An American Religious Movement

Publisher Marketing: In an earlier volume, I recited the history of the Disciples of Christ under the title, Religion Follows the Frontier. The phrase was designed to emphasize the fact that this religious movement was born under pioneer conditions on the American frontier, in the days when the frontier was just crossing the Alleghenies, that much of its formative thinking followed patterns congenial to the frontier mind, and that its early expansion kept pace with the westward wave of migration. Since that book is now out of print, while interest in the theme is increasing, it has seemed desirable to rewrite the history. If this were merely a sequel to the other, I would call it Growing Up with the Country. It remains true that the pioneer beginnings must be remembered and understood if the initial motives and methods of the Disciples and the processes of their growth are to be understood. But important as the frontier is, as a fact in the history of the United States and of every phase of culture in the Middle West, an equally significant fact is that, as the frontier rolled westward, it left behind it a widening area in which pioneer conditions no longer prevailed. As the country was growing by the expansive drive of which the frontier was the cutting edge, it was also growing up, both behind and on the frontier. The process of maturing is as significant as that of expanding.