This study begins with an examination of Girolamo Zanchi's De Tribus Elohim (1572), setting this important defense of the doctrine of the Trinity in the immediate context of the recent rise of antitrinitarianism within the Reformed Palatinate. De Tribus Elohim focused on the grammatical peculiarity of the Hebrew word Elohim (God) in order to refute the biblicism of its contemporary antitrinitarians. In doing so, Zanchi's argument followed an exegetical thread common within the late medieval case for the doctrine of the Trinity, but which ran contrary to the exegetical sensibilities of many of Zanchi's own Reformed colleagues. This disagreement over the correct interpretation of the word Elohim, then became a touchstone for distinguishing between two different approaches to the Hebrew text with the Reformed Church of the late sixteenth century, and becomes a significant piece in understanding the development of Reformed exegesis.

Why and how did Korean religious groups respond to growing rural poverty, social dislocation, and the corrosion of culture caused by forces of modernization under strict Japanese colonial rule (1910-1945)? Questions about religion's relationship and response to capitalism, industrialization, urbanization, and secularization lie at the heart of understanding the intersection between colonialism, religion, and modernity in Korea. Yet, getting answers to these questions has been a challenge because of narrow historical investigations that fail to study religious processes in relation to political, economic, social, and cultural developments. In Building a Heaven on Earth,Albert L. Park studies the progressive drives by religious groups to contest standard conceptions of modernity and forge a heavenly kingdom on the Korean peninsula to relieve people from fierce ruptures in their everyday lives. The results of his study will reconfigure the debates on colonial modernity, the origins of faith-based socialactivism in Korea, and the role of religion in a modern world. Building a Heaven on Earth, in particular, presents a compelling story about thedetermination of the Young Men's Christian Association (YMCA), the Presbyterian Church, and the Ch'?ndogyo to carry out large-scale rural movements to form a paradiseon earth anchored in religion, agriculture, and a pastoral life. It is a transnational story of leaders from these three groups leaning on ideas and systems from countries, such as Denmark, France, Japan, and the United States, to help them reform political, economic, social, and cultural structures in colonial Korea. Th is book shows that these religious institutions provided discursive and material frameworks that allowed for an alternative form of modernity that featured new forms of agency, social organization, and the nation. In so doing, Building a Heaven on Earth repositions our understandings of modern Korean history.

The Open Body emerges from a conference held at Harvard Divinity School in April 2011. The essays in this book reflect on ecclesiology in the Anglican tradition, that is, they debate whether and how humans should gather as a "church" in the name of Christ. While the prompt for this collection of essays is the contemporary crisis in the Anglican Communion regarding homosexuality and church governance, this book provides a capacious re-interpretation and re-imagination of the central metaphor of Christian community, namely "the Body of Christ". By suggesting that the Body of Christ is "open", the authors are insisting that while the recent controversy within the Anglican Communion should prompt and even influence theological reflection on Christian community, it should not define or determine it. In other words, the controversy is regarded as an "opening" or an opportunity to imagine and to examine the past, present, and future of the Church, both of the Anglican Communion and of the entire Body of Christ. Some of the essays begin their reappraisal by looking backward and offering creative theological retrievals from the early Church; some essays offer fresh perspectives on the recent Anglican past and present; others examine the present ecclesiology from a comparative, interreligious perspective; and still others are keen to anticipate and influence the possible future(s) of the Body of Christ.

This is a major study of the theological thought of John Calvin, which examines his central theological ideas through a philosophical lens, looking at issues in Metaphysics, Epistemology, and Ethics. The study, the first of its kind, is concerned with how Calvin actually uses philosophical ideas in his work as a theologian and biblical commentator. The book also includes a careful examination of those ideas of Calvin to which the Reformed Epistemologists appeal, to find grounds and precedent for their development of Reformed Epistemology', notably the sensus divinitatis and the internal testimony of the Holy Spirit.

Rutherford played a major role as a reformer at the Westminster Assembly and was also a crucial figure in the establishment of Presbyterianism for Scotland in 1689. Rutherford's 'Lex Rex' heavily influenced John Locke and in turn, the framers of the US Constitution and Declaration of Independence. Thus Jefferson, Franklin, Madison and Hamilton discussed and formulated their work in the light of the work and opinions of Samuel Rutherford. Several biographies have been written to eulogise Samuel Rutherford but little has been done to consider the man and his work critically. Kingsley Rendell uses Rutherford's writings and contemporary material to present a comprehensive picture of him from his student days to his death in 1661. Usually described as a model preacher and pastor, Rendell shows he had an even greater ability as an apologist and propagandist.

This book attempts to understand Calvin in his sixteenth-century context, with attention to continuities and discontinuities between his thought and that of his predecessors, contemporaries, and successors. Richard Muller is particularly interested in the interplay between theological and philosophical themes common to Calvin and the medieval doctors, and in developments in rhetoric and method associated with humanism.

Addressing such questions as "Are You Saved, or Are You Presbyterian?" and "Is the Bible the Literal Word of God or Just a Long, Boring Book?" this is an easy-to-understand, slightly irreverent appraoch to theology and the kind of theological musings that many youth and others have today. "Bring Presbyterian in the Bible Belt Today" helps Presbyterian young people articulate their faith and respond to these questions from a mainline point of view.

Many students of our national character would agree that, for better or worse, the Puritan tradition had an enormous effect on the assumptions and aspirations of today's Americans. This book tells the story, largely through the participants' own words, of the emergence of that tradition. It provides a broad range of primary documents--religious, political, social, legal, familial, and economic--for an understanding of Puritanism in early New England. Originally published in 1972, it is reissued here with a new introduction and two new documents: extracts from Anne Hutchinson's trial and from John Winthrop's "Experiencia."

Let us Reason Together: Christians and Jews in Conversation addresses the theological understanding of the relationship that God intends between Christians and Jews. You will learn to welcome the differences between faiths and appreciate the how it affects the God we know and worship.

This volume of essays focuses on the thought of John Gill, the doyen of High Calvinism in the transatlantic Baptist community of the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries.
Among the topics covered are Gill's trinitarian theology, his soteriological views, his Baptist ecclesiology, and his use of Scripture. Other papers are more focused, examining, for instance, his clash with the Arminian Methodist leader John Wesley over the issues of predestination and election, a clash that decisively shaped Wesley's perspective on Calvinism.
The tercentennial of Gill's birth in 1997 is a fitting occasion to issue this study of a man whose systematic theology and exposition of the Old and New Testaments formed the mainstay of many eighteenth-century Baptist ministers' libraries and who has never been the subject of a major critical study.

English summary: This volume collects contributions to a lecture series at the Theological Faculty of the University of Bern, held on occasion of the 500-year anniversary of John Calvin in 2009. The 12 contributions introduce selected topics from the life and works of the Genevan reformer and critically demonstrate his relevance in theological, social, and political matters. German text. German description: Johannes Calvin - wie konnen wir diese profilierte und umstrittene Gestalt des 16. Jahrhunderts heute noch verstehen? Welches Licht fallt aus dem 21. Jahrhundert auf sein Leben und Wirken? Und fallt moglicherweise auch ein Licht aus seiner Zeit in unser Leben und Wirken? Diesen Fragen ging eine Ringvorlesung der Theologischen Fakultat Bern zum Calvin-Jubilaum 2009 nach. 12 Beitrage fuhren an ausgewahlten Themen in Leben und Wirken des Genfer Reformators ein und zeigen kritisch seine Relevanz fur theologische, gesellschaftliche und politische Fragen auf. Mit Beitragen von Maurice Baumann, Mariano Delgado, Isabelle Grassle, J. Christine Janowski, Hans Rudolf Lavater-Briner, Wolfgang Lienemann, Christine Lienemann-Perrin, Andreas Marti, Moises Mayordomo, Martin Sallmann, Heinrich Richard Schmidt, Andreas Wagner. Martin Sallmann, Dr. theol., Jahrgang 1963, ist ausserordentlicher Professor fur Neuere Kirchen- und Theologiegeschichte und Konfessionskunde an der Universitat Bern. Moises Mayordomo, Dr. theol. habil., Jahrgang 1966, ist Dozent fur Neues Testament und Antike Religionsgeschichte an der Universitat Bern. Hans Rudolf Lavater-Briner, Dr. theol. h. c., Jahrgang 1946, ist emeritierter Ethiklehrer am Gymnasium Neue Mittelschule Bern.

This study examines the influence of John Calvin in ethics eschatology and education, as well as those influences that affected him. It examines his writings to determine if his vision made him an innovator. The research searched for reforms in the areas of ethics, curriculum, understanding of the teaching office, and universal education. It also looked at philosophy, economics, and labor. A belief in the after life and end times was an ethical motivation for Calvin and education was a means by which the people that he worked with and wrote to could understand how they should live and why they should live like that. Thus, there is an important connection among ethics, eschatology and education. All people were to work to their potential at their job because in doing their job they would honor God. Teachers were especially important. Those who taught would affect the quality of education. Calvin worked to provide teacher training and support. He believed that all occupations could be a special calling from God and education was a means to prepare the young person for his or her calling. Schools existed in Geneva before Calvin arrived in 1536; however, they did not function in the way that Calvin would have liked. Calvin provided the elementary students with a needed text when he prepared a catechism. The students had written material that they could read and study and a systematic presentation of the basic doctrines of the Christian faith. Calvin also wanted more appropriate facilities in which the students could learn. Although his organization of the schools improved the atmosphere for learning, the building of the Academy was his dream and became his major educational achievement in the city of Geneva. Because16th century students needed to be prepared for the new world, there was a need for curriculum change. The students were required to read many of the prominent Greek and Roman authors in the ancient languages but the student learned theology, Hebrew, poetry, dialectic and rhetoric, physics, and mathematics as well. Calvin wished to graduate a well rounded scholar who could take his or her place in society. In this way the citizens of Geneva and all those of the Reformed belief would be better prepared for life on earth and the after life.

The book explores the lives of the church's foot soldiers, its ministers, and examines the pressures that reduce some of them almost to despair. The book offers insights into many of the "Kirk problems" that go unnoticed by Church members and examines the church as a living and breathing organization and brings to life the people who make it tick and those who induce its sclerosis.

This book investigates the Mission of the Reformed Church in America sent to Arabia in 1889 to preach the Gospel, and which operated in the Persian Gulf until 1973. It also explores the various cultural encounters between missionaries and Muslims, and discusses conversion and the place of Islam in the Protestant eschatology. It maintains that John G. Lansing from the New Brunswick Theological Seminary, New Jersey, who founded the Arabian Mission, deliberately dedicated the Mission to "direct Muslim evangelism". In terms of premillennialism, Lansing "moved" Islam into the very centre of the theological discourse, and presented the evangelization of Muslims as critical for Christ's Second Coming. This made the Arabian Mission unique among the American Protestant Missions, and placed the Church and missionaries between religious pluralism and the obligations of the Great Commission.

Seit 1980 leiten Frauen reformierte Kirchen der Schweiz, selbstverstandlich und von der Basis unterstutzt. Der vorliegende Band enthalt Beitrage zur Fuhrungsrolle von Frauen aus einem neuen Blickwinkel: Esther Girsberger und Karin Ammann befragen die ersten Frauen in kirchlichen Spitzenpositionen: Was ist ihnen wichtig, warum haben sie Erfolg? Weiter wird gezeigt, dass fur die Fuhrungsrolle von Frauen neben der geschichtlichen Entwicklung der Schweizer Kirchen auch die typisch reformierte Spiritualitat wichtig ist, die ein anderes Verstandnis von religioser Fuhrung begrundet. Einer vergleichende Studie ist zu entnehmen, dass - anders als in den reformierten Kirchen der Schweiz - Frauen in kirchlichen Spitzenpositionen weltweit noch sehr selten anzutreffen sind. Mit Beitragen von Claudia Bandixen, Hella Hoppe, Doris Brodbeck, Ina Praetorius, Sabine Scheuter, Judith Stofer, Luzia Sutter Rehmann, Anne Waldner. Frank Worbs, Jahrgang 1957, ist Theologe und Leiter Kommunikation und Marketing der Evangelisch-reformierten Landeskirche Aargau. Claudia Bandixen ist Kirchenratsprasidentin der Reformierten Landeskirche Aargau und Initiantin der Tagung der Kirchenprasidentinnen 2005 auf dem Rugel.

Invites readers to explore the implications of proclaiming the gospel. Gonzalez maintains that 'to be a congregation ready and able to proclaim the gospel for the salvation of humankind is to be the church in its exciting fullness.

A detailed account of social and religious life among urban Highlanders, based on records of Aberdeen's Gaelic Chapel.