This dissertation examines the development of the Unity School of Christianity, an American religious group with roots in the nineteenth-century New Thought movement. Unity illustrates a major issue in the study of religion in America, the role of cultural assimilation and cultural practices in larger issues of status and standing in the American religious world. By learning how to act Protestant while espousing non-traditional religious teachings, Unity earned the right to peacefully coexist in the American religious world. Unity’s mainstream Protestant strategies of religious practice allowed it to settle into its niche and to go about its religious business. As such, Unity represents an overlooked type of religious organization in America, one whose careful study will reveal much about the meaning and practice of religious identity in America.

In chapter one I examine the environment from which Unity emerged. In chapter two I look at the intertwined development of institutions and leadership in Unity. I describe the various types of institutions the movement employs and how those institutions function to help Unity claim a mainstream position in the American religious world. In addition, I consider how the Fillmores have been co-opted as symbolic leaders for Unity. In chapters three and four I take up the key issue of textual traditions in Unity. I describe and analyze the various texts and the work those texts do within the movement. Chapter five examines ritual practice in Unity. I examine Unity-specific practices such as healing, vegetarianism, and abstinence, as well as looking at how Unity has used conventional Protestant liturgical forms in its worship life.