of the Methodist under conviction anxious about his soul. When it alters in one way the blood that percolates it, we get the Methodist, when in another way, we get the atheist form of mind."

A collection of original essays exploring the history of the various American religious traditions and the meaning of their many expressions The Blackwell Companion to American Religious History explores the key events, significant themes, and important movements in various religious traditions throughout the nation’s history from pre-colonization to the present day. Original essays written by leading scholars and new voices in the field discuss how religion in America has transformed over the years, explore its many expressions and meanings, and consider religion’s central role in American life. Emphasizing the integration of religion into broader cultural and historical themes, this wide-ranging volume explores the operation of religion in eras of historical change, the diversity of religious experiences, and religion’s intersections with American cultural, political, social, racial, gender, and intellectual history. Each chronologically-organized chapter focuses on a specific period or event, such as the interactions between Moravian and Indigenous communities, the origins of African-American religious institutions, Mormon settlement in Utah, social reform movements during the twentieth century, the growth of ethnic religious communities, and the rise of the Religious Right. An innovative historical genealogy of American religious traditions, the Companion: Highlights broader historical themes using clear and compelling narrative Helps teachers expose their students to the significance and variety of America’s religious past Explains new and revisionist interpretations of American religious history Surveys current and emerging historiographical trends Traces historical themes to contemporary issues surrounding civil rights and social justice movements, modern capitalism, and debates over religious liberties Making the lessons of American religious history relevant to a broad range of readers, The Blackwell Companion to American Religious History is the perfect book for advanced undergraduate and graduate students in American history courses, and a valuable resource for graduate students and scholars wanting to keep pace with current historiographical trends and recent developments in the field.

The volume expands current scholarship on African American religion and embodiment by going beyond an understanding of black religion as the "Black Church" and underscoring the variety of religious experiences, in both marginal religious traditions and in non-traditional forms of religion.

Most who think about African American religion limit themselves to black churches, or perhaps to aspects of Islamic thought and practice. But a close look at the religious landscape of African American communities presents a much more complex, thick, and layered religious reality comprising many competing faiths and practices. The African American Religious Experience in America provides readers with an introduction to the tremendous religious diversity of African American communities in the United States, with snapshots of 11 religious traditions practiced by African Americans—from Buddhism to Catholicism, from Judaism to Voodoo. Each snapshot provides readers a better understanding of how African Americans practice their faiths in the United States. The African American Religious Experience in America provides resources for students taking classes on the history of American religion, African American Studies, and on American Studies. In addition to the in-depth discussion of the varieties of African American Religion, the volume includes a historical introduction to the development of African American Religion, a glossary of terms, a timeline of important events, a series of short biographies of important figures in the history of African American religion and a bibliography of sources for further study. Finally, the book includes a series of primary source documents that will provide students with first-person accounts of how religion is practiced in the African American community both today and in the past.