When the Reverend Mark Allison Matthews died in February 1940, thousands of mourners gathered at a Seattle church to pay their final respects. The Southern-born Presbyterian came to Seattle in 1902. He quickly established himself as a city leader and began building a congregation that was eventually among the nation's largest, with nearly 10,000 members. Throughout his career, he advocated Social Christianity, a blend of progressive reform and Christian values, as a blueprint for building a morally righteous community.

In telling Matthews's story, Dale Soden presents Matthews's multiple facets: a Southern-born, fundamentalist proponent of the Social Gospel; a national leader during the tumultuous years of schism within the American Presbyterian church; a social reformer who established day-care centers, kindergartens, night classes, and soup kitchens; a colorful figure who engaged in highly public and heated disputes with elected officials. Much of the controversy that surrounded Matthews centered on the proper relationship between church and state -- an issue that is still hotly debated.

Lesslie Newbigin was a figure of patristic proportions in the twentieth-century history of the Church. In this intellectual and spiritual biography Geoffrey Wainwright displays the theological character of his subject's multifarious engagement in the search for Christian unity, the practice of evangelism and the strategy of mission, the compassionate service of society, and the responsible statement of the scriptural and traditional faith amid the complexities of late modern culture. Himself a distinguished ecumenist and theologian, Geoffrey Wainwright draws on thirty-five years of personal and literary acquaintance with his subject and on a thorough examination of the Newbigin archives in crafting this rich and varied portrait of an outstanding figure in the ecumenical movement.

A great deal has been written about the influence of humanism on the Reformation. The present study reverses the question, asking: how did the Reformation affect humanism? Although it is true that humanism influenced the course of the Reformation, says Erika Rummel, the dynamics of the relationship are better described by saying that humanism was co-opted, perhaps even exploited, in the religious debate. Both Reformers and Catholic reactionaries took from humanism what was useful for the advancement of their cause and suppressed what was unsuited to their purpose.

The reformation was not a western European event, but historians have neglected the study of Protestantism in central and eastern Europe. This book aims to rectify this situation. It examines one of Europe's largest Protestant communities in Hungary and Transylvania. It highlights the place of the Hungarian Reformed church in the international Calvinist world, and reveals the impact of Calvinism on Hungarian politics and society.

This is a systematic study of how a congregational conflict involving allegations of sexual harassment and power abuse against a minister was seriously mishandled by church authorities. The conflict escalated to entangle regional and national authorities and worked its way into the civil courts. Stockton focuses on the interaction of organizational dynamics and ill-defined Christian concepts (such as reconciliation and discipline), showing that in conflict situations the ideals of pastoral care are squeezed by an organizational mentality. Key themes involve the role of women in the church, the complex question of sexual harassment, and the interface between church law and civil law. The narrative, which is based on interviews and official documents, captures the human dimensions of the story while simultaneously giving unique insight into congregational disputes and organizational behavior.

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 developments in the rhetoric and argument associated with humanism.

Barbara Pitkin traces the way in which Calvin's exegetical labours contributed to his understanding of faith. Through detailed analysis of Calvin's interpretation of selected biblical passages, this study shows how his views evolved. Pitkin describes the gradual development of the mature Calvin's view that faith exhibits a twofold character -- saving faith and providential faith -- that corresponds to the twofold aspect its object -- Christ as both the incarnate and eternal Son of God.

In this classic work of American religious history, Robert Middlekauff traces the evolution of Puritan thought and theology in America from its origins in New England through the early eighteenth century. He focuses on three generations of intellectual ministers - Richard, Increase, and Cotton Mather - in order to challenge the traditional telling of the secularization of Puritanism, a story of faith transformed by reason, science, and business. Delving into the Mathers' private papers and unpublished writings as well as their sermons and published works, Middlekauff describes a Puritan theory of religious experience that is more creative, complex, and uncompromising than traditional accounts have allowed. At the same time, he portrays changing ideas and patterns of behavior that reveal much about the first hundred years of American life.

The Reformation thinker John Calvin had significant and unusual things to say about life in public encounter, things which both anticipate modern thinking and, says William Stevenson, can serve as important antidotes to some of modern thinking's broader pretensions. This study attempts to give a coherent picture of Calvin's political theory by following the stream that flows from Calvin's fascinating short essay "On Christian Freedom," which constitutes one coherent chapter in Book Three of the Institutes of the Christian Religion. Stevenson argues that a full examination of this essay yields not only a more thorough explication of Calvin's political ideas proper but also a more complete and coherent picture of their theological underpinnings.

This book examines the disputes about the eucharist that were carried out in the popular press in 16th-century France. Christopher Elwood's focus is on the way in which power is symbolized in eucharistic doctrine, and how representations of power in the context of theological discussion influenced understandings of power in other spheres of life. By concentrating on writings that were accessible to and likely to be read by a popular, lay audience, Elwood seeks to discover what ideas concerning the eucharist were actually conveyed to readers. His central argument is that the Calvinist eucharistic theory propounded in the 16th century included a way of construing power and the relation between the sacred and society that contributed in a very significant way to the ideological, social, and political unrest that characterized the Reformation period.

The Protestant Reformation and revolt against Spain led to major struggles among civic and religious leaders over how to care for the poor in the cities of Holland. For centuries parish charity had been devoted to all poor residents. Calvinists, however, intended their church deacons (who were responsible for charity) to care primarily, if not exclusively, for poor church members. Focusing on six cities, this study shows that the struggle over charity is best understood as a conflict between two distinct visions of Christian community during the Reformation.

Offering an overview of the history and development of Congregationalism in the United States, Youngs chronicles the denomination from its origins in Europe through its colonial beginnings to the recent merger of many of its members with other groups to form the United Church of Christ. He carefully summarizes basic information about the church, provides original interpretations of particular episodes in the church's history, and offers new ideas about particular issues within the church. Demonstrating Congregationalism's close relationship to Puritanism, Youngs also shows how the Puritan way of seeing God, humanity, and salvation has continued to influence Americans and how the unique spiritual sensibility of the early Puritans endured throughout the colonial period and long afterwards. This student edition, ideal for classes in American Religion, Protestantism, Denominational History, and American social and cultural history, includes a chronology of significant events in the history of the church in the U.S., and concludes with a bibliographic essay intended as a guide for further reading in the history of Congregationalism.

This study is in its broadest sense an inquiry into the intellectual origins of the Reformed branch of Protestantism generally, but inaccurately, designated Calvinism. More specifically, it concerns one of the early theologians who gave formative shape to Reformed theology, Peter Martyr Vermigli (1499-1562), and focuses on his adoption of the soteriological doctrine of gemina praedestinatio, double predestination: divine election and divine reprobation. One of the most erudite men of his age, Vermigli was also one of the most remarkable, for his religious career spanned the ecclesiastical horizon from prominence as a Roman Catholic theologian to one of the formative theologians of sixteenth century Reformed Protestantism. No other theologian of the early sixteenth century was so distinguished in both camps. James argues that Vermigli derived the doctrine of gemina praedestinatio from the writings of Gregory of Rimini and that it was fully formed before he allied himself with the Protestant cause, thus illustrating an important aspect of soteriological continuity between late medieval and reformation thought.

Scripture Politics examines the central role played by Ulster Presbyterians in the birth of Irish republicanism. Drawing on recent trends in British and American historiography, as well as a wide range of Irish primary sources, Ian McBride charts the development of Presbyterian politics between the War of American Independence and the rebellion of 1798. McBride begins by tracing the emergence of a radical sub-culture in the north of Ireland, showing how traditions of religious dissent underpinned oppositional politics. He goes on to explore the impact of American independence in Ulster, and shows how the mobilization of the Volunteers and the reform agitation of the 1780s anticipated the ideology and organization of the United Irish movement. He describes how, in the wake of the French Revolution, Ulster Presbyterians sought to create a new Irish nation in their own image, and reveals the confessional allegiances which shaped the 1798 rebellion. Above all, this innovative and original book uncovers the close relationship between theological disputes and political theory, recreating a distinctive intellectual tradition whose contribution to republican thought has often been misunderstood. _

This is the first modern intellectual biography of the Scottish Covenanters' great theorist Samuel Rutherford (c. 1600-61). The central focus is on Rutherford's political thought and his major treatise, Lex, Rex, written in 1644 as a justification of the Covenanters' resistance to King Charles I. The book demonstrates that while Lex, Rex provided a careful synthesis of natural-law theory and biblical politics, Rutherford's Old Testament vision of a purged and covenanted nation ultimately subverted his commitment to the politics of natural reason. The book also discusses a wide range of other topics, including scholasticism and humanism, Calvinist theology, Presbyterian ecclesiology, Rutherford's close relationships with women and his fervent spirituality. It will therefore be of considerable interest to a range of scholars and students working on Scottish and English history, Calvinism and Puritanism, and early modern political thought.

During the last 15 years, the number of conferences on Jonathan Edwards has tripled and the number of books on him has doubled. The scope of scholarship on Edwards has broadened to include relatively neglected texts, as have efforts to fix him more firmly in the 18th century and to gauge his influence on the 20th. This bibliography demonstrates the growth of interest in Jonathan Edwards and serves as a guide to recent research about him.

The volume includes entries for nearly 700 books, articles, dissertations, and reviews published on Jonathan Edwards between 1979 and 1993. The entries are grouped in chapters, with each chapter devoted to a particular year. The entries in each chapter are arranged alphabetically. Each entry includes an annotation, with extensive annotations for major works. A chronology lists Edwards's publications by long and short titles, and an introductory essay overviews the surge of critical interest in this influential 18th-century American theologian.

This edition brings together for the first time key texts representing the writings of the medieval English mystics. The texts have been newly edited from early manuscripts, and are supplemented with textual and explanatory notes and a glossary. The book focuses on five major authors, Richard Rolle, Walter Hilton, the anonymous author of The Cloud of Unknowing, Dame Julian of Norwich, and Margery Kempe. Shorter works are presented whole, where possible, and accompanied by extracts from the mystics' longer works; extracts from contemporary translations into English are also included to illustrate the reception of European mystical texts in later medieval England. Overall, this volume makes accessible some of the finest writing by English contemplatives and visionaries of the Middle Ages.

Martin Bucer (1491-1551) was one of the most important sixteenth century Reformers, who became leader of the Reformed Churches in Switzerland and South Germany after the death of Zwingli. To mark the 500th anniversary of his birth, an international team of specialists on Bucer highlight his contribution in thought and practice to building the community of the Church in England and Europe. The issues addressed also raise matters of contemporary significance, such as Church-state relations, Protestant-Catholic unity, and tensions between a church of true believers and a "people's" church.

Longfield explores a bitter theological controversy that wracked the Presbyterian Church in the 1920s and 30s. By examining the lives and thought of six of the major protagonists he seeks to provide a fuller understanding of the religious and cultural issues in the struggle.

A book about women who have deepened the faith of others. The contributors tell of neighbours, friends, missionaries, deaconesses and others, whose lives have had a profound influence upon them. Not only contemporary women, but women of the past, are remembered for their lives of service in these concise snapshots - Dr Elsie Inglis, the ardent suffragist, Annie Hunter Small, pioneer of the training of missionaries, Mary Slessor, the dedicated missionary of Calabar and St Margaret, the 11th century Queen of Scotland.

In analyzing Jonathan Edwards preaching in eighteenth-century colonial America, the authors demonstrate how his rhetoric distinguished between conversion and persuasion. The authors delineate the basic tenets of Puritan theology, place Edwards' noted sermons within an historical framework, and show how his psycho-spiritual ideas have had lasting impact on American literary, religious, and intellectual history. This reference provides a critical analysis, speech texts, chronology, and bibliography. Students and teachers of rhetoric, American history, literature, philosophy, and religion will find this in-depth study of an enigmatic great American orator pertinent for various uses.

The reference defines Edwards' doctrinal stance on key religious issues of the times, describes his methods of preaching and efforts to convert sinners into saints, and assesses his influence in the eighteenth century and later. The volume covers his life, his youth and education, his revival and role in the Great Awakening of religion in America, his church's rejection and his exile. This scholarly study relates his ideas to complex theological roots in European thought, to Christian and Enlightenment discourses, and it points to the enormous effect that he has had on thinking until the twentieth century. Texts of key sermons dealing with central concepts such as divine light, sinners, and true grace are provided.

A great deal has recently been written about Jonathan Edwards. Most of it, however, does not make central Edwards's own intention to speak truth about God and the human situation; his systematic theological intention is regarded merely as an historical phenomenon. In this book, Robert Jenson provides a different sort of interpretation, asking not only, "Why was Edwards great?" but also, "Was Edwards right?" As a student of the ideas of Newton and Locke, Jenson argues, Edwards was very much a figure of the Enlightenment; but unlike most other Americans, he was also a discerning critic of it, and was able to use Enlightenment thought in his theology without yielding to its mechanistic and individualistic tendencies. Alone among Christian thinkers of the Enlightenment, Edwards conceived an authentically Christian piety and a creative theology not in spite of Newton and Locke but by virtue of them. Jenson sees Edwards's understanding as a radical corrective to what commitment to the Enlightenment brought about in American life, religious and otherwise. Perhaps, Jenson proposes, recovery of Edwards's vision might make the mutual determination of American culture and American Christianity more fruitful than it has yet been.