Title: Religions of the United States in practice /
Authors: McDannell, Colleen.
Publisher: Princeton University Press,
Year: 2001
Subjects: Religion United States.; United States Religious life and customs.; United States
Abstract: Religions of the United States in Practice is a rich anthology of primary sources with accompanying essays that examines religious behavior in America. From praying in an early American synagogue to performing Mormon healing rituals to debating cremation, Volume 1 explores faith through action from Colonial times through the nineteenth century. The documents and essays consider the religious practices of average people -- praying, singing, healing, teaching, imagining, and persuading. Some documents are formal liturgies while other texts describe more spontaneous religious actions. Because religious practices also take place in the imagination, dreams, visions, and fictional accounts are also included. Accompanying each primary document is an essay that sets the religious practice in its historical and theological context -- making this volume ideal for classroom use and accessible to any reader. The introductory essays explain the various meanings of religious practices as lived out in churches and synagogues, in parlors and fields, beside rivers, on lecture platforms, and in the streets. Religions of the United States in Practice offers a sampling of religious perspectives in order to approximate the living texture of popular religious thought and practice in the United States. The history of religion in America is more than the story of institutions and famous people. This anthology presents a more nuanced story composed of the everyday actions and thoughts of lay men and women. - Publisher.
Contents: Persuading-witnessing, controversies, and polemics. Native American visionary experience and Christian missions / Michael D. McNally. American anti-Catholic pornography / Peter Gardella. Christian doctrine of slavery / Paul Harvey. Trance lectures in antebellum America / Anne Braude. ... vol. 2. Praying-individual and communal worship. Lucy Smith and Pentecostal worship in Chicago / Wallace Best ... The daily prayer (Du?a) of Shi?a Isma?ili Muslims / Tazim R. Kassam ... -- Singing-songs of devotion, praise, and protest ... Freedom songs and the civil rights movement / Paul Harvey. Folk music in the Catholic mass / Mark Oppenheimer. Buddhist chanting in Soka Gakkai International / Richard Hughes Seager ... Teaching morality in race movies / Judith Weisenfeld ... An Apache girl's initiation feast / Michael D. McNally. Taking or receiving the Buddhist precepts / Richard Hughes Seager