Religion in North America

Explore the history of the Fortuna Rodeo from its origins in 1921 up to the present day with this intriguing history packed with photographs and lore of Humboldt County, California. The rodeo continues as a mainstay of Fortuna, with the 2020 event being the first to be canceled since the end of World War II. In addition to the rodeo itself, this book paints a portrait of the history and growth of a small California town over the past century. Hundreds of photographs from the collections of community members, local museums, universities, and the National Cowboy and Western Heritage Museum illustrate the text. Among the many never-before-published images is a photograph from the collection of the Rodoni family showing the 1961 Fortuna Rodeo's salute to "old cowboys" who had ridden in the rodeos of the 1920s. The book also features images created by Fortuna photographer Rudy Gillard, a rodeo board member and official photographer of the Fortuna Rodeo, between 1955 and 1981. Dedicated to the Fortuna Rodeo board and to all who have participated in the Fortuna Rodeo, you'll find In and Around the Arena a fascinating read.

Northern New England, a rugged landscape dotted with transient settlements, posed challenges to the traditional town church in the wake of the American Revolution. Using the methods of spatial geography, Shelby M. Balik examines how migrants adapted their understanding of religious community and spiritual space to survive in the harsh physical surroundings of the region. The notions of boundaries, place, and identity they developed became the basis for spreading New England's deeply rooted spiritual culture, even as it opened the way to a new evangelical age.

This biography of an unconventional woman in late 19th Century America is a study of the search for individual autonomy and spiritual growth. Laura Holloway-Langford, a "rebel girl" from Tennessee, moved to New York City, where she supported her family as a journalist. She soon became famous as the author of Ladies of the White House, which secured her financial independence. Promoted to associate editor of the Brooklyn Daily Eagle, she gave readings and lectures and became involved in progressive women's causes, the temperance movement, and theosophy-even traveling to Europe to meet Madame Blavatsky, the movement's leader, and writing for the theosophist newspaper The Word. In the early 1870s, she began a correspondence with Eldress Anna White of the Mount Lebanon, New York, Shaker community, with whom she shared belief in pacifism, feminism, vegetarianism, and cremation. Attracted by the simplicity of Shaker life, she eventually bought a farm from the Canaan Shakers, where she lived and continued to write until her death in 1930. In tracing the life of this spiritual seeker, Diane Sasson underscores the significant role played by cultural mediators like Holloway-Langford in bringing new religious ideas to the American public and contributing to a growing interest in eastern religions and alternative approaches to health and spirituality that would alter the cultural landscape of the nation.

Warren Felt Evans (1817–1889) converted to Methodism while at Dartmouth College, became a minister, and spent his Methodist years as a spiritual seeker. His two extant journals, edited and annotated by Catherine L. Albanese, appear in print for the first time and reveal the inner journey of a leading American spiritual pilgrim at a critical period in his religious search. A voracious reader, he recorded accounts of intense religious experience in his journals. He moved from the Oberlin perfectionism he embraced early on, through the French quietism of Madame J. Guyon and Archbishop Fénelon, then into Swedenborgianism, spiritualism, and mind cure with distinct theosophical overtones. His carefully documented journey is suggestive of the similar journeys of the religious seekers who made their way into the burgeoning metaphysical movement at the end of the 19th century-and may shed light too on today's spirituality.

How do American Jews identify as both Jewish and American? American Post-Judaism argues that Zionism and the Holocaust, two anchors of contemporary American Jewish identity, will no longer be centers of identity formation for future generations of American Jews. Shaul Magid articulates a new, post-ethnic American Jewishness. He discusses pragmatism and spirituality, monotheism and post-monotheism, Jesus, Jewish law, sainthood and self-realization, and the meaning of the Holocaust for those who have never known survivors. Magid presents Jewish Renewal as a movement that takes this radical cultural transition seriously in its strivings for a new era in Jewish thought and practice.

"In this compelling intellectual and social history, Moorhead argues that for mainline Protestants in the late 19th century, time became endless, human-directed and without urgency. . . . Moorhead offers some brilliant observations about the legacy of postmillennialism and the human need for a definitive eschaton." -Publishers Weekly In the 19th century American Protestants firmly believed that when progress had run its course, there would be a Second Coming of Christ, the world would come to a supernatural End, and the predictions in the Apocalypse would come to pass. During the years covered in James Moorhead's study, however, moderate and liberal mainstream Protestants transformed this postmillennialism into a hope that this world would be the scene for limitless spiritual improvement and temporal progress. The sense of an End vanished with the arrival of the new millennium.

An enlightening look at the surprising connections between spirituality and progressive thought in the United States. Religious liberalism in America is often associated with an ecumenical Protestant establishment. This book, however, draws attention to the broad diversity of liberal cultures that shapes America's religious movements. The essays gathered here push beyond familiar tropes and boundaries to interrogate religious liberalism's dense cultural leanings by looking at spirituality in the arts, the politics and piety of religious cosmopolitanism, and the interaction between liberal religion and liberal secularism. Readers will find a kaleidoscopic view of many of the progressive strands of America's religious past and present in this richly provocative volume.

Re-issued in recognition of the 25th anniversary of the mass suicides at Jonestown, this revised edition of David Chidester's path breaking book features a new prologue that considers the meaning of the tragedy for a post-Waco, post-9/11 world. For Chidester, Jonestown recalls the American religious commitment to redemptive sacrifice, which for Jim Jones meant saving his followers from the evils of capitalist society. Jonestown is ancient history, writes Chidester, but it does provide us with an opportunity to reflect upon the strangeness of familiar... promises of redemption through sacrifice.

From the colonial period to the present, the Mississippi River has impacted religious communities from Minnesota to the Gulf of Mexico. Exploring the religious landscape along the 2,530 miles of the largest river system in North America, the essays in Gods of the Mississippi make a compelling case for American religion in motion-not just from east to west, but also from north to south. With discussion of topics such as the religions of the Black Atlantic, religion and empire, antebellum religious movements, the Mormons at Nauvoo, black religion in the delta, Catholicism in the Deep South, and Johnny Cash and religion, this volume contributes to a richer understanding of this diverse, dynamic, and fluid religious world.