In the decades before the Civil War, evangelical Protestants struggled for the mind and soul of America. Their impact on American life had immediate as well as far-reaching consequences, and is the subject of Curtis Johnson's concise and discerning account of a major force in the nation's history. The religious combatants described by Mr. Johnson not only sought to rescue America from Catholics and unbelievers, they battled one another over the meaning, practice, and social implications of their common faith. While prosperous evangelicals often tried to impose their religious understanding on the social and political order, common whites resented this elite meddling in their lives, and black Americans achieved a measure of autonomy by forging a liberating faith. Evangelical battles over biblical interpretation, the Second Birth, personal and national righteousness, and the Second Coming released forces that reverberated throughout antebellum culture. White evangelicals disagreed over the importance of education, the role of emotion, the possibility of personal perfection, and political philosophy. But when large numbers of black and white evangelicals agreed that God could not bless the nation until slavery was abolished, they abandoned their slaveholding co-religionists, and America moved toward Civil War. American Ways Series.

Examines how great missionary figures were crucial to their own time and were not only agents of change, but also some of Europe's first historians.

Missionaries brought Christian belief and culture to the pagan societies of Dark Age Europe.

The roles and aims of the missionaries provide a starting point for the history of early medieval Europe. While spiritualism is examined Ian Wood also focuses on the darker side of missionary life - flagellation, starvation, torture - as well as sanctity. Contemporary willing and unwilling evangelism relates to some of these first Christian pioneers.

This is the only book that addresses the relations between religion, Protestant missions, and empire building, linking together all three fields of studyby taking as its starting point the early eighteenth century Anglican initiatives in colonial North America and the Caribbean. It considers how the early societies of the 1790s built on this inheritance, and extended their own interests to the Pacific, India, the Far East, and Africa. Fluctuations in the vigour and commitment of the missions, changing missionary theologies, and the emergence of alternative missionary strategies, are all examined for their impact on imperial expansion. Other themes include the international character of the missionary movement, Christianity's encounter with Islam, and major figures such as David Livingstone, the state and politics, and humanitarianism, all of which are viewed in a fresh light. This monumental study shows that the missionary movement had a far more complex and ambiguous relationship with the Empire than has previously been thought, and will be widely welcomed by students and scholars of imperial history and the history of religion. -- .

Through a series of case studies of major fundamentalist missionary institutions and campaigns in China from 1930 to 1937, this work traces and clarifies the historical process of the movement and its controversy with modernism, the nature of character of the movement, its theological cores, its impact upon missionary thinking and strategies, and its influences on emerging evangelicals within Chinese churches.

The word "evangelism" evokes strong reactions among Christians. Conflict about what it is, whether to do it, how to go about it, and the desired results divides churches, demonstrating the need for new theologies and methods that address today's religiously pluralistic and secular contexts. This book offers a comprehensive treatment of evangelism, from biblical models to contemporary practice. Frances Adeney shows that understanding different contexts and approaches to evangelism and accepting the views of others on this crucial topic can help replace the "evangelism wars" (social action vs. proclamation) with a more graceful approach to sharing God's good news with the world.

This collection of historical and theological essays re-assesses the centenary history of the Church Missionary Society by Eugene Stock and of the strategic vision of Henry Vann, one of the two architects of the Three-Self theory of the indigenous church. There are chapters on the close links between the CMS and the Basel Mission, female missionaries, and regional studies of Samuel Crowther and the Niger mission, Iran, the Middle East, New Zealand, India and Kikuyu Christianity. The text makes a contribution to literature on indigenization of missionary traditions and should be of interest to historians of the missionary movement and non-Western Christianity, as well as to theologians concerned with religious pluralism and mission.

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Gender, Culture and Global Politics

In the late eighteenth century, French emigre priests fled the religious turmoil of the French Revolution and found themselves leading a new wave of Roman Catholic missionaries in the United States. Fathers on the Frontier explores the diverse ways these missionary priests guided the development of the early American church in Maryland, Kentucky, Louisiana, and other pockets of Catholic settlement throughout much of the trans-Appalachian West. Over the course of their evangelistic endeavor, this relatively small group of priests introduced Gallican, ultramontane, and missionary principles to a nascent institutional church prior to the immigration of millions of European Catholics in the nineteenth century.
As author Michael Pasquier shows, this transformation of American Catholicism did not come easily. Several generations of French priests struggled to reconcile their romantic expectations of missionary life with their actual experiences as servants of a foreign church scattered throughout a frontier region with limited access to friends and family members still in France. As they became more accustomed to the lifeways of the American South and West, French missionaries expressed anxiety about apparent discrepancies between how they were taught to practice the priesthood in French seminaries and what the Holy See expected them to achieve as representatives of a universal missionary church.
At no point did French missionaries engage more directly in distinctively American affairs than in the religious debates surrounding slavery, secession, and civil war. These issues, Pasquier argues, compelled even the most politically aloof missionaries to step out of the shadow of Rome and stake their church on the side of the Confederacy. In so doing, they set in motion a strain of Catholicism more amenable to Southern concepts of social conservatism, paternalism, and white supremacy, and strikingly different from the liberal, progressive strain that historians have usually highlighted. Focusing on the collective thoughts, feelings, and actions of priests who found themselves caught between the formal canonical standards of the church and the informal experiences of missionaries in American culture, Fathers on the Frontier illuminates the historical intersection of American, French, and Roman interests in the United States."

Transforming Priesthood offers a major theological reappraisal of the present and future role of the parish priest in Britain. Although written primarily with Anglicans in mind, the book is full if insights for partner churches - especially for those in which professional ministers and lay people recognize the need to collaborate effectively in carrying forward the mission and ministry of the whole Church. 'At last, here we have a practical, imaginative, and intelligent vision of priesthood for today's Church of England and beyond it. Dr Greenwood is widely experienced in parish ministry as well as at diocesan level and in academic theology. He is both realistic and theologically perceptive about contemporary England and its churches. His analyses are convincing; he is in touch with the livliest developments at local level and in theological thinking; and at the heart of his prescription is a relevant and passionate affirmation of the Trinitarian God. The result is a book that should not only stimulate debate of the right kind at a time of momentous change in all churches, it should also help to nurture Christian vocations, both as laity and parish priests.' David F Ford, Regius Professor of Divinity, University of Cambridge.

As the twentieth century passed its midpoint and was rushing toward its end, a growing number of Majority World theologians came to realize that they could in fact do theology in their own contexts for the benefit of their own people. Thus, from the 1960s onward, theologians in the global South have embarked on a form of theological construction that has sometimes been described as 'contextual' reflection or 'contextualized theology'. This volume is motivated by the conviction that these efforts have resulted in theological work that is also beneficial for Christians in other parts of the world. The editors have invited Majority World theologians to share their reflections on several themes of Christian faith from their own socio-historical perspectives but with an unswerving commitment to the authority of Scripture. It is hoped that these fresh reflections will help Christians in the West to engage and benefit from the perspectives of fellow believers in the global South.

The first full-length biography of Rev. Long, one of the most remarkable Protestant missionaries working in India in the 19th century, examining his work and activities in the context of his own background, philosophy and motivation as well as the political and cultural climate of the day.

Settlements were a distinctive aspect of late-Victorian church life in which individual philanthropic Christians were encouraged to live and work in communities amongst the poor and set an example for the underprivileged through their own actions. Often overlooked by historians, settlements are of great value in understanding the values and culture of the 19th century.
Settlement missions were first conceived when Samuel Barnett, the incumbent of St Jude's, Whitechapel, in the East End of London, sought to introduce them as a major aspect of Victorian church life. Barnett argued that settlers should be incorporated into London communities that suffered from squalor and poverty to live and work alongside the poor, to demonstrate their Christian faith and attempt to enhance social conditions from the inside. His first recruits were Oxford undergraduates and when Toynbee Hall was founded in Oxford in 1884, his radical vision of adapting Christian morality towards tackling social deprivation had begun. By the end of the Victorian era more than fifty similar institutions had been created.
Whilst few settlements lasted beyond the Victorian period, by injecting Christian ethics into trade unions, local government and the community, they had a huge impact which is still felt in the way these organisations operate today.

Matthew Bowman explores the world of a neglected group of American Christians: self-identified liberal evangelicals who began in the late nineteenth century to reconcile traditional evangelical spirituality with progressive views on social activism and theological questions. These evangelicals emphasized both the importance of supernatural conversion experience, but also argued that science, art, and relieving the poverty created by a new industrial economy could facilitate encounters with Christ. The Urban Pulpit chronicles the struggle of liberal evangelicals against conservative Protestants, who questioned their theological sincerity, and against secular reformers, who grew increasingly devoted to the cause of cultural pluralism and increasingly suspicious of evangelicals over the course of the twentieth century. Liberal evangelicals walked a difficult path, facing increasing polarization in twentieth-century American public life: both conservative evangelicals and secular reformers insisted that religion and science, and evangelical Christianity and cultural diversity, were necessarily at odds. Liberal evangelicals rejected such simple dichotomies, but nonetheless found defending their middle way increasingly difficult. Drawing on history, anthropology, and religious studies, Bowman paints a complex portrait of a group of religious believers at work, at worship, and engaged in advocacy in the public square.

Christian missions in Africa are commonly seen as a blatant example of ethnocentrism. This stereotype partly persists because the day-today interaction between missionaries and Africans has so rarely been studied. This book shows how Africans and missionaries co-produced a Catholic Church in the Uluguru mountains of eastern Tanzania in the late colonial period, and thereby adapted each others' routines in the fields of initiation, education, magic, and religion in Africa by showing how the presence of the mission resulted in a rift between spiritual and worldly magic, and in the underdevelopment of the capacity of Waluguru to mange their own practices of revelation.

The word-wide impact of evangelicalism has long been recognized as a vital force. Providing both a clear and accessible guide to the recent literature, this introduction examines the revival in the British Isles during the 18th and 19th-century within a broadly international context.
By investigating the nature of the revival and emphasizing its link with popular culture, this analysis explores the centrality of religion in this period. Posing questions such a "how far was the revival a threat to order?" And "what was its influence on society?" This work provides an introduction to the topic for all A-level and undergraduate students of 18th and 19th-century British history.

Will empower all leaders - whether of the church, a small group or an Alpha gathering - to better hone and share their message in a way that will connect with the person or people they are trying to reach.

The Basil Society's China mission, one of the ore successful Protestant missions in the nineteenth century, was distinguished by the fact that most of the initial proselytizing was conducted by Chinese converts in the interior rather than by Western missionaries in the treaty ports. Thus the first viable protestant communities were not only established by Chinese evangelists, they were established among an ethnic minority in south China, the Hakka people.

The autobiographies of eight pioneer Chinese missionaries featured in this book offer an unusual opportunity to view village life and customs in Guangdong during the mid-nineteenth century by providing details on Hakka death and burial rituals, ancestor veneration, lineages and lineage feuds, geomancy, the status of Hakka women, widespread economic hardship, and civil disorder.

The authors' commentary addresses the issue of conversion, which was fueled by individual desire for solace and salvation, the building of a support community amid social chaos and the possibility of social mobility through education. Despite an expanding role by Western missionaries, the Chinese origins, the rural interior locale, and the status of the Hakka as a disadvantaged minority contributed to successive generations of Christian families and to early progress toward an autonomous Hakka church.

A radical approach to church mission and social action that asks, 'If mission is not the central purpose of the church, then what is?' David Devenish believes that the church exists as a means of taking the gospel message to every people group. He believes that the church is very much at the centre of God's purposes, and in this book presents the church, not as a static pastoral community, but as a vibrant, active body totally committed to world mission. David investigates the importance of church planting to reach the nations, looks at Church-based mission and how to make local churches missional in both thinking and practice. Set within a framework of the Kingdom of God, David demonstrates what the kingdom down to earth really implies for Church-based kingdom social action. Finally, he examines the culture and contextualisation of social action along with some of the dangers and difficulties of apostolic mission, before asking the fundamental question, Who will go?

This companion study to Confronting Jesus is perfect for individuals, small groups, and churches, and helps readers go deeper into the Gospels to learn more about the person and work of Christ.

Sent to Heal traces the development of medical missions, one of the most intriguing, complex, and controversial phenomena in the history of the encounter of Western and Non-Western cultures promoted by Christianity. This groundbreaking study surveys the missions from their earliest beginnings in the fifteenth century until the turn of the twentieth century. Sent to Heal is a defining reference work on the philosophical, theological, missiological, and scientific aspects of medical missions. An extensive bibliography is included.

This book is for all who are concerned that the voice of the gospel be heard, clearly and distinctly, amid the bewildering variety of religious and political convictions competing for attention in the world today. The author explores fundamental questions about the nature and purpose of the gospel, enabling Christians to witness their own faith with greater sensitivity and awareness of different values of other people.