The first account of the dissolution of the monasteries for fifty years-exploring its profound impact on the people of Tudor England "This is a book about people, though, not ideas, and as a detailed account of an extraordinary human drama with a cast of thousands, it is an exceptional piece of historical writing."-Lucy Wooding, Times Literary Supplement Shortly before Easter, 1540 saw the end of almost a millennium of monastic life in England. Until then religious houses had acted as a focus for education, literary, and artistic expression and even the creation of regional and national identity. Their closure, carried out in just four years between 1536 and 1540, caused a dislocation of people and a disruption of life not seen in England since the Norman Conquest. Drawing on the records of national and regional archives as well as archaeological remains, James Clark explores the little-known lives of the last men and women who lived in England's monasteries before the Reformation. Clark challenges received wisdom, showing that buildings were not immediately demolished and Henry VIII's subjects were so attached to the religious houses that they kept fixtures and fittings as souvenirs. This rich, vivid history brings back into focus the prominent place of abbeys, priories, and friaries in the lives of the English people.

In these firsthand accounts of the early church, the spirit of Pentecost burns with prophetic force through the fog enveloping the modern church. A clear and vibrant faith lives on in these writings, providing a guide for Christians today. Its stark simplicity and revolutionary fervor will stun those lulled by conventional Christianity. The Early Christians is a topically arranged collection of primary sources. It includes extra-biblical sayings of Jesus and excerpts from Origen, Tertullian, Polycarp, Clement of Alexandria, Justin, Irenaeus, Hermas, Ignatius, and others. Equally revealing material from pagan contemporaries - critics, detractors, and persecutors - is included as well.

The amazing life of the Armenian dairyman who founded the Full Gospel Business Men's Fellowship International, a unique ministry to men and women in the business world. It is a story to make you laugh, to make you cry and to build faith. Today, with several thousand chapters around the world, the Fellowship reaches more than a billion people a year with the life-changing message of Christ's love. This book brings the story of its founder and those around him into vivid colour and will inspire all those who read it.

Before Queen Anne's reign had even begun, rival factions in both Church and State were jostling for position in her court. Attempting to follow a moderate course, the new monarch and her advisors had to be constantly wary of the attempts of extremists on both sides to gain the upper hand. The result was a see-saw period of alternating influence that has fascinated historians and political commentators. In this engaging new study, Barry Levis shows that although both parties claimed to be in support of the Church, their real aim was advancing their respective political positions. Uniting close analysis of Queen Anne's changing policies towards dissenters, occasional conformity and church appointments with studies of the careers of several prominent churchmen and politicians, Levis paints a gripping picture of competing religious values and political ambitions. Most significantly, he shows that, far from being restricted to the church and political elites, these conflicts were to have a cascading influence on the division of the country long after the Queen's reign ended.

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The story of Christianity is a fascinating tale. Here we find drama, vision and expansion along with failure, setbacks and tragedy. Yet during the past two thousand years the power of Jesus is felt throughout the interplay of human actors and the forces of world events. How can you grasp the story played out on such a gigantic stage? This book is an ideal place to start. D. Jeffrey Bingham has skillfully selected the key people and episodes to tell a grand and humbling story. From Roman persecution to the early creeds, from the monastic movement to the Reformation, from the rise of liberalism to missionary expansion, he chronicles the ups and downs of a people and a faith. This pocket history has been crafted for students, pastors and other busy people who want an informed, clear and concise presentation that feeds the mind and moves the heart. It is an account that nurtures the Christian virtues of faith, hope and love. For Bingham aims not only to uncover the treasures of the church's past but also to show how history aids your own spiritual journey today. Designed for students and pastors alike, the short and accessible volumes in the IVP Pocket Reference Series will help you tackle the study of biblical languages, church history, apologetics, world religions, Christian spirituality, ethics, theology, and more.

Starting a new organization is risky business. And churches are no exception. Many new Protestant churches are established without denominational support and, therefore, have many of the same vulnerabilities other startups must overcome. Millions of Americans are leaving churches, half of all churches do not add any new members, and thousands of churches shutter their doors each year. These numbers suggest that American religion is not a growth industry. On the other hand, more than 1000 new churches are started in any given year. What moves people who might otherwise be satisfied working for churches to take on the riskier role of starting one? In Church Planters, sociologist Richard Pitt uses more than 125 in-depth interviews with church planters to understand their motivations. Pitt's work endeavors to uncover themes in their sometimes miraculous, sometimes mundane answers to the question: "why take on these risks?" He examines how they approach common entrepreneurial challenges in ways that reduce uncertainty and lead them to believe they will be successful. By combining the evocative stories of church planters with insights from research on commercial and social entrepreneurship, Pitt explains how these religion entrepreneurs come to believe their organizational goals must be accomplished, that they can be accomplished, and that they will be accomplished.

On fire for God-a sweeping history of puritanism in England and America Begun in the mid-sixteenth century by Protestant nonconformists keen to reform England's church and society while saving their own souls, the puritan movement was a major catalyst in the great cultural changes that transformed the early modern world. Providing a uniquely broad transatlantic perspective, this groundbreaking volume traces puritanism's tumultuous history from its initial attempts to reshape the Church of England to its establishment of godly republics in both England and America and its demise at the end of the seventeenth century. Shedding new light on puritans whose impact was far-reaching as well as on those who left only limited traces behind them, Michael Winship delineates puritanism's triumphs and tribulations and shows how the puritan project of creating reformed churches working closely with intolerant godly governments evolved and broke down over time in response to changing geographical, political, and religious exigencies.

The biography of one of the leaders of the Evangelical Movement at the beginning of the nineteenth century. As the son of Henry Venn of Huddersfield and friend of Charles Simeon, William Wilberforce, Henry Thornton, and Hannah More, John Venn tends only to be remembered because of his relationship to them, but his avoidance of the limelight should not lead to an underestimation of his influence. As Rector of Clapham, Venn was the prototypically effective nineteenth-century town parson, but through his role as first Chairman of the Church Missionary Society and as Chaplain to the Clapham Sect his influence was felt on the wider Church. Full use has been made of the Venn Family Papers and other original sources, including letters and diaries.

This book is an essay in liturgical theology, writes Max Thurian, It is in fact a study in biblical theology which seeks to provide a firm basis for the eucharistic liturgy in the great Judaeo-Christian tradition represented by the Scriptures. From the insights which came to him within the Brotherhood of Taize in France, Max Thurian believes that the real presence of Christ must be studied within the 'liturgical action' and not isolated as a separate theological problem. In the Reformed tradition of Taize he turns, therefore, to a study of the Scriptures and opens the Scriptural meaning of the Eucharistic memorial as seen in the Old and New Testaments. Volume I deals with the Old Testament background.

A two-volume study in the strategy of Christian evangelism as developed by two of its greatest exponents, set in the framework of biographical studies, which stand in their own right as scholarly contributions to the literature of their respective subjects. Although far separated in time and tradition, Pascal and Kierkegaard both insisted that self-complacent humanity needs first to be disturbed, and then comforted, by the Gospel. Most of the book is occupied by a thorough review of the lives and works of the two men, in such a way as to ring out their significant place in the spiritual history of modern Europe. But the author's purpose throughout is not merely biographical. He goes on to compare the conception and execution of their evangelistic tasks in a way which brings out the remarkable consensus between them; and in an epilogue he draws conclusions relating this historical study to the tasks and methods of modern evangelism.

Contrary to charges of religious "dogma," Christian actors in international politics often wrestle with the lack of a clear path in determining what to do and how to act, especially in situations of violence and when encountering otherness. Lynch argues that it is crucial to recognise the ethical precarity of decision-making and acting. This book contextualizes and examines ethical struggles and justifications that key figures and movements gave during the early modern period of missionary activity in the Americas; in the interwar debates about how to act vis-a-vis fascism, economic oppression and colonialism in a "secular" world; in liberation theology's debates about the use of violence against oppression and bloodshed; and in contemporary Christian humanitarian negotiations of religious pluralism and challenges to the assumptions of western Christianity. Lynch explores how the wrestling with God that took place in each of these periods reveals ethical tensions that continue to impact both Christianity and international relations.

Johann Adam Moehler was twenty-nine years old and a lecturer at theCatholic seminary in Tubingen when he wrote Die Einheit in der Kirche(Unity in the Church) in 1825. Its two German editions and French translations influenced Catholic authors well into the twentieth century, and the book remains an important example of the early-nineteenth-century Catholic Awakening. In Unity in the Church, Moehler upholds a romantic view of the Catholic Church by describing it as the organic development of the life-giving Holy Spirit. This, he insisted, was the teaching of the earliest Christian writers, whom he discusses and quotes at length throughout the book. Although Moehler was primarily writing as an apologist for the Catholic faith against Protestantism, his work is marked by careful study of Protestant sources, respect for Protestant thought and thinkers, and a reconciliatory tone. In this book he uses the works of the church fathers to demonstrateto his contemporary Protestant opponents that the Scripturesarose from within the church and that the earliest heresies resulted as individuals separated themselves from tradition, which has as its life source the Spirit. The Spirit works through tradition as the source of the church's mystical and intellectual unity, a unity which allowed for diversity, but which over time formed itself under bishops. According to Moehler, the principle of unity in the church must continue until it reaches its fullest form; thus, the unity of the episcopate and all believers must represent itself in one church and one bishop. A single bishop, the primate, is the center of the living unity of the whole church. This translation is aimed at individuals interested in the development of Catholicism in the modern world and in Catholic-Protestant dialogue and ecumenism generally. It is also an important work for historians and theologians specializing in Catholic historiography, the Scripture-tradition relationship, issues of church and state, and Catholic liberalism.

Recent studies on the development of early Christianity emphasize the fragmentation of the late ancient world while paying less attention to a distinctive feature of the Christianity of this time which is its inter-connectivity. Both local and trans-regional networks of interaction contributed to the expansion of Christianity in this age of fragmentation. This volume investigates a specific aspect of this inter-connectivity in the area of the Mediterranean by focusing on the formation and operation of episcopal networks. The rise of the bishop as a major figure of authority resulted in an increase in long-distance communication among church elites coming from different geographical areas and belonging to distinct ecclesiastical and theological traditions. Locally, the bishops in their roles as teachers, defenders of faith, patrons etc. were expected to interact with individuals of diverse social background who formed their congregations and with secular authorities. Consequently, this volume explores the nature and quality of various types of episcopal relationships in Late Antiquity attempting to understand how they were established, cultivated and put to use across cultural, linguistic, social and geographical boundaries.

Who was Priscilla? Readers of the Bible may know her as the wife of Aquila, Paul's coworker, or someone who explained baptism to Apollos. Biblical references to Priscilla spark questions: Why is she mentioned before her husband? Does the mention of her instruction of Apollos mean that women taught in the church? What is her story? Ben Witherington addresses these questions and more. In this work of historical fiction, Priscilla looks back on her long life and remembers the ways she has participated in the early church. Her journey has taken her to Ephesus, Corinth, and Rome, and she's partnered with Paul and others along the way. Priscilla's story makes the first-century world come alive and helps readers connect the events and correspondence in different New Testament books. Witherington combines biblical scholarship and winsome storytelling to give readers a vivid picture of an important New Testament woman.

Christianity Today 2019 Book Award Winner This introductory guide, written by a leading expert in medieval theology and church history, offers a thorough overview of medieval biblical interpretation. After an opening chapter sketching the necessary background in patristic exegesis (especially the hermeneutical teaching of Augustine), the book progresses through the Middle Ages from the eighth to the fifteenth centuries, examining all the major movements, developments, and historical figures of the period. Rich in primary text engagement and comprehensive in scope, it is the only current, compact introduction to the whole range of medieval exegesis.

In Azusa Street Mission and Revival, Cecil M. Robeck, Jr. brings to bear expertise from decades of focused study in church history to reveal the captivating story of the Apostolic Faith Mission in Los Angeles, which became known as the Azusa Street Mission. From humble beginnings with few resources, this small uniquely diverse and inclusive congregation led by William J. Seymour ignited a fire that quickly grew into a blaze and spread across the world giving rise to the global Pentecostal movement. Sifting through newspaper reports and other written accounts of the time as well as the mission's own publications, and through personal interaction with some of those blessed to stand very near to the fire that began at the mission, Cecil M. Robeck, Jr. relates not only the historical significance of the revival but also captures the movement of the Holy Spirit that changed the face of modern Christianity.