In this groundbreaking work, Amanda Porterfield explores the intertwining of commercial and religious forces in the history of incorporation in the US. She focuses on three elements - the revolutionary implications of religious disestablishment, the proliferation of religious organizations, and religious organizations as models of commercial operation. The intersection of the religious and the corporate can be traced to first century Rome, and Paul's letters to Christian Jews in Corinth. "For just as the body is one and has many members, and all the members of the body, though many are one body, so is it with Christ." Porterfield traces thisconnection from ancient Rome, through medieval Europe and Elizabethan England. In the second half of the book, she reaches North America and considers Christian corporate fellowship in the years preceding the American Revolution. In the decades following ratification of the US Constitution, religious organizations led the way as models of corporate growth. Eighteenth-century economic and political developments forced American churches to back away from oversight of commercial operations and concentrate more on the formationof individual character, encouraging individuals to transfer to business the lessons of moral responsibility and common purpose learned in church. While commercial outlets faced daunting headwinds as a result of spiraling debt, weak banks, lack of financial regulation, rampant speculation, widespread counterfeiting, and ruinous embargoes, religious organizations set a fast pace of growth and helped many Americans absorb the shocks of economic turbulence by maintaining networks of social support. The privatization of religion enabled advocates for religion to operate more independently and creatively than under religious establishment; this independence fostered innovation, competition, and organizational growth. Left more to their own devices than under British law, religious groups inearly nineteenth-century America enjoyed new freedom as private corporations. This unprecedented autonomy facilitated religious growth and transformation on a massive scale, as religious groups devised new forms of communal governance and discipline, and new means of broadcasting their messagesthrough education, print media technology, public events, and ingenious event-planning. The book's conclusion presents an overview of the development of modern corporations since the late-nineteenth century, highlighting religion's evolution in a society dominated by commercial incorporation. | Corporate Spirit by Amanda Porterfield, Hardcover | Indigo Chapters