Examines the pursuit of orthodoxy, and its consequences for the history of Christianity. Christianity is a hugely diverse and quarrelsome family of faiths, but most Christians have nevertheless set great store by orthodoxy - literally, 'right opinion' - even if they cannot agree what that orthodoxy should be. The notion that there is a 'catholic', or universal, Christian faith - that which, according to the famous fifth-century formula, has been believed everywhere, at all times and by all people - is itself an act of faith: to reconcile it with the historical fact of persistent division and plurality requires a constant effort. It also requires a variety of strategies, from confrontation and exclusion, through deliberate choices as to what is forgotten or ignored, to creative or even indulgent inclusion. In this volume, seventeen leading historians of Christianity ask how the ideal of unity has clashed, negotiated, reconciled or coexisted with the historical reality of diversity, in a range of historical settings from the early Church through the Reformation era to the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. These essays hold the huge variety of the Christian experience together with the ideal of orthodoxy, which Christians have never (yet) fully attained but for which they have always striven; and they trace some of the consequences of the pursuit of that ideal for the history of Christianity.

This is the story of how the Protestants in the GDR struggled to survive while striving to put their theology into practice and remaining true to their vision of what the role of the church should be - a 'church for others' as Dietrich Bonhoeffer put it. Having taken the reader from the foundation of the GDR, through the peaceful revolution, to the unification of Germany, the story ends with some reflections on the church's past as well as on the challenges it faces in present-day Europe. Protestants in Communist East Germany makes a unique contribution to existing literature by drawing not only on written sources but on a series of first-hand interviews with theologians, pastors and lay people of different ages whose experiences, views and analyses bring the story to life. The East German church's relationship to the state will probably always remain controversial and the vision for a different socialism in the GDR espoused by those involved in the peaceful revolution may now be considered illusory. Nevertheless, many of the issues raised by the Protestants in the GDR remain as vital challenges to the churches in Europe today. Foreword by Paul Oestreicher.

Friedrich Schleiermacher (1768-1834) is often considered the Father of Modern Theology, known for his attempt to reconcile traditional Christian doctrines with philosophical criticisms and scientific discoveries. Despite the influence of his work on significant figures like Karl Barth, he has been largely ignored by contemporary theologians. Focussing on Schleiermacher's doctrine of sin, this book demonstrates how Schleiermacher has not only been misinterpreted, but also underestimated, and deserves a critical re-examination. The book approaches Schleiermacher on sin with respect to three themes: one, its power to transcend an intractable metaethical dilemma at the heart of modern debates over sin; two, its intended compatibility with natural science; and three, to re-evaluating its place, and so Schleiermacher's place, in the history of theology. It solves and dissolves problems arising simultaneously from natural science, confessional theology, ethics, and metaphysics in a single, integrated account using Schleiermacher's understudied thought from his dogmatics The Christian Faith. In contrast to the account sometimes given of modern theology as marked by a break with "Greek metaphysics," Schleiermacher's account is shown to stand in stark contrast by retrieving, not excising, ancient thought in service of an account of sin adequate to natural science. This is a vital rediscovery of a foundational voice in theology. As such, it will greatly appeal to scholars of Modern Theology, theological ethics, and the history of Modern Christianity.

When Mary Marshall Dyer (1780-1867) joined the Shakers in 1813 with her husband and five children, she thought she had found salvation. But two years later, she fled the sect, calling them subversive of Christian morality and a danger to American society. When her husband and the Shaker authorities denied her request for the return of her children, Dyer joined forces with an aggressive anti-Shaker movement – an informal yet effective group linked together by their despisal of Shakerism and their determination to thwart the new faith. Distraught, angry, and alone, Dyer turned her anguish into action and embarked on a fifty-year campaign against the Shakers -- and was the centerpiece of the Shakers’ counterattack. The American public followed the debate with great interest, not least because it offered titillating details into the mysterious sect, but also because Dyer’s experiences reflected profound changes in the family, religion, and gender in antebellum America. In this compelling study of Dyer and her world, Elizabeth A. De Wolfe suggests that while neither the Shakers nor Dyer would agree, the latter, a mother without children and a wife without a husband, and the former, a celibate communal sect that disavowed the marriage bond, shared similar positions on the margins of antebellum society.

Originally published in 1867, this is a comprehensively detailed history of both the persecution and flight of the Huguenots and their re-settlement in England and Ireland and consequent lives. Many of the earliest books, particularly those dating back to the 1900s and before, are now extremely scarce and increasingly expensive. Hesperides Press are republishing these classic works in affordable, high quality, modern editions, using the original text and artwork. Contents Include: The Reformation, Invention of Printing - Episode in the Life of Palissy - Persecutions of the Reformed - The Duke of Alva in Flanders, Massacre of St. Bartholomew - Relations of England with France and Spain - Settlements and Industries of the Protestant Refugees in England - Early Walloon and French Churches in England - The Edict of Nantes, Colbert and Louis xiv - The Huguenot Persecutions Under Louis xiv - Renewed Flight of the Huguenots - The Huguenots and the English Revolution of 1688 - Adventures of Dumont De Bostaquet, Irish Campaigns of 1689-90 - Huguenot Officers in the British Service - Huguenot Men of Science and Learning - Huguenot Settlements in England, Men of Industry - The Huguenot Churches in England - Huguenot Settlements in Ireland - Descendants of the Refugees - Conclusion, The French Revolution - List of Distinguished Refugee Protestants and Their Descendants

Of particular significance for an understanding of early Church history are the Waldensians, members of a dissident religious movement which originated in France in the twelfth century and resided primarily in the Duchy of Savoy and Northern and Southern Italy, before moving to other parts of Europe. Bringing together contributions by leading scholars in the field, this volume of essays discusses the construction and transmission of Waldensian identity through discourse and cultural production. It highlights in particular the religious and political significance of the Waldensians at an international level, not least with regard to the Reformation and its aftermath. Fundamental to the research presented are the rich holdings of Waldensian manuscripts in the Old Library of Trinity College Dublin and also in Cambridge, Geneva and Grenoble. The volume is divided into two parts and its first section, "Editing Waldensian Texts and Manuscripts", considers Waldensian texts and manuscripts, their circulation, physical characteristics, language and textual sources. The second section, "Constructing Waldensian Identity", examines the shifting representation of Waldensian identity through stereotypes, modern literature, the visual arts and historical accounts; the role played by specific libraries, individuals, gifts, and countries in promoting and fashioning Waldensian identity is also brought to light. A key aim of the volume is to offer a review of research to date and to point to future directions for study.

This book focuses on the historiography of the Seventh-day Adventist Church. It is a study of the various ways Adventist historians have approached history. The author concentrates on select historians whose publications cover important issues for Seventh-day Adventist history. Such historians are recognized for their contributions, both published and unpublished, that are foundational to Adventist history and historiography. The book analyzes basic historical facts as used in the writing of Seventh-day Adventist history. It is analytical in nature by using documentary sources including relevant books, articles, and other research materials. It departs from using a strict chronological approach and instead focuses on major themes from Adventist history that illustrate Adventist historiography. Recommendations Gabriel Masfa has described the various threads of Seventh-day Adventist approaches to history. His book is a masterful treatment of a wide variety of approaches. It is an indispensable introduction to a fascinating historical topic. Edward Allen, President of the Association of Adventist Historians. Professor of Religion, Union College, Nebraska, United States Dr. Masfa's monograph is to be welcomed as the first critical historiographical analysis of Adventist Studies and the first substantive history of Seventh-day Adventist historiography. David Trim, Ph.D., F.R. Hist. S. Director of Archives, Statistics, and Research General Conference of Seventh-day Adventists This work will remain the benchmark standard for Adventist historiography for some time to come, and for this, the author must be commended. Michael W. Campbell, Ph. D, Professor of Religion at Southwestern Adventist University, Texas, United States

This book highlights the life and writings of an itinerant preacher in John Wesley's Methodist Connexion, Thomas Wride (1733-1807). Detailed studies of such rank and file preachers are rare, as Methodist history has largely been written by and about its leadership. However, Wride's ministry shows us that the development of this worldwide movement was more complicated and uncertain than many accounts suggest. Wride's attitude was distinctive. He was no respecter of persons, freely criticising almost everyone he came across, and in doing so exposing debates and tensions within both Methodism and wider society. However, being so combative also led him into conflict with the very movement he sought to promote. Wride is an authentic, self-educated, and non-elite voice that illuminates important features of Eighteenth-Century life well beyond his religious activities. He sheds light on his contemporaries' attitudes to issues such as the role of women, attitudes towards and the practice of medicine, and the experience and interpretation of dreams and supernatural occurrences. This is a detailed insight into the everyday reality of being an Eighteenth-Century Methodist minister. As such, this text will be of interest to academics working in Methodist Studies and Religious History, as well as Eighteenth-Century History more generally.

This book brings together philosophical and theological perspectives on agapistic love. The aim of the text is to illuminate the nature of unlimited love by distinct and integrative approaches to the intersection of the divine and the human. Various scientific approaches to human forms of love seem to shed light on our nature as social beings. But to what extent are the natural desires for affection, sexual love and friendship augmented, revised, perfected or replaced by the gift of grace? In other words, we can ask how is it that agape modifies or shapes the natural loves? Diverse theological and moral traditions address the question in quite startling contrast. Thomists follow the dictum that 'Grace does not destroy nature but perfects it'. Lutherans draw a sharp contrast between law and Gospel while Wesleyans see charity as the sanctifying power of the Holy Spirit. Some feminist theorists see the idea of self-giving love as contrary to genuine self-fulfilment while the neo-Kantians see love as a duty to others, and some Kierkegaardians see the command to love as an unusual manifestation of divine command ethics. These diverse approaches, in light of contemporary research in the natural and social sciences, can provide fertile ground for the exploration of the intersection of human and divine love. To date, there is no text available that brings scholars from various theological and philosophical backgrounds together to engage in interdisciplinary dialogue on this important and much neglected aspect of research into the human and divine loves. This book offers a significant attempt to remedy the situation.

Towards Liturgies that Reconcile reflects upon Christian worship as it is shaped, and mis-shaped, by human prejudice, specifically by racism. African Americans and European Americans have lived together for 400 years on the continent of North America, but they have done so as slave and master, outsider and insider, oppressed and oppressor. Scott Haldeman traces the development of Protestant worship among whites and blacks, showing that the following exist in tension: African American and European American Protestant liturgical traditions are both interdependent and distinct; and that multicultural communities must both understand and celebrate the uniqueness of various member groups while also accepting the risk and possibility of praying themselves into an integrated body, one new culture.

W.R. Ward was one of the most influential historians of modern religion to be found at work in Britain during the twentieth century. Across fifty years his writings provoked a major reconsideration by historians of the significance of religion in society and its importance in the contexts of political, cultural and intellectual life. Ward was, above all, an international scholar who did much to repudiate any settled understanding that religious history existed in merely national categories. In particular, he showed how much British and American religion owed to the insights of Continental European thought and experience. This book presents many of Ward's most important articles and gives a picture of the character, and extraordinary breadth, of his work. Embracing studies of John Wesley and the development of Methodism at large, the ambitions of Evangelicals in an age of international mission, the place of mysticism in evolution of Protestantism and the relations of churches and secular powers in the twentieth century, Andrew Chandler concludes that it was in such scholarship that Ward 'quietly recast the picture that we have of the past and drew our attention towards a far greater, more difficult and more interesting, landscape.'

Theologians and scholars of religion draw on rich resources to address the complex issues raised by political reconciliation in the Middle East, the former Yugoslavia, South Africa, Northern Ireland and elsewhere. The questions addressed include: Can truth set a person, or a society, free? How is political forgiveness possible? Are political, personal, and spiritual reconciliation essentially related? Explorations in Reconciliation brings Catholic, Protestant, Mennonite, Jewish and Islamic perspectives together within a single volume to present some of the most relevant theological work today. The Open Access version of this book, available at http://www.taylorfrancis.com/books/e/ISBN, has been made available under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives 4.0 license. The support of the Irish School of Ecumenics Trust in making this OA version possible is gratefully acknowledged.

Freedom of religious belief is guaranteed under the constitution of the People's Republic of China, but the degree to which this freedom is able to be exercised remains a highly controversial issue. Much scholarly attention has been given to persecuted underground groups such as Falungong, but one area that remains largely unexplored is the relationship between officially registered churches and the communist government. This study investigates the history of one such official church, Moore Memorial Church in Shanghai. This church was founded by American Methodist missionaries. By the time of the 1949 revolution, it was the largest Protestant church in East Asia, running seven day a week programs. As a case study of one individual church, operating from an historical (rather than theological) perspective, this study examines the experience of people at this church against the backdrop of the turbulent politics of the Mao and Deng eras. It asks and seeks to answer questions such as: were the people at the church pleased to see the foreign missionaries leave? Were people forced to sign the so-called Christian manifesto?Once the church doors were closed in 1966, did worshippers go underground? Why was this particular church especially chosen to be the first re-opened in Shanghai in 1979? What explanations are there for its phenomenal growth since then? A considerable proportion of the data for this study is drawn from Chinese language sources, including interviews, personal correspondence, statistics, internal church documents and archives, many of which have never previously been published or accessed by foreign researchers. The main focus of this study is on the period from 1949 to 1989, a period in which the church experienced many ups and downs, restrictions and limitations. The Mao era, in particular, remains one of the least understood and seldom written about periods in the history of Christianity in China. This study therefore makes a significant contribution to our evolving understanding of the delicate balancing act between compromise, co-operation and compliance that categorises church-state relations in modern China.

'a vital resource' TLS 'Compelling collection' Literary Review The Reformation was a seismic event in history whose consequences are still unfolding in Europe and across the world. Martin Luther's protests against the marketing of indulgences in 1517 were part of a long-standing pattern of calls for reform in the Christian Church. But they rapidly took a radical and unexpected turn, engulfing first Germany, and then Europe, in furious arguments about how God's will was to be 'saved'. However, these debates did not remain confined to a narrow sphere of theology. They came to reshape politics and international relations; social, cultural, and artistic developments; relations between the sexes; and the patterns and performances of everyday life. They were also the stimulus for Christianity's transformation into a truly global religion, as agents of the Roman Catholic Church sought to compensate for losses in Europe with new conversions in Asia and the Americas. Covering both Protestant and Catholic reform movements, in Europe and across the wider world, this compact volume tells the story of the Reformation from its immediate, explosive beginnings, through to its profound longer-term consequences and legacy for the modern world. The story is not one of an inevitable triumph of liberty over oppression, enlightenment over ignorance. Rather, it tells how a multitude of rival groups and individuals, with or without the support of political power, strove after visions of 'reform'. And how, in spite of themselves, they laid the foundations for the plural and conflicted world we now inhabit.

In 1989 a woman fishing in Texas on a quiet stretch of the Colorado River snagged a body. Her ""catch"" was the corpse of Johnny Jenkins, shot in the head. His death was as dramatic as the rare book dealer's life, which read, as the Austin American-Statesman declared, ""like a bestseller."" In 1975 Jenkins had staged the largest rare book coup of the twentieth century - the purchase, for more than two million dollars, of the legendary Eberstadt inventory of rare Americana, a feat noted in the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal. His undercover work for the FBI, recovering rare books stolen by mafia figures, had also earned him headlines coast to coast, as had his exploits as ""Austin Squatty,"" playing high stakes poker in Las Vegas. But beneath such public triumphs lay darker secrets. At the time of his death, Jenkins was about to be indicted by the ATF for the arson of his rare books, warehouse, and offices. Another investigation implicated Jenkins in forgeries of historical documents, including the Texas Declaration of Independence. Rumors of million-dollar gambling debts at mob-connected casinos circulated, along with the rumblings of irate mafia figures he'd fingered and eccentric Texas collectors he'd cheated. Had he been murdered? Or was his death a suicide, staged to look like a murder? How Jenkins, a onetime president of the Antiquarian Booksellers Association of America, came to such an unseemly end is one of the mysteries Michael Vinson pursues in this spirited account of a tragic American life. Entrepreneur, con man, connoisseur, forger, and self-made hero, Jenkins was a Texan who knew how to bluff but not when to fold.

This book brings together Methodist scholars and reflective practitioners from around the world to consider how emerging practices of mission and evangelism shape contemporary theologies of mission. Engaging contemporary issues including migration, nationalism, climate change, postcolonial contexts, and the growth of the Methodist church in the Global South, this book examines multiple forms of mission, including evangelism, education, health, and ministries of compassion. A global group of contributors discusses mission as no longer primarily a Western activity but an enterprise of the entire church throughout the world. This volume will be of interest to researchers studying missiology, evangelism, global Christianity, and Methodism and to students of Methodism and mission.

By examining the minister who helped inspire the founding of the Harlem Unitarian Church Reverend Ethelred Brown, Floyd-Thomas offers a provocative examination of the religious and intellectual roots of Black humanist thought.

The book investigates facets of global Protestantism through Anglican, Quaker, Episcopalian, Moravian, Lutheran Pietist, and Pentecostal missions to enslaved and indigenous peoples and political reform endeavours in a global purview that spans the 1730s to the 1930s. The book uses key examples to trace both the local and the global impacts of this multi-denominational Christian movement. The essays in this volume explore three of the critical ways in which Protestant communities were established and became part of a worldwide network: the founding of far-flung missions in which Western missionaries worked alongside enslaved and indigenous converts; the interface between Protestant outreach and political reform endeavours such as abolitionism; and the establishment of a global epistolary through print communication networks. Demonstrating how Protestantism came to be both global and ecumenical, this book will be a key resource for scholars of religious history, religion and politics, and missiology as well as those interested in issues of postcolonialism and imperialism.

Published in 1989, this bibliography considers religious seminaries that are affiliated with the various denominations of the theological institutions established in the United States by the Protestants in the early 1800s, it also considers non-denominational and independent settings. Divided into two sections, the first short section considers the relationship between the civil governments and the seminaries, the second, organized by denomination into 15 chapters provides an extensive bibliography with annotations. The work pulls together a wealth of reference material and identifies salient works, whether book, article, dissertation or essay, to provide a much-needed resource for those interested in seminary education in the United States, whether scholar, student, policy maker, or interested citizen.

This book aims to guide A-level students and undergraduates through the area of religious separatism in the century before the English Civil War. Whilst attempting to review some of the results of recent scholarship in this field, it also attempts to show that the religious tensions which came to the fore during the Civil War and Interregnum had their roots mainly in the frustrations of the radical wing of the Puritan movement in Elizabethan and Jacobean England.

Pentecostalism is a growing movement in world Christianity. However, the growth of Pentecostalism in South Africa has faced some challenges, including the abuse of religion by some prophets. This book first names these prophets and the churches they lead in South Africa, and then makes use of literary and media analysis to analyse the religious practices by the prophets in relation to cultism. Additionally, the book analyses the "celebrity cult" and how it helps promote the prophets in South Africa. The purpose of this book is threefold: First, to draw parallels between the abuse of religion and cultism. Second, to illustrate that it is cultic tendencies, including the celebrity cult, that has given rise to many prophets in South Africa. Last, to showcase that the challenge for many of these prophets is that the Pentecostal tradition is actually anti-cultism, and thus there is a need for them to rethink their cultic tendencies in order for them to be truly relevant in a South African context.

This book investigates an African diaspora Christian community in Calgary, Alberta, and explores the ways in which the church's beliefs and practices impact the lives of its migrant congregation. In particular, it reveals the church's pronounced concern with the utility of the Prosperity Gospel and Holy Spirit Power.