This book tells an extraordinary story of the people of early
New England and their spiritual lives. It is about ordinary people--farmers, housewives, artisans, merchants, sailors, aspiring scholars--struggling to make sense of their time and place on earth. David Hall describes a world of
religious consensus and resistance: a variety of conflicting beliefs and believers ranging from the committed core to outright dissenters. He reveals for the first time the many-layered complexity of colonial religious life, and the importance within it of traditions derived from those of the Old World. We see a religion of the laity that was to merge with the tide of democratic nationalism in the nineteenth century, and that remains with us today as the essence of
Protestant America.
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Background Information
New England is the name given to those states that lie north and east of New York State. Religion brought some of the first English colonists to the New World and religious variety has been a national hallmark. The Protestant Reformation began with Martin Luther and eventually spread to many other countries in reaction to policies of the Roman Catholic Church.
