Evangeline's Mission: Anti-Catholicism, Nativism, and Unitarianism in Longfellow's Evangeline

2009 ◽  
Vol 13 (4) ◽  
pp. 547-568 ◽  
Author(s):  
Andrew Higgins
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Catholic Church ◽  
The United States ◽  
Christian Community ◽  
Love Story ◽  
Protestant Churches ◽  
Antebellum Period ◽  
The Republic

AbstractThough Evangeline has long been considered simply a love story, this article reads the poem as one deeply involved in both the theological and cultural struggles between the Catholic and Protestant churches in the antebellum period. The essay argues that Longfellow's poem about the Acadian Expulsion of 1755 imagines those Catholic refugees as successful immigrants to America. Further, the article argues that Longfellow's vision of Philadelphia at the end of the poem is that of an ideal, ecumenical Christian community, in which Catholicism is able to coexist with various Protestant churches. Thus the poem counters anti-Catholic nativist rhetoric that portrayed Catholics as fundamentally foreign and a threat to the Republic. However, the ecumenical nature of this vision is limited by the fact that Longfellow cannot imagine a fully-realized Catholic Church in the United States; his Catholic community lacks ecclesiastical hierarchy. As such, it reflects Longfellow's connection to the Unitarian Moralists, as group of Harvard Unitarians who sought to transform other denominations rather than to convert individuals to Unitarianism.

Calvinism in the United States

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Darryl Hart
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
North America ◽  
Catholic Church ◽  
Religious Practice ◽  
The United States ◽  
Roman Catholic Church ◽  
Religious Institutions ◽  
Protestant Churches ◽  
Anglo American ◽  
American Society

The history of Calvinism in the United States is part of a much larger development, the globalization of western Christianity. American Calvinism owes its existence to the transplanting of European churches and religious institutions to North America, a process that began in the 16th century, first with Spanish and French Roman Catholics, and accelerated a century later when Dutch, English, Scottish, and German colonists and immigrants of diverse Protestant backgrounds settled in the New World. The initial variety of Calvinists in North America was the result of the different circumstances under which Protestantism emerged in Europe as a rival to the Roman Catholic Church, to the diverse civil governments that supported established Protestant churches, and to the various business sponsors that included the Christian ministry as part of imperial or colonial designs. Once the British dominated the Eastern seaboard (roughly 1675), and after English colonists successfully fought for political independence (1783), Calvinism lost its variety. Beyond their separate denominations, English-speaking Protestants (whether English, Scottish, or Irish) created a plethora of interdenominational religious agencies for the purpose of establishing a Christian presence in an expanding American society. For these Calvinists, being Protestant went hand in hand with loyalty to the United States. Outside this pan-Protestant network of Anglo-American churches and religious institutions were ethnic-based Calvinist denominations caught between Old World ways of being Christian and American patterns of religious life. Over time, most Calvinist groups adapted to national norms, while some retained institutional autonomy for fear of compromising their faith. Since 1970, when the United States entered an era sometimes called post-Protestant, Calvinist churches and institutions have either declined or become stagnant. But in certain academic, literary, and popular culture settings, Calvinism has for some Americans, whether connected or not to Calvinist churches, continued to be a source for sober reflection on human existence and earnest belief and religious practice.

The Search for Chinese Christianity in the Republican Period (1912–1949)

2004 ◽  
Vol 38 (4) ◽  
pp. 851-898 ◽  
Author(s):  
LIAN XI
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Catholic Church ◽  
Roman Catholic ◽  
The United States ◽  
Christian Community ◽  
Republican Period ◽  
Opium War ◽  
Imperial Court ◽  
Protestant Christianity ◽  
Qing Government

For more than a century after its introduction into China in 1807, Protestant Christianity remained an alien religion preached and presided over by Western missionaries. In fact the Christian enterprise, both Protestant and Roman Catholic, was given protection as Western interests by the Qing court after China's defeat in the Opium War of 1839–42. According to the treaty signed with the United States in 1858, for instance, the Qing government was to shield from molestation ‘any persons, whether citizen of the United States or Chinese convert, [who] peaceably teach and practise the principles of Christianity.’ In the Convention of 1860 signed with France, the imperial court promised that in addition to the toleration of Roman Catholicism throughout China, all Catholic properties previously seized should be ‘handed over to the French representative at Beijing’ to be forwarded to the Catholics in the localities concerned. By the time of the Boxer Uprising of 1900, Protestant converts numbered about 80,000 and the Catholic Church (whose modern missions to China had begun in the late sixteenth century) claimed a membership of some 720,000—a following that was perhaps disappointing to the Western missions yet aggravating to those who saw both the Confucian tradition and Chinese sovereignty eroded by the coming of the West. As a perceived foreign menace the Christian community became the target of the bloody rampage by famished North China peasants known as the Boxers. Before the revolt was quelled in August by the eight-power expedition forces, it had visited death on more than 200 Westerners and untold thousands of native converts.

The catholic church and the Irish temperance movement, 1838–1901

1982 ◽  
Vol 23 (89) ◽  
pp. 1-16 ◽  
Author(s):  
Elizabeth Malcolm
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Catholic Church ◽  
United States Of America ◽  
The United States ◽  
Irish Society ◽  
Temperance Movement ◽  
Sacred Heart ◽  
Protestant Churches ◽  
Ambivalent Attitude ◽  
The Catholic Church

It is ironic that in Ireland, a country which has witnessed some of the most successful catholic-inspired crusades against alcohol consumption, the catholic church cannot be said to have been particularly favourably inclined towards the temperance movement. The Irish protestant churches and the catholic church in countries like the United States of America, England and Australia (where its membership was largely Irish) were far more forthright and consistent in their support for temperance than was the catholic church in Ireland itself. The Irish church’s ambivalent attitude to the anti-drink movement sprang from a variety of sources, some related to the nature of Irish society, others to the nature of the Irish temperance movement. To elucidate the church’s attitude and the reasons for its hostility to the anti-drink movement, I shall in this paper examine the development of the catholic temperance movement in Ireland from Father Mathew’s crusade in the 1840s to the rise of the Pioneer Total Abstinence League of the Sacred Heart in the 1890s.

God Present in a Confused Situation: The Mixed Influence of the Charismatic Movement on Classical Pentecostalism in the United States

Pneuma ◽  
1996 ◽  
Vol 18 (1) ◽  
pp. 33-54 ◽  
Author(s):  
Frank D. Macchia
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Holy Spirit ◽  
Catholic Church ◽  
The United States ◽  
Roman Catholic Church ◽  
Charismatic Movement ◽  
The Past ◽  
Protestant Churches ◽  
Pentecostal Churches ◽  
To Come

AbstractThis confused response to the Charismatic movement2 by an official of the Assemblies of God is typical of what many classical Pentecostals in the United States have felt in their struggle over the past three decades to come to terms with the obvious proliferation of extraordinary signs and gifts of the Holy Spirit among members of mainline churches. In the past, Pentecostals viewed these churches as the chief opponents of the latter-day bestowal of supernatural signs and wonders. Apparently, without the permission of Pentecostals, the Spirit of God was suddenly being felt in Charismatic Renewal among members of major Protestant churches and, most surprisingly for Pentecostals, in the Roman Catholic Church. The Pentecostal confusion, however, was due not only to the unexpected work of the Spirit among alleged opponents of revival, but also to the influence that these Renewal movements were having on many classical Pentecostals. In other words, Pentecostals not only had to wrestle with the dramatic work of the Spirit in the mainline churches, they also had to come to terms with the possibility that the movement may serve as a source of renewal for Pentecostal churches. This confusion was rooted in the Pentecostal ambivalence toward a Renewal movement that both repelled and influenced the classical Pentecostal churches.

Latino Catholicism

2011 ◽  
Author(s):  
Timothy Matovina
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Sixteenth Century ◽  
Catholic Church ◽  
Social Life ◽  
Social Issues ◽  
The United States ◽  
Societal Impact ◽  
Comprehensive Overview ◽  
Public Debates ◽  
The U.S

Most histories of Catholicism in the United States focus on the experience of Euro-American Catholics, whose views on social issues have dominated public debates. This book provides a comprehensive overview of the Latino Catholic experience in America from the sixteenth century to today, and offers the most in-depth examination to date of the important ways the U.S. Catholic Church, its evolving Latino majority, and American culture are mutually transforming one another. This book highlights the vital contributions of Latinos to American religious and social life, demonstrating in particular how their engagement with the U.S. cultural milieu is the most significant factor behind their ecclesial and societal impact.

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