Description - Pious Persuasions by Erik R. Seeman
Congregational ministers in early New England worked hard to advance the cause of orthodox religion among the region's laypeople, but the people's willingness to voice differences with their ministers persisted. By the time of the Revolutionary War, New Englanders had established a strong tradition of independent-mindedness, shaped in part by the previous century's struggles over piety and religious practice. In this study, the author explores both Congregational doctrine and laypeople's practices throughout the 1700s. Erik Seeman looks at the piety of ordinary people, including a Boston housewright; the interplay of magic and religious culture; the changing experience of women; and the persistence of revivalism. His findings offer a different perspective on the Great Awakening of the 1740s, which appears not as a historical turning point but rather as one of four major revivals that fostered communal piety. Seeman further examines how pastors and parishioners negotiated their increasingly contentious religious culture when participating in highly charged events: deathbed scenes, rituals of baptism and the Lord's Supper, and religious revivals.
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