The book examines the nexus between political and religious thought within the Prussian old conservative milieu. It presents early-nineteenth-century Prussian conservatism as a phenomenon connected to a specific generation of young Prussians. The book introduces the ecclesial-political 'party of the Evangelische Kirchenzeitung' (EKZ), a religious party within the Prussian state church, as the origins of Prussia's conservative party post-1848. It traces the roots of the EKZ party back to the experiences of the Napoleonic Wars (1806-15) and the social movements dominant at that time. Additionally, the book analyses this generation's increasing politicization and presents the German revolution of 1848 and the foundation of Prussia's first conservative party as the result of a decade-long struggle for a religiously-motivated ideal of church, state, and society. The overall shift from church politics to state politics is key to understanding conservative policy post-1848. Consequently, this book shows how conservatives aimed to maintain Prussia's character as a Christian and monarchical state, while at the same time adapting to contemporary political and social circumstances. Therefore, the book is a must-read for researchers, scholars, and students of Political Science and History interested in a better understanding of the origins and the evolution of Prussian conservatism, as well as the history of political thought.

Eighteenth-century Dublin contained the largest concentration of Protestants (c.70,000) in Ireland. Freemen of the guilds alone - who were entitled to a parliamentary vote - were almost as numerous as the entire landed class. These merchants, master craftsmen, and shopkeepers, most of them members of the established church, became firm supporters of the Patriot movement that culminated in the winning of legislative independence in 1782. Dr Jacqueline Hill draws on an extensive range of pamphlet and other sources, in order to examine the freemen's contribution to Irish Patriotism. She considers their challenge to oligarchy, their attitudes to Britain, and, crucially, their attitudes to Catholics. Offering the first detailed analysis of the ideological nature of Irish Patriotism in its wider British, American, and European context, Dr Hill also provides a fresh perspective on the transformation of eighteenth-century Patriots into nineteenth-century Unionists.

This study of the life and thought of John Williamson Nevin (1803-1886) offers a revised interpretation of an important nineteenth-century religious thinker. Along with the historian, Phillip Schaff, Nevin was a leading exponent of what became known as the Mercersburg Movement, named for the college and theological seminary of the German Reformed Church located in Mercersburg, Pennsylvania. The story is a neglected aspect of American studies. Richard Wentz provides a kind of post-modern perspective on Nevin, presenting him as a distinctively American thinker, rather than as a reactionary romantic. Although influenced by German philosophy, historical studies, and theology, Nevin's thought was a profound response to the American public context of his day. He was, in many respects, a public theologian, judging the prevailing development of American Christianity as a new religion that was fashioning its own disintegration and that of American culture at large. Nevin's reinterpretation of catholicity in the American context opened the way for a radical understanding of religion and of American public life.

This book presents a theological and missiological argument for pentecostals to engage more forcefully in higher education by expanding and renewing their commitment toward operating their own colleges and universities. The volume's first part describes past and present developments within higher education, highlighting strengths and weaknesses of both pentecostal and (post)secular institutions. The second part highlights the future potential of pentecostal higher education, which is enriched by a Spirit-empowered and mission-minded spirituality that focuses on forming the hearts, heads, and hands of students. Pentecostals increasingly desire to influence all spheres of society, an endeavor that could be amplified through a strengthened engagement in higher education, particularly one that encompasses a variety of institutions, including a pentecostal research university. In developing such an argument, this research is both comprehensive and compelling, inviting pentecostals to make a missional difference in the knowledge-based economies that will characterize the twenty-first century.

In the early twentieth century, a new, American scripture appeared on the scene. It was the product of a school of theological thinking known as Dispensationalism, which offered a striking new way of reading the Bible, one that focused attention squarely on the end-times. That scripture, The Scofield Reference Bible, would become the ur-text of American apocalyptic evangelicalism. But while the Scofield took hold in the United States, the belief system from which it emerged, Dispensationalism, was not primarily a homegrown American phenomenon. In The Americanization of the Apocalypse: Creating America's Own Bible Donald Harman Akenson examines the creation and spread of Dispensationalism. The story is a transnational one: created in southern Ireland by evangelical Anglicans, who were terrified by the rise of Catholicism, then transferred to England, where it was expanded upon and next carried to British North America by "Brethren" missionaries and then subsequently embraced by American evangelicals. Akenson combines a respect for individual human agency with an equal recognition of the complex and persuasive ideational system that apocalyptic Dispensationalism presented. For believers, the system explained the world and its future. For the wider culture, the product of this rich evolution was a series of concepts that became part of the everyday vocabulary of American life: end-times, apocalypse, Second Coming, Rapture, and millennium. The Americanization of the Apocalypse is the first book to document, using direct archival evidence, the invention of the epochal Scofield Reference Bible, and thus the provenance of modern American evangelicalism.

This is the second of a projected three-volume history of Nonconformity in England and Wales. Following the widely-acclaimed first volume, which covered the period from Reformation to the French Revolution, this second volume deals with the years from 1791 to 1859. It was a period in which Evangelical Nonconformity underwent phenomenal growth and had a profound impact on nearly all aspects of English and Welsh society and on its economic and political life. The history of late Georgian and Victorian England and Wales, argues Dr Watts, cannot be understood without a knowledge of Nonconformity.

After the Reformation, the Dutch Republic emerged as the most religiously tolerant country in seventeenth-century Europe. Benjamin Kaplan examines the reasons behind this phenomenon, focusing on the struggle of Calvinist reformers to realize their theocratic aspirations in the Netherlands, and the fierce opposition offered to them by a large, amorphous group of people known as `Libertines'. Nowhere was this struggle more intense than in Utrecht, a city at the heart of the Dutch Reformation. The author illuminates the nature of this conflict through a study of the city and people of Utrecht, examing social relations, popular piety, civic culture, and state formation. This urban case-study shows how Dutch religious developments fitted into the wider European framework. Offering a fascinating microcosm of religious tensions in Europe around 1600, Kaplan shows how the Calvinist-Libertine conflict in the Netherlands was in fact a local manifestation of a broader European phenomenon: the struggle between champions and opponents of `confessionalism'. He thus combines a new interpretation of the Dutch Reformation with a presentation that makes this largely unknown phenomenon accessible to students of other countries. As the first case-study in English of the Dutch Reformation, Calvinists and Libertines fills an important gap in our knowledge of Dutch history and in our understanding of the European Reformation as a whole.

The complex philosophical theology of Paul Tillich (1886 1965), increasingly studied today, was influenced by thinkers as diverse as the Romantics and Existentialists, Hegel and Heidegger. A Lutheran pastor who served as a military chaplain in World War I, he was dismissed from his university post at Frankfurt when the Nazis came to power in 1933, and emigrated to the United States, where he continued his distinguished career. This authoritative Companion provides accessible accounts of the major themes of Tillich's diverse theological writings and draws upon the very best of contemporary Tillich scholarship. Each chapter introduces and evaluates its topic and includes suggestions for further reading. The authors assess Tillich's place in the history of twentieth-century Christian thought as well as his significance for current constructive theology. Of interest to both students and researchers, this Companion reaffirms Tillich as a major figure in today's theological landscape.

This book highlights the expansion of the influential Pentecostal Hillsong Church global megachurch network from Australia across global cities. Ethnographic research in Amsterdam and New York City shows that global cities harbor nodes in transnational religious networks in which media play a crucial role. By taking a lived religion approach, media is regarded as integral part of everyday practices of interaction, expression and consumption of religion. Key question raised is how processes of mediatization shape, alter and challenge this thriving cosmopolitan expression of Pentecostalism. Current debates in the study of religion are addressed: religious belonging and community in global cities; the interrelation between media technology, religious practices and beliefs; religion, media and social engagement in global cities; media and emerging modes of religious leadership and authority. In this empirical study, pressing societal issues like institutional responses to sexual abuse of children, views on gender roles, misogyny and mediated constructions of femininity are discussed.

English Reformations takes a refreshing new approach to the study of the Reformation in England. Christopher Haigh's lively and readable study disproves any facile assumption that the triumph of Protestantism was inevitable, and goes beyond the surface of official political policy to explore the religious views and practices of ordinary English people. With the benefit of hindsight, other historians have traced the course of the Reformation as a series of events inescapably culminating in the creation of the English Protestant establishment. Dr Haigh sets out to recreate the sixteenth century as a time of excitement and insecurity, with each new policy or ruler causing the reversal of earlier religious changes. This is a scholarly and stimulating book, which challenges traditional ideas about the Reformation and offers a powerful and convincing alternative analysis.

As religious leaders, ministers are often assumed to embody the faith of the institution they represent. As cultural symbols, they reflect subtle changes in society and belief-specifically people's perception of God and the evolving role of the church. For more than forty years, Douglas Alan Walrath has tracked changing patterns of belief and church participation in American society, and his research has revealed a particularly fascinating trend: portrayals of ministers in American fiction mirror changing perceptions of the Protestant church and a Protestant God.

From the novels of Harriet Beecher Stowe, who portrays ministers as faithful Calvinists, to the works of Herman Melville, who challenges Calvinism to its very core, Walrath considers a variety of fictional ministers, including Garrison Keillor's Lake Woebegon Lutherans and Gail Godwin's women clergy. He identifies a range of types: religious misfits, harsh Puritans, incorrigible scoundrels, secular businessmen, perpetrators of oppression, victims of belief, prudent believers, phony preachers, reactionaries, and social activists. He concludes with the modern legacy of nineteenth- and early-twentieth-century images of ministers, which highlights the ongoing challenges that skepticism, secularization, and science have brought to today's religious leaders and fictional counterparts. "Displacing the Divine" offers a novel encounter with social change, giving the reader access, through the intimacy and humanity of literature, to the evolving character of an American tradition.

This third volume completes the text of the cycle of 294 English Wycliffite sermons; the first two volumes appeared in 1983 and 1987 respectively. The 120 sermons here were intended to provide material for all the weekday occasions for which the Sarum rite offers a separate gospel reading; such complete coverage of ferial days is unparalleled in English medieval homiliaries, and seems unknown elsewhere in contemporary European cycles of sermons. The introduction to the present book, which is intended to be used along with the material in the previous volumes, describes the state of the text in these manuscripts and their relation to each other. Two further chapters consider questions relating to the whole cycle: the fidelity of the biblical translation in the sermons to the Vulgate texts; and the complicated issue of the relation between these English sermons and the Latin sermons of John Wyclif himself (this chapter is by Pamela Gradon). A fourth volume will provide a commentary on the individual sermons, consider the recurrent issues discussed within them, and offer suggestions concerning the origins of the collection.

The development of the Federal theology of the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries was a significant transformation in Reformed theological thinking. According to the Federal theologians, all of human history could be described using the rubric of a series of covenants, or foedera, beginning with a `covenant of works' in the perfection of Eden and concluding with the new covenant fulfilled by Jesus Christ in the New Testament. The new covenant was in effect the conclusion of the `covenant of grace', and it was this which united the Old and New Testaments into one continuous epic of God's grace and mercy. While John Calvin and many earlier Reformers discussed the importance of the postlapsarian covenant of grace, they never taught the Federal theology with its key identifying feature of a prelapsarian covenant. This book traces the prelapsarian covenant idea in Reformed theology from its first use by Zacharias Ursinus in 1562 to its flowering in 1590. Besides its origins, the implications of the Federal theology for Reformed thinking are made clear, and it is shown that the idea of covenant could have important implications for areas such as church and state, the sacraments, the Puritan doctrine of conversion, the Christian Sabbath, and the doctrine of justification and Christian ethics. The Federal theology is of considerable historical importance in intellectual history and forms the framework for much of the Reformed theology in the English-speaking world for three centuries. The doctoral thesis out of which this book developed won the Frank S. and Elizabeth D. Brewer Prize of the American Society of Church History.

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.

Martin Luther - monk, priest, intellectual, or revolutionary - has been a controversial figure since the sixteenth century. Most studies of Luther stress his personality, his ideas, and his ambitions as a church reformer. In this book, Christopher Ocker brings a new perspective to this topic, arguing that the different ways people thought about Luther mattered far more than who he really was. Providing an accessible, highly contextual, and non-partisan introduction, Ocker says that religious conflict itself served as the engine of religious change. He shows that the Luther affair had a complex political anatomy which extended far beyond the borders of Germany, making the debate an international one from the very start. His study links the Reformation to pluralism within western religion and to the coexistence of religions and secularism in today's world. Luther, Conflict, and Christendom includes a detailed chronological chart.

This book analyses the most sung contemporary congregational songs (CCS) as a global music genre. Utilising a three-part music semiology, this research engages with producers, musical texts, and audiences/congregations to better understand contemporary worship for the modern church and individual Christians. Christian Copyright Licensing International data plays a key role in identifying the most sung CCS, while YouTube mediations of these songs and their associated data provide the primary texts for analysis. Producers and the production milieu are explored through interviews with some of the highest profile worship leaders/songwriters including Ben Fielding, Darlene Zschech, Matt Redman, and Tim Hughes, as well as other music industry veterans. Finally, National Church Life Survey data and a specialized survey provide insight into individual Christians' engagement with CCS. Daniel Thornton shows how these perspectives taken together provide unique insight into the current global CCS genre, and into its possible futures.

This collection of essays examines the traumatic religious upheavals of early- and mid-sixteenth century England from the point of view of the early Protestants, a group which has been seriously neglected by recent scholarship. Leading British and American scholars re-examine early Protestantism, arguing that it was a complex movement which could have evolved in a number of directions. They explore its approach to issues of gender roles, the place of printing and print culture, and the ways in which Protestantism continued to be influenced by medieval religious culture.

The Lutheran Reformation of the early sixteenth century brought about immense and far-reaching change in the structures of church and state, and in religious and secular ideas. This book investigates the relationship between the law and religious ideology in Luther's Germany, showing how they developed in response to the momentum of Lutheran teachings and influence. John Witte, Jr. argues that it is not enough to understand the Reformation in either only theological or legal terms but that a perspective is required which takes proper account of both.

Written by a leading expert on the Puritans, this brief, informative volume offers a wealth of background on this key religious movement. This book traces the shaping, triumph, and decline of the Puritan world, while also examining the role of religion in the shaping of American society and the role of the Puritan legacy in American history. Francis J. Bremer discusses the rise of Puritanism in the English Reformation, the struggle of the reformers to purge what they viewed as the corruptions of Roman Catholicism from the Elizabethan church, and the struggle with the Stuart monarchs that led to a brief Puritan triumph under Oliver Cromwell. It also examines the effort of Puritans who left England to establish a godly kingdom in America. Bremer examines puritan theology, views on family and community, their beliefs about the proper relationship between religion and public life, the limits of toleration, the balance between individual rights and one's obligation to others, and the extent to which public character should be shaped by private religious belief.
About the Series: Combining authority with wit, accessibility, and style, Very Short Introductions offer an introduction to some of life's most interesting topics. Written by experts for the newcomer, they demonstrate the finest contemporary thinking about the central problems and issues in hundreds of key topics, from philosophy to Freud, quantum theory to Islam.

Homer in Wittenberg draws on manuscript and printed materials to demonstrate Homer's foundational significance for educational and theological reform during the Reformation in Wittenberg. In the first study of Melanchthon's Homer annotations from three different periods spanning his career, and the first book-length study of his reading of a classical author, William Weaver offers a new perspective on the liberal arts and textual authority in the Renaissance and Reformation. Melanchthon's significance in the teaching of the liberal arts has long been recognized, but Homer's prominent place in his educational reforms is not widely known. Homer was instrumental in Melanchthon's attempt to transform the university curriculum, and his reforms of the liberal arts are clarified by his engagements with Homeric speech, a subject of interest in recent Homer scholarship. Beginning with his Greek grammar published just as he arrived in Wittenberg in 1518, and proceeding through his 1547 work on dialectic, Homer in Wittenberg shows that teaching Homer decisively shaped Melanchthon's redesign of grammar, logic, and rhetoric. Melanchthon embarked on reforming the liberal arts with the ultimate objective of reforming theological education. His teaching of Homer illustrates the philosophical principles behind his use of well-known theological terms including sola scriptura, law and gospel, and loci communes. Homer's significance extended even to a practical theology of prayer, and Wittenberg scholia on Homer from the 1550s illustrate how the Homeric poem could be used to exercise faith as well as literary judgment and eloquence.

This book presents a comprehensive account of the historical development of the Charismatic Movement in Taiwan, placing it within the context of Taiwan's religious and political history. Judith C. P. Lin unearths invaluable sources of the Japan Apostolic Mission, the Full Gospel Business Men's Fellowship International Formosa Chapter, and Jean Stone Willans' short stay in Taiwan in 1968. Lin describes and analyzes how the efforts of 1970s charismatic missionaries in Taiwan-including Pearl Young, Nicholas Krushnisky, Donald Dale, Allen J. Swanson, and Ross Paterson-shaped the theological convictions of later Taiwanese charismatic leaders. She also explores significant developments in the Taiwanese Church which contributed to the gradual and widespread recognition of the Charismatic Movement in Taiwan from 1980 to 1995. Lin offers a thorough treatment of history, reconfigures historiography from a Taiwanese perspective, and challenges the academic circle to take seriously the "Taiwanese consciousness" when engaging Taiwan's history.

The influx of Protestant missionaries from Britain to Japan, Korea and Taiwan was an integral part of the British presence in East Asia from 1865 to 1945. Ion draws on both British and Japanese sources to examine the life, work and attitudes of the British missionaries, women and men, who ventured far from their homeland to preach the gospel. He explores the role played by British Protestants as both Christian missionaries and informal ambassadors of their own country and civilization. Through their educational, social and medical work the missionaries helped introduce Western ideas and social pursuits which in turn affected different facets of society and culture in Japan, Korea and Taiwan. The study illustrates how the British missionaries' intent to introduce Christianity was affected by the response of the East Asians to Western ideas.

In describing the high drama of the British missionary movement's pioneering days in the late nineteenth century to its persecution during the late 1930s, Ion casts light on a particular, yet important, aspect of the changing tides of Anglo-Japanese relations. This book will ably complement his previous study of Canadian missionaries in East Asia during the same period.

Chosen as one of the 15 outstanding books of 1993 for mission studies by the "International Bulletin of Missionary Research."

This book investigates the life and leadership of Lewi Pethrus, a monumental figure in Swedish and international Pentecostalism. Joel Halldorf describes Pethrus' role in the emergence of Pentecostalism in Sweden, the ideals and practices of Swedish Pentecostalism, and the movement's turn to professional party politics. When Pentecostals in the USA ventured into politics, they became allied with the Republican party, and later Donald Trump. The Swedish Pentecostals took another route: while culturally conservative, they embraced the progressive economic politics of the Social Democratic party. During the 2010s, they have also rejected the nationalism of the growing populist movement. Halldorf analyzes and explains these differences between Swedish evangelicals and Pentecostals on the one hand, and the Religious Right in the USA on the other.