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THE GREAT TRADITION OF THE AMERICAN CHURCHES by Winthrop S. Mudson

THE GREAT TRADITION OF THE AMERICAN CHURCHES

By

Publisher: Harper

Any serious treatment of the problems involved in the relationship between church and state deserves attention, for this is one of the great questions facing the religious forces in America. The author, a Baptist, is a professor of church history at Colgate-Rochester Divinity School. His interesting approach to this problem stems from these interests. He outlines the historical development of the relations between church and state and he believes that a healthy relationship between the two can be maintained only by the churches adhering to (or rather returning to) the principle of complete voluntarism, which has been one of the great emphases of the Baptist church in this country. He is concerned not so much with threatened encroachments of the state upon the field of the church as with the failure of the church to maintain its constructive role in the partnership by succumbing to the pressures of secular life. A though-provoking book for ministers and others concerned with the place of the church in American life.