Here is a wonderful photo-essay that depicts the lives of one of the most pious communities in the United States: the Mennonites of Lancaster County, Pennsylvania:
The Biblical statement that God wished to ‘purify unto himself a peculiar people, zealous of good works’ [Titus 2:14] is followed literally by the Amish. They do everything possible to ensure their goodness and to make themselves different from ordinary men.
During the last decade of the Nineteenth Century a new Protestant faith was conceived in Kansas City, Missouri, that sought to reveal Christ’s love and it was called Unity:
Unity would be the last group in the world to seek or expect recognition for its trailblazing, pioneering religious techniques. Yet, many, many decades before the phrases ‘the power of positive thinking’ and ‘abundant living’ were heard in the land, Unity taught that God never meant this life to be a trial and a vale of tears, but, on the contrary,that it ‘is God’s will for man to be strong and vigorous and rich and successful and happy.
Throughout the course of her life Lillian Roth (1910 – 1980) had lived the high life as well as the low, and during one of the darker moments she sat pining in the depths of her anguish crying out to God – even though she didn’t believe He existed – a well-wisher approached her with a unique line of reasoning that was so pure in its simplicity it immediately lead her to realize that God does indeed exist.
The sixth American to be granted the status of sainthood by the Catholic Church was a remarkable woman by the name Katharine Mary Drexel (1858 – 1955). Born into aristocratic circles in Philadelphia, she entered a convent at the age of 31. She is remembered for toiling unceasingly among America’s down-trodden while liberally dispersing her family fortune in the process:
In a period of some 60 years, she gave away $12 million. In doing so, she built 45 elementary schools, 12 high schools a university and countless country schools; she supported orphanages, hospitals and homes for the aged; she increased her congregation from its original 11 teaching nuns to over 500 at the time of her death in 1955.
Reverend Harry Emerson Fosdick (1878 – 1969) got some attention in the press when he preached that the work of saving of souls had much to do with man’s maintenance of a sound and just economic system here on the earth. Dr. Fosdick gained much of this understanding in the slums of New York City, in 1903, where he worked as a Baptist Minister.
In the twentieth century the greatest conflict in the world’s life is centered in economics. The most vital questions with which we deal are entangled with economic motives and institutions.
Click here to read further about Dr. Harry Emerson Fosdick..
