eBook

A republic of righteousness : the public Christianity of the post-revolutionary New England clergy

Sassi, Jonathan D.

2001,2002

Overview

This book analyzes the debate over the proper connection between religion and society that took place in southern New England during the fifty years after the American Revolution. It finds that a Christian social ideology, descended from the region's Puritan origins, endured and evolved during the era of the early republic, in contrast to interpretations that emphasize the individualization and secularization of American public life during the period. In the last two decades of the eighteenth century, the Congregational clergy articulated a corporate ethic that emphasized the superintendence of divine Providence over communal affairs and the importance of social morality for the survival of the new nation, although Baptists and other religious minorities dissented and called for the disestablishment of Congregationalism. By the early nineteenth century, the first party competition between Federalists and Democratic‐Republicans politicized and transformed the debate over public Christianity. Congregationalists became disillusioned with their prophecies of America's millennial role and soured on their partnership with the Federalist magistracy, while dissenters joined Jeffersonians in agitating for disestablishment. At the same time, however, the Congregationalists found cause for optimism amid the revivals of the Second Great Awakening. The experience of Worcester County, Massachusetts was typical, where religious revivals and clerical networking at the grassroots fostered a new vision of the godly community. In the years after 1815 partisan acrimony declined, and the Congregationalists split into Unitarian and orthodox camps. As a result, an evangelical coalition of orthodox Congregationalists, Baptists, and others emerged that charted the way for renewed activism on the part of a Christian electorate and mobilized church. The transformed public Christianity of the 1820s and 1830s made a seminal contribution to the emergence of a variety of reform movements, such as temperance, Sabbatarianism, and antislavery.

• Publisher: Oxford University Press,Oxford University Press, Incorporated
• Subject: 1775-1865 / Church and state / Church and state -- New England -- History / Church history / Clergy / Clergy -- New England -- Political activity -- History / Congregational churches / Congregational churches -- New England -- Clergy -- Political activity -- History / History / History of Christianity / New England / New England -- Church history / New England -- Politics and government -- 1775-1865 / Political activity / Politics and government / Protestantism and Protestant Churches / United States History
• ISBN: 019512989X, 9780195129892, 9780195366808, 0195366808