CONGREGATIONAL CHRISTIAN HISTORY

 

Resources to continue your exploration of 400 years of Congregational history.

 

Pilgrims and Puritans

Bremer, Francis J. First Founders: American Puritans and Puritanism in an Atlantic World. Durham, NH:  University of New Hampshire Press, 2012.

Bremer, Francis J. Puritanism: A Very Short Introduction. New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 2009.

Cooper, James F. Tenacious of their Liberties: The Congregationalists in Colonial Massachusetts. New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 1999.

Demos, John. A Little Commonwealth: Family Life in Plymouth Colony. New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 1970.

Hall, David D. A Reforming People: Puritanism and the Transformation of Public Life in New England. New York, NY: Knopf, 2011.

Hall, David D. (ed.). Puritans in the New World: A Critical Anthology. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2004.

Hambrick-Stowe, Charles. The Practice of Piety: Puritan Devotional Disciplines in Seventeenth-Century New England. Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press, 1982.

Morgan, Edmund. Visible Saints: The History of a Puritan Idea. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press 1963.

Philbrick, Nathaniel. Mayflower: The Pilgrims and Their Legacy. New York, NY: Viking Press, 2006.

Stout, Harry S. The New England Soul: Preaching and Religious Culture in Colonial New England. New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 1986.

 

Eighteenth-Century Awakenings and the Origin of the Christians

Brekus, Catherine. Strangers and Pilgrims: Female Preaching in America, 1740-1845. Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina, 1998.

Bushman, Richard. The Great Awakening: Documents on the Revival of Religion, 1740-1745. Williamsburg, VA: Institute of Early American History and Culture, 1969.

Hatch, Nathan O. The Democratization of American Christianity. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1989.

Jones, Lawrence Neale. African Americans and the Christian Churches, 1619-1860. Cleveland, OH: Pilgrim Press, 2007.

Kidd, Thomas. The Great Awakening: The Roots of Evangelical Christianity in Colonial America. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2007.

Lambert, Frank. Inventing the 'Great Awakening'. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1999.

Stout, Harry S. Divine Dramatist: George Whitefield and the Rise of Modern Evangelicalism. Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1991.

The Works of Jonathan Edwards at the Jonathan Edwards Center at Yale University.

 

The Early Nineteenth Century: Missions, Reform, and Theology

Andrew, John A. III. Rebuilding the Christian Commonwealth: New England Congregationalists and Foreign Missions, 1800-1830. Louisville, KY: University Press of Kentucky, 1976.

Goodsell, Fred Field. You Shall Be My Witnesses: An Interpretation of the History of the American Board, 1810-1960. Boston, MA: American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions, 1959.

Hall, Peter Dobkin. "The Rise of the Civic Engagement Tradition," in Taking Faith Seriously. ed. Mary Jo Bane, Brent Coffin, and Richard Higgins. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2005.

Hutchison, William R. Errand to the World: American Protestant Thought and Foreign Missions. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 1987.

Rohrer, James. Keepers of the Covenant: Foreign Missions and the Decline of Congregationalism, 1774-1818. New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 1995.

Sweeney, Douglas and Allen Guelzo. The New England Theology: From Jonathan Edwards to Edwards Amasa Park. Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2006.

Wright, Conrad. The Beginnings of Unitarianism in America. Boston, MA: Starr King Press, distributed by Beacon Press, 1955.

 

Civil War and Late Nineteenth Century

DeBoer, Clara Merritt. His Truth is Marching On: African Americans Who Taught the Freedmen for the American Missionary Association, 1861-1877. New York, NY: Garland, 1995.

Hollyday, Joyce. On the Heels of Freedom: The American Missionary Association's Bold Campaign to Educate Minds, Open Hearts, and Heal the Soul of a Divided Nation. New York, NY: Crossroad, 2005.

Hutchison, William R. The Modernist Impulse in American Protestantism. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1976.

Richardson, Joe Martin. Christian Reconstruction: The American Missionary Association and Southern Blacks, 1861-1890. Athens, GA: University of Georgia Press, 1986.

 

Twentieth Century

Gunnemann, Louis. The Shaping of the United Church of Christ. New York, NY: United Church Press, 1977.

Horton, Douglas. The United Church of Christ: Its Origins, Organization, and Role in the World Today. New York, NY: Nelson, 1962.

Hutchison, William R. Between the Times: The Travail of the Protestant Establishment in America, 1900-1960. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1989.

Maxfield, Charles. A Pilgrim People: A History of the United Church of Christ and Its Antecedents. Cortland, NY: Maxfield Press, 2005.

Zikmund, Barbara Brown (ed.). Hidden Histories in the United Church of Christ. 2 vols. New York, NY: United Church Press, 1987.

 

Biographies

Applegate, Deborah. The Most Famous Man in America: A Biography of Henry Ward Beecher. New York, NY: Doubleday, 2006.

Brekus, Catherine. Sarah Osborn's World: The Rise of Evangelical Christianity in Early America. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2012.

Bremer, Francis J. John Winthrop: America's Forgotten Founding Father. New York, NY: Oxford, 2003.

Cazden, Elizabeth. Antoinette Brown Blackwell: A Biography. Old Westbury, NY: Feminist Press, 1983.

Courtney, Steve. Joseph Hopkins Twichell: The Life and Times of Mark Twain's Closest Friend. Athens, GA: University of Georgia Press, 2008.

Koester, Nancy. Harriet Beecher Stowe: A Spiritual Life. Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2013.

Marsden, George M. A Short Life of Jonathan Edwards. Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2008.

Trost, Theodore. Douglas Horton and the Ecumenical Impulse in American Religion. Cambridge, MA: Harvard Divinity School, 2002.

 

Regional Church Indexes

Researchers trying to locate records of an old church, or of one no longer in existence, will find this series immensely helpful. This collection provides a well-researched and informative introduction for six different regions of the United States, and a detailed index of mergers, closings, and name changes for every known Congregational church and post-merger Congregational Christian church ever organized, from the colonial period to the present.

Much of Rev. Taylor's data for these books was painstakingly compiled and researched using annual reports from state and regional associations, local and national periodicals, and materials from individual churches within our collections.

Titles include:

All of these volumes are available for purchase. Please visit the author's website for more information.