Keepers of the Covenant : Frontier Missions and the Decline of Congregationalism, 1774-1818 (Religion in America)

Rohrer challenges the traditional interpretation of the decline of the Congregationalists. Drawing heavily on unpublished manuscripts, the author shows that, rather than failing to adapt to the democratizing culture of the western migration, they were in fact aggressive frontier evangelists. In the course of proving this, Rohrer overturns many generalizations about the Congretationalists, and challenges conventional wisdom about church growth and religious declension.