The American Congregational Union was formed in 1853 to promote Congregationalism in the United States, primarily through the construction of Congregational churches. [1] In 1892, its name was changed to the Congregational Church Building Society. [2] It was an agency of the National Council of Congregational Churches.
By 1893, they had assisted in the creation of 2,340 churches in the western US. [3] They later shifted their efforts towards the creation of urban churches and serving immigrant populations. [4]
Congregational polity, or congregationalist polity, often known as congregationalism, is a system of ecclesiastical polity in which every local church (congregation) is independent, ecclesiastically sovereign, or "autonomous". Its first articulation in writing is the Cambridge Platform of 1648 in New England.
Evangelicalism, also called evangelical Christianity or evangelical Protestantism, is a worldwide interdenominational movement within Protestant Christianity that emphasizes the centrality of sharing the "good news" of Christianity, being "born again" in which an individual experiences personal conversion, as authoritatively guided by the Bible, God's revelation to humanity. The word evangelical comes from the Greek word for 'good news'.
Congregationalism is a Protestant, Reformed (Calvinist) tradition in which churches practice congregational government. Each congregation independently and autonomously runs its own affairs.
The Restoration Movement is a Christian movement that began on the United States frontier during the Second Great Awakening (1790–1840) of the early 19th century. The pioneers of this movement were seeking to reform the church from within and sought "the unification of all Christians in a single body patterned after the church of the New Testament."
Knowledge is a term used by Shri Hans Ji Maharaj to denote a formulation of four specific techniques that were imparted in a process of initiation. The term continues to be used by two of Shri Hans Ji Maharaj's sons, Satpal Rawat and Prem Rawat.
The Congregational Christian Churches was a Protestant Christian denomination that operated in the U.S. from 1931 through 1957. On the latter date, most of its churches joined the Evangelical and Reformed Church in a merger to become the United Church of Christ. Others created the National Association of Congregational Christian Churches or joined the Conservative Congregational Christian Conference that formed earlier in 1945. During the forementioned period, its churches were organized nationally into a General Council, with parallel state conferences, sectional associations, and missionary instrumentalities. Congregations, however, retained their local autonomy and these groups were legally separate from the congregations.
Religious socialism is a type of socialism based on religious values. Members of several major religions have found that their beliefs about human society fit with socialist principles and ideas. As a result, religious socialist movements have developed within these religions. Those movements include Buddhist socialism, Christian socialism, Islamic socialism, and Jewish socialism. According to the Encyclopedia Britannica Online, socialism is a "social and economic doctrine that calls for public rather than private ownership or control of property and natural resources. According to the socialist view, individuals do not live or work in isolation but live in cooperation with one another. Furthermore, everything that people produce is in some sense a social product, and everyone who contributes to the production of a good is entitled to a share in it. Society as a whole, therefore, should own or at least control property for the benefit of all its members. [...] Early Christian communities also practiced the sharing of goods and labour, a simple form of socialism subsequently followed in certain forms of monasticism. Several monastic orders continue these practices today".
The Saybrook Platform was a constitution for the Congregational church in Connecticut in the 18th century.
Mark Hopkins was an American educator and Congregationalist theologian, president of Williams College from 1836 to 1872. An epigram — widely attributed to President James A. Garfield, a student of Hopkins — defined an ideal college as "Mark Hopkins on one end of a log and a student on the other."
Another Gospel: Cults, Alternative Religions, and the New Age Movement is a non-fiction book discussing new religious movements and the New Age movement, written by Ruth A. Tucker. The book was published in 1989 by Zondervan, a Christian publishing house. Another edition was released by the same publisher in 2004.
A daily devotional is a religious publication that provides a specific spiritual reading for each calendar day. Many daily devotionals take the form of one year devotional books, with many being tailored specifically for children, teenagers, students, men and women.
A nature religion is a religious movement that believes nature and the natural world is an embodiment of divinity, sacredness or spiritual power. Nature religions include indigenous religions practiced in various parts of the world by cultures who consider the environment to be imbued with spirits and other sacred entities. It also includes modern Pagan faiths, which are primarily concentrated in Europe and North America.
Encyclopedia of American Religions, renamed Melton's Encyclopedia of American Religions in the eighth edition, is a reference book edited by J. Gordon Melton (editor-in-chief) first published in 1978, by Consortium Books, A McGrath publishing company. It is currently in its ninth edition and has become a standard reference work in the study of religion in the United States.
Dick Anthony was a forensic psychologist noted for his writings on the validity of brainwashing as a determiner of behavior, a prolific researcher of the social and psychological aspects of involvement in new religious movements.
The Raymond Buddhist Church is a building in Raymond, Alberta, Canada that has been a schoolhouse, a Jōdo Shinshū Buddhist temple, and a meetinghouse of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Until it closed in 2006, it was the oldest continuously used Buddhist shrine in Canada.
This is a list of encyclopedias as well as encyclopedic and biographical dictionaries published on the subjects of religion and mythology in any language.
Religious communism is a form of communism that incorporates religious principles. Scholars have used the term to describe a variety of social or religious movements throughout history that have favored the common ownership of property. There are many historical and ideological similarities between Religious communism and Liberation Theology.
Stephen Gottschalk was a historian of American religion focusing on the Christian Science church, also known as the Church of Christ, Scientist. A lifelong Christian Scientist, Gottschalk worked from 1978 until 1990 for the church's Committee on Publication in Boston, however, he became critical of the church organization in the 1990s.
Congregationalism in the United States consists of Protestant churches in the Reformed tradition that have a congregational form of church government and trace their origins mainly to Puritan settlers of colonial New England. Congregational churches in other parts of the world are often related to these in the United States due to American missionary activities.
Leonard E. BarrettSenior was a Jamaican-American professor of religion and anthropology known for his foundational work on Rastafari.