Unity in Christ and Country: American Presbyterians in the by William Harrison Taylor

In Unity in Christ and nation: American Presbyterians within the progressive period, 1758–1801, William Harrison Taylor investigates the yank Presbyterian Church’s pursuit of Christian harmony and demonstrates how, via this attempt, the church helped to form the problems that gripped the yank mind's eye, together with evangelism, the clash with nice Britain, slavery, nationalism, and sectionalism. whilst the colonial Presbyterian Church reunited in 1758, a virtually twenty-year schism used to be delivered to an finish. to assist in reconciling the factions, church leaders known as for Presbyterians to paintings extra heavily with different Christian denominations. Their final target was once to heal divisions, not only inside of their very own religion but additionally inside colonial North the USA as a whole.

Taylor contends self-imposed interdenominational transformation started within the American Presbyterian Church upon its reunion in 1758. despite the fact that, this approach used to be altered via the church’s event throughout the American Revolution, which led to targets of Christian team spirit that had either religious and nationwide goals. still, by means of the tip of the century, whilst the leaders within the Presbyterian Church strove for solidarity in Christ and nation, fissures started to boost within the church that might in the future divide it and extra the sectional rift that may bring about the Civil War.

Taylor engages quite a few resources, together with the printed and unpublished works of either the Synods of latest York and Philadelphia and the final meeting of the Presbyterian Church within the usa, in addition to quite a few released and unpublished Presbyterian sermons, lectures, hymnals, poetry, and letters. students of spiritual historical past, quite these drawn to the Reformed culture, and particularly Presbyterianism, should still locate Unity in Christ and Country priceless with a purpose to reflect on the significance of the theology’s highbrow and pragmatic implications for individuals of the faith.