When Pope John Paul II died, Suzanne Strempek Shea, who had not been an active member of a church community for some years, recognized in his mourners a faith-filled passion that she longed to recapture in her own life. So she set out on a pilgrimage to visit a different church every Sunday for one year-a journey that would take her through the broad spectrum of contemporary Protestant Christianity practiced in this country. From a rousing Easter Baptist service in Harlem, to Colorado's Pro Rodeo Hall of Fame for a sing-along at the Cowboy Church; from a roofless Episcopal church in Hawaii, to a storefront African orthodox church where jazz legend John Coltrane is considered a bona fide saint; from the largest church in the country to a small-town church packed for a Sunday school class taught by Jimmy Carter, Shea toured more than thirty states in search of the meaning of Christian faith to the many who practice it. The result, Sundays in America, is an essential guide for those seeking a new house for their worship as well as a colorful road trip for the armchair explorer.

The mass protests that greeted attempts to open the 1893 Chicago World's Fair on a Sunday seem almost comical today in an era of seven-day convenience and twenty-four-hour shopping. But the issue of the meaning of Sunday is one that has historically given rise to a wide range of strong emotions and pitted a surprising variety of social, religious, and class interests against one another. Whether observed as a day for rest, or time-and-a-half, Sunday has always been a day apart in the American week.Supplementing wide-ranging historical research with the reflections and experiences of ordinary individuals, Alexis McCrossen traces conflicts over the meaning of Sunday that have shaped the day in the United States since 1800. She investigates cultural phenomena such as blue laws and the Sunday newspaper, alongside representations of Sunday in the popular arts. Holy Day, Holiday attends to the history of religion, as well as the histories of labor, leisure, and domesticity.

It's Sunday in America is about the return of mandatory Sunday worship and rest to the center of American national life and how this will shape the future of America and the world. American greatness rests upon its constitutional guarantees of civil and religious liberty. Separation of church and state in America created favorable conditions for human flourishing. Despite this, American history records numerous attempts at the state level to undermine the principle of separation through the establishment of laws regulating Sunday. For half a century after 1888 persistent attempts to introduce national Sunday legislation were made. Today, proponents of the myth of separation suggest the founding fathers never intended a wall of separation between church and state. Two competing conceptions of American freedom and greatness are contending for the loyalty of Americans. The rise of the religious right is creating the space in which conceptions of freedom and greatness that ruled seventeenth-century New England are seeping back into national consciousness. Sunday observance is central to these conceptions. It's Sunday in America is a timely warning about the emerging threats to religious liberty in the world's greatest democracy.

“Weekdays are for school and Saturday’s for having fun. But Sunday is the Lord’s Day. Sunday is for God.” A boy longs to play in the river on this hot summer day, but instead he has to sit quietly in a pew. His collar itches and his tie’s too tight—why does the Lord care whether people get dressed up for church, anyway? But as hymns and prayers fill the room, he begins to appreciate the simple beauty of a day set aside for family and prayer. At the end of the service, he explains a prayer to his little sister by whispering, “The Lord will take care of us no matter what. Like Momma and Daddy”—a deeply comforting message for young readers.

In the 1960s, African Americans protested for equal rights in the United States. In the 1970s, Catholics demanded equality in Northern Ireland. Catholics were influenced by the American civil rights movement. But peaceful protests erupted into violence on two fateful days. Two Bloody Sundays: Civil Rights in America and Ireland explores the legacies of the Bloody Sunday in Alabama and the Bloody Sunday in Northern Ireland. Aligned to Common Core Standards and correlated to state standards. Core Library is an imprint of Abdo Publishing, a division of ABDO.

"In the 1960s, African Americans protested for equal rights in the United States. In the 1970s, Catholics demanded equality in Northern Ireland. Catholics were influenced by the American civil rights movement. But peaceful protests erupted into violence on two fateful days. [This book] explores the legacies of the Bloody Sunday in Alabama and the Bloody Sunday in Northern Ireland"--Amazon.com.

First established 150 years ago, Chicago Sinai is one of America’s oldest Reform Jewish congregations. Its founders were upwardly mobile and civically committed men and women, founders and partners of banks and landmark businesses like Hart Schaffner & Marx, Sears & Roebuck, and the giant meatpacking firm Morris & Co. As explicitly modern Jews, Sinai’s members supported and led civic institutions and participated actively in Chicago politics. Perhaps most radically, their Sunday services, introduced in 1874 and still celebrated today, became a hallmark of the congregation. In Sundays at Sinai, Tobias Brinkmann brings modern Jewish history, immigration, urban history, and religious history together to trace the roots of radical Reform Judaism from across the Atlantic to this rapidly growing American metropolis. Brinkmann shines a light on the development of an urban reform congregation, illuminating Chicago Sinai’s practices and history, and its contribution to Christian-Jewish dialogue in the United States. Chronicling Chicago Sinai’s radical beginnings in antebellum Chicago to the present, Sundays at Sinai is the extraordinary story of a leading Jewish Reform congregation in one of America’s great cities.