The Christian doctrine of God has traditionally been presented in two parts: an account of the existence and attributes of God on the one hand, and an account of God's triunity on the other. The present study is an analysis of Karl Barth's doctrine of the divine attributes (or 'perfections'), as it appears in his "Church Dogmatics II/1". Barth's doctrine of the divine perfections has received comparatively little attention, and what attention it has received is typically very selective. Authors unaware of larger, structural themes in Barth's account often misconstrue significant details of Barth's text. Others wrongly discount the implications of Barth's doctrine of the perfections for his theology as a whole. The aim of this study is primarily to clarify what Barth says about the perfections and secondarily to relate this to broader themes in Barth's theology. "T&T Clark Studies in Systematic Theology" is a series of monographs in the field of Christian doctrine, with a particular focus on constructive engagement with major topics through historical analysis or contemporary restatement.

John Calvin's American Legacy explores the ways Calvin and the Calvinist tradition have influenced American life. Though there are books that trace the role Calvin and Calvinism have played in the national narrative, they tend to focus, as books, on particular topics and time periods. This work, divided into three sections, is the first to present studies that, taken together, represent the breadth of Calvinism's impact in the United States. In addition, each section moves chronologically, ranging from colonial times to the twenty-first century. After a brief introduction focused on the life of Calvin and some of the problems involved in how he is viewed and studied, the volume moves into the first section - "Calvin, Calvinism, and American Society " - which looks at the economics of the Colonial period, Calvin and the American identity, and the evidence for Calvin's influence on American democracy. The book's second section examines theology, addressing the relationship between Jonathan Edwards's church practice and Calvin's, the Calvinist theological tradition in the nineteenth century, how Calvin came to be understood in the historiography of Williston Walker and Perry Miller, and Calvin's influence on some of the theologies of the twentieth century. The third section, "John Calvin, Calvinism, and American Letters,looks at Calvinism's influence on such writers as Samson Occom, Harriet Beecher Stowe, Max Weber, Mark Twain, and John Updike. Altogether, this volume demonstrates the wide-ranging impact of Calvin's thinking throughout American history and society.

The reformation was not a western European event, but historians have neglected the study of Protestantism in central and eastern Europe. This book aims to rectify this situation. It examines one of Europe's largest Protestant communities in Hungary and Transylvania. It highlights the place of the Hungarian Reformed church in the international Calvinist world, and reveals the impact of Calvinism on Hungarian politics and society.

By exploring how Martin Luther, Martin Bucer, and John Calvin interpreted a set of eight messianic psalms (Psalms 2, 8, 16, 22, 45, 72, 110, 188), Sujin Pak elucidates key debates about Christological exegesis during the era of the Protestant reformation. More particularly, Pak examines the exegeses of Luther, Bucer, and Calvin in order to (a) reveal their particular theological emphases and reading strategies, (b) identify their debates over the use of Jewish exegesis and the factors leading to charges of 'judaizing' leveled against Calvin, and (c) demonstrate how Psalms reading and the accusation of judaizing serve distinctive purposes of confessional identity formation. In this way, she portrays the beginnings of those distinctive trends that separated Lutheran and Reformed exegetical principles.

Though known today largely for dating the creation of the world to 400BC, James Ussher (1581-1656) was an important scholar and ecclesiastical leader in the seventeenth century. As Professor of Theology at Trinity College Dublin, and Archbishop of Armagh from 1625, he shaped the newly protestant Church of Ireland. Tracing its roots back to St. Patrick, he gave it a sense of Irish identity and provided a theology which was strongly Calvinist and fiercely anti-Catholic. In exile in England in the 1640s he advised both king and parliament, trying to heal the ever-widening rift by devising a compromise over church government. Forced finally to choose sides by the outbreak of civil was in 1642, Ussher opted for the royalists, but found it difficult to combine his loyalty to Charles with his detestation of Catholicism.
A meticulous scholar and an extensive researcher, Ussher had a breathtaking command of languages and disciplines--"learned to a miracle" according to one of his friends. He worked on a series of problems: the early history of bishops, the origins of Christianity in Ireland and Britain, and the implications of double predestination, making advances which were to prove of lasting significance. Tracing the interconnections between this scholarship and his wider ecclesiastical and political interests, Alan Ford throws new light on the character and attitudes of a seminal figure in the history of Irish Protestantism.

This book describes Reformed ecclesiology through the lived faith of the Filipino American Christian diaspora. It proposes a contextual, constructive ecclesiology by engaging with the Presbyterian/Reformed theological tradition's understanding of the ascension of Jesus Christ with the Old Testament book of Habakkuk as a conversation partner.

Revising dominant accounts of Puritanism and challenging the literary history of sentimentalism, Sympathetic Puritans argues that a Calvinist theology of sympathy shaped the politics, religion, rhetoric, and literature of early New England. Scholars have often understood and presented sentimentalism as a direct challenge to stern and stoic Puritan forebears: the standard history traces a cult of sensibility back to moral sense philosophy and the Scottish Enlightenment, not Puritan New England. In contrast, Van Engen's work unearths the pervasive presence of sympathy in a large archive of Puritan sermons, treatises, tracts, poems, journals, histories, and captivity narratives. Sympathetic Puritans also demonstrates how two types of sympathy - the active command to fellow-feel (a duty), as well as the passive sign that could indicate salvation (a discovery) - pervaded Puritan society and came to define the very boundaries of English culture, affecting conceptions of community, relations with Native Americans, and the development of American literature. By analyzing Puritan theology, preaching, prose, and poetry, Van Engen re-examines the Antinomian Controversy, conversion narratives, transatlantic relations, Puritan missions, Mary Rowlandson's captivity narrative - and Puritan culture more generally - through the lens of sympathy. Demonstrating and explicating a Calvinist theology of sympathy in seventeenth-century New England, the book reveals the religious history of a concept that has largely been associated with more secular roots.

In this classic, Augustine of Hippo describes how to interpret and teach the Scriptures. Although written 1600 years ago, it considers the role literal and allegorical interpreation of scripture, and is particularly relevant today. A valuable, and readable resource for preachers and teachers.

This guide serves as a valuable introduction to the documentary heritage and tradition of the third largest group of protestants in the southern United States. A companion to Harold Prince's A Presbyterian Bibliography (1983), it locates and describes the unpublished papers of PCUS ministers. It also documents the larger southern tradition by including selected materials from the antebellum period and from other Presbyterian denominations. The result is a listing of resources for the study of the PCUS as well as southern Presbyterianism. It aims to promote and encourage research in Presbyterian history; to make files, diaries, sermons, minutes, letters more intelligible; and finally, to emphasize the continuing relevance of these materials in contemporary church life. Robert Benedetto's forty-eight-page introduction includes a survey of nine subject areas: theology, education, church and society, international missions, national missions, women, racial ethnic ministries, ecumenical relations, and worship and music. Each area highlights major research and provides a concise orientation to the life and mission of the denomination. Each survey is followed by a brief listing of manuscript materials. The Guide itself includes manuscript collections from the Department of History (Montreat) and other repositories. This thorough volume concludes with a bibliography of PCUS reference works and a complete name and subject index.

Many interpreters argue that Karl Barth's rejection of the Roman Catholic analogia entis was based upon a mistaken interpretation of the principle, and many scholars also contend that late in his career, Barth changed his mind about the analogia entis, either by withdrawing his rejection of it or by adopting some form of it as his own. This book challenges both views, and by doing so, it opens up new avenues for ecumenical dialogue between Protestants and Roman Catholics. In short, this book establishes that Barth did not make a mistake when he rejected the analogia entis and that he also never wavered on his critique of it; he did, however, change his response to it-not by breaking with his earlier thought, but by deepening it so that a true Christological dialogue could take place between Protestant and Roman Catholic theologians. This conclusion will be used to point the way to new terrain for ecumenical dialogue in contemporary discussions.

In these studies, Alec Cheyne explores the history of the churches of Scotland since the Reformation.Professor Cheyne looks especially at the leaders: among them Robert Rollock, Robert Leighton, William Carstares, Thomas Chalmers, John Tulloch, John Caird, Henry Drummond, John Baillie and Donald Baillie. He illuminates just how much change and diversity in thought, worship, government and culture these four hundred years have witnessed in the churches - far greater than has traditionally been supposed. He also describes the importance of the constant interaction between ecclesiastical and academic affairs, and the very wide influence of the churches on Scottish life as a whole.A significant work of Scottish history and reference.

Richard Hooker (1554-1600) is one of the greatest theologians of the Church of England. In the light of fierce recent debate, this book argues vigorously against the new orthodoxy that Hooker was a Reformed or Calvinist theologian. In so doing it considers such central religious questions as human freedom, original sin, whether people can deserve salvation, and the nature of religious authority.

In this provocative study, David W. Hall argues that the American founders were more greatly influenced by Calvinism than contemporary scholars, and perhaps even the founders themselves, have understood. Calvinism's insistence on human rulers' tendency to err played a significant role in the founders' prescription of limited government and fed the distinctly American philosophy in which political freedom for citizens is held as the highest value. Hall's timely work countervails many scholars' doubt in the intellectual efficacy of religion by showing that religious teachings have led to such progressive ideals as American democracy and freedom.