Michael J. Colacurcio is a Distinguished Professor in the Department of English at the University of California, Los Angeles. Allison M. Johnson is Assistant Professor of English at San Jose State University.

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Description
Introduction: Migration, Invention, Declension, Awakening 1 Before America 2 Before The Pilgrims 3 A New Church In A New England A. Old World Origins B. A Trial of Separatism C. A Greater Migration D. Congregationalist Orthodoxy 4 After Zion, What? 5 Other Regions, Other Voices A. Virginia B. Maryland C. Pennsylvania and New Jersey D. New Amsterdam 6 End of an Era 7 Awakening versus Enlightenment
"Religion and Its Reformation in America, Beginnings to 1730 surpasses all previous anthologies of colonial American writing in its amplitude and scope, its grasp of the era's distinctive interfusion of faith and literary imagination, and the depth of insight conveyed throughout its editorial commentaries. This volume encompasses a vast terrain of colonial geographies, creeds, church polities, politics, ethnographies, and forms of literary expression. Yet it rightly sets at center stage the story of Puritan New England, a country where-as Harriet Beecher Stowe once observed-the soul and one's spiritual life became 'intense realities' and everything was 'contemplated in reference to eternity.'"-John Gatta, William R. Kenan Jr. Professor of English, Sewanee: University of the South "Singular in its scope, this anthology foregrounds the version of Christianity transplanted to the English colonies founded in North America in the seventeenth century. As the two editors rightly acknowledge, this version of Christianity had deep roots in Reformed Protestantism. Yet in the long run, its contours as doctrine were less important than those of piety and an understanding of the visible church. None of this was simple; as the editors demonstrate with unusual skill, debate persisted alongside consensus. A marvelous collection that deepens our understanding of religion in early America."-David D. Hall, Bartlett Professor of New England Church History Emeritus, Harvard Divinity School
