Christian Science is one of only two indigenous American religions, the other being Mormonism. Yet it has not always been examined seriously within the context of the history of religious ideas and the development of American religious life. Stephen Gottschalk fills this void with an examination of Christian Science’s root concepts—the informing vision and the distinctive mission as formulated by its founder, Mary Baker Eddy. Concentrating on the quarter-century preceding Eddy's death, a period of phenomenal growth for Christian Science, Gottschalk challenges the conventional academic view of the movement as a fringe sect. He finds instead a serious and distinctive, though radical, religious teaching that began to flower just as orthodox Protestantism began to fade. He gives a clear and detailed account of the rancorous controversies between Christian Science and the various mind-cure and occult movements with which it is often associated, and contends that Christian Science appealed to disenchanted Protestants because of its pragmatic quality—a quality that relates it to the mainstream of American culture. This title is part of UC Press's Voices Revived program, which commemorates University of California Press’s mission to seek out and cultivate the brightest minds and give them voice, reach, and impact. Drawing on a backlist dating to 1893, Voices Revived makes high-quality, peer-reviewed scholarship accessible once again using print-on-demand technology. This title was originally published in 1973.

A mix of thematic essays, reference entries, and primary source documents covering the role of religion in American history and life from the colonial era to the present. Often controversial, religion has been an important force in shaping American culture. Religious convictions strongly influenced colonial and state governments as well as the United States as a new republic. Religious teachings, values, and practices deeply affected political structures and policies, economic ideology and practice, educational institutions and instruction, social norms and customs, marriage, and family life. By analyzing religion's interaction with American culture and prominent religious leaders and ideologies, this reference helps readers to better understand many fascinating, often controversial, religious leaders, ideas, events, and topics. The work is organized in three volumes devoted to particular periods. Volume one includes a chronology highlighting key events related to religion in American history and an introduction that overviews religion in America during the period covered by the volume, and roughly 10 essays that explore significant themes. These essays are followed by approximately 120 alphabetically arranged reference entries providing objective, fundamental information about topics related to religion in America. Each volume presents nearly 50 primary source documents, each introduced by a contextualizing headnote. A selected, general bibliography closes volume three.

Most new or alternative religious are gravely misunderstood by members of the religious mainstream. Labeled cults or sects, groups and their members are often ridiculed or otherwise disregarded as weird and potentially dangerous by the populace at large. Despite their efforts at educating the general public, the various anti- and counter-cult activists have in fact promoted much more mis-understanding than accurate understanding of the religious lives of some of their fellow citizens. Consequently, they have helped to create a very hostile environment for anyone whose religious practices do not fit within a so-called mainstream. This set rectifies the situation by presenting accurate, comprehensive, authoritative and accessible accounts of various new and alternative religious movements that have been and are active in American society, and it addresses ways of understanding new and alternative religions within a broader context. Determining what actually constitutes a new or alternative religion is a subject of constant debate. Questions arise as to a new faith's legitimacy, beliefs, methods of conversion, and other facets of a religious movement's viability and place in a given culture. How a religion gains recognition by the mainstream, which often labels such new movements as cults, is fraught with difficulty, tension, and fear. Here, experts delineate the boundaries and examine the various groups, beliefs, movements, and other issues related to new faiths and alternative beliefs. Readers will come away with a fuller understanding of the religious landscape in America today. Volume 1: History and Controversies discusses the foundations of new and alternative religions in the United States and addresses the controversies that surround them. This volume helps readers better understand what makes a new or alternative belief system a religion and the issues involved. Volume 2: Jewish and Christian Traditions explores the various new religions that have grown out of these two Abrahamic faiths. Groups such as the Shakers, the People's Temple, the Branch Davidians, Jehovah's Witnesses and others are examined. Volume 3: Metaphysical, New Age, and Neopagan Movements looks at Shamanism, Spiritualism, Wicca, and Paganism, among other movements, as they have developed and grown in the U.S. These faiths have found new and devoted followers yet are often misunderstood. Volume 4: Asian Traditions focuses on those new and alternative religions that have been inspired by Asian religious traditions. From Baha'i to Soka Gakkai, from Adidam to the Vedanta Society, contributors look at a full range of groups practicing and worshiping in the U.S. today. Volume 5: African Diaspora Traditions and Other American Innovations examines the various traditions linked to the African diaspora such as Rastafarianism, Santeria, and the Nation of Islam, alongside traditions that are truly American incarnations like Scientology, UFO religions, and Heaven's Gate. Some of the new and alternative religions covered in these pages include: ; Shamanism ; Wicca ; Black Israelites ; Santeria ; Scientology ; Elan Vital ; Hare Krishna ; Soka Gakkai ; and many more

This is a single-volume source of reliable information on the most important alternative religions, covering for each such essentials as history, theology, impact on the culture, and current status. The chapters of the book were written by experts who study the movements they have written about.

Book History is the annual journal of the Society for the History of Authorship, Reading and Publishing, Inc. (SHARP). Book History is devoted to every aspect of the history of the book, broadly defined as the history of the creation, dissemination, and the reception of script and print. Book History publishes research on the social, economic, and cultural history of authorship, editing, printing, the book arts, publishing, the book trade, periodicals, newspapers, ephemera, copyright, censorship, literary agents, libraries, literary criticism, canon formation, literacy, literacy education, reading habits, and reader response.

"Explores five ideas that animate the theological imagination of women in religious communities throughout America: ambivalence toward tradition; the immanence, or indwelling, of the divine; the sacredness of the ordinary and the ordinariness of the sacred; the vision of the universe as a web of relationships; and healing as a central function of religion"--back cover.

The ten essays in this volume explore the vast diversity of religions in the United States, from Judaic, Catholic, and African American to Asian, Muslim, and Native American traditions. Chapters on religion and the South, religion and gender, indigenous sectarian religious movements, and the metaphysical tradition round out the collection. The contributors examine the past, present, and future of American religion, first orienting readers to historiographic trends and traditions of interpretation in each area, then providing case studies to show their vision of how these areas should be developed. Full of provocative insights into the complexity of American religion, this volume helps us better understand America's religious history and its future challenges and directions.

Here is a volume that is as big and as varied as the nation it portrays. With over 1,400 entries written by some 900 historians and other scholars, it illuminates not only America's political, diplomatic, and military history, but also social, cultural, and intellectual trends; science, technology, and medicine; the arts; and religion. Here are the familiar political heroes, from George Washington and Benjamin Franklin, to Abraham Lincoln, Woodrow Wilson, and Franklin D. Roosevelt. But here, too, are scientists, writers, radicals, sports figures, and religious leaders, with incisive portraits of such varied individuals as Thomas Edison and Eli Whitney, Babe Ruth and Muhammed Ali, Black Elk and Crazy Horse, Margaret Fuller, Emma Goldman, and Marian Anderson, even Al Capone and Jesse James. The Companion illuminates events that have shaped the nation (the Great Awakening, Bunker Hill, Wounded Knee, the Vietnam War); major Supreme Court decisions (Marbury v. Madison, Roe v. Wade); landmark legislation (the Fugitive Slave Law, the Pure Food and Drug Act); social movements (Suffrage, Civil Rights); influential books (The Jungle, Uncle Tom's Cabin); ideologies (conservatism, liberalism, Social Darwinism); even natural disasters and iconic sites (the Chicago Fire, the Johnstown Flood, Niagara Falls, the Lincoln Memorial). Here too is the nation's social and cultural history, from Films, Football, and the 4-H Club, to Immigration, Courtship and Dating, Marriage and Divorce, and Death and Dying. Extensive multi-part entries cover such key topics as the Civil War, Indian History and Culture, Slavery, and the Federal Government. A new volume for a new century, The Oxford Companion to United States History covers everything from Jamestown and the Puritans to the Human Genome Project and the Internet--from Columbus to Clinton. Written in clear, graceful prose for researchers, browsers, and general readers alike, this is the volume that addresses the totality of the American experience, its triumphs and heroes as well as its tragedies and darker moments.

"Bednarowski is especially good at elucidating the theological daring of these new American religions.... [She] demonstrates in a very few pages how... theology and group adherence made the individual count, a configuration simultaneously American, un-American, and important." -- Jon Butler "The cultural confrontation with these `new religions' is very real and usually very misinformed. Bednarowski has gone to great lengths to dispel the ignorance." -- The Christian Century "A groundbreaking study." -- Syzygy: Journal of Alternative Religion and Culture Organized as a series of theological conversations about ultimate questions, this book offers a guide to the answers these six religions offer. Drawing heavily on sources from the movements themselves, it presents a balanced comparative account of the emerging theological systems of America's new religions.

Reveals the many ways in which religious groups actually embraced commercial culture to establish an urban presence. [back cover].