Enchanted Calvinism's surprising central proposition is that Ghanaian Presbyterian communities have become more enchanted -- i.e., attuned to spiritual explanations of and remedies for suffering -- as they have become moreintegrated into capitalist modes of production. Enchanted Calvinism's central proposition is that Ghanaian Presbyterian communities, both past and present, have become more enchanted -- more attuned to spiritual explanations of and remedies for suffering -- as they havebecome integrated into capitalist modes of production. The author draws on a Weberian concept of religious enchantment to analyze the phenomena of spiritual affliction and spiritual healing within the Presbyterian Church of Ghana,particularly under the conditions of labor migration: first, in the early twentieth century during the cocoa boom in Ghana and, second, at the turn of the twenty-first century in their migration from Ghana to North America. Relying on extensive archival research, oral interviews, and participant-observation conducted in North America, Europe, and West Africa, this study demonstrates that the more these Ghanaian Calvinists became dependent on capitalist modes of production, the more enchanted their lives and, subsequently, their church became, although in different ways within these two migrations. One striking pattern that has emerged among Ghanaian Presbyterian labor migrants in North America, for example, is a radical shift in gendered healing practices, where women have become prominent healers while a significant number of men have become spirit-possessed. Adam Mohr is Senior Writing Fellow in Anthropology in the Critical Writing Program at the University of Pennsylvania.

The Calvinist Reformation in Scottish towns was a radically transformative movement. It incorporated into urban ecclesiastical governance a group of laymen - the elders of the kirk session - drawn heavily from the crafts guilds as well as wealthy merchants. These men met at least weekly with the minister and comprised a parochial church court that exercised an unprecedented discipline of the lives of the ordinary citizenry. They pried into sexual behaviour, administered the hospital and other poor relief, ordered fostering of orphans, oversaw the grammar school, enforced sabbath observance, investigated charges of witchcraft, arbitrated quarrels and punished people who railed at their neighbours. In times of crisis like the great plague of 1584-85, they rationed food sent from other towns and raised an already high bar on moral discipline to avert further divine wrath. The minute books of Perth's session, established in the 1560s and surviving most fully from 1577, open a window on this religious discipline, the men who administered it, and the lay people who both resisted and facilitated it, negotiating its terms to meet their own agendas. They are presented here with full introduction and explanatory notes. Margo Todd is Walter H. Annenberg Professor of History, University of Pennsylvania.

Using place, politics, and rhetoric as analytical tools, historical geographer David N. Livingstone investigates how religious communities sharing a Scots Presbyterian heritage engaged with Darwin and Darwinism at the turn of the twentieth century. His findings, presented as the prestigious Gifford Lectures, transform our understandings of the relationship between science and religion. The particulars of place-whether in Edinburgh, Belfast, Toronto, Princeton, or Columbia, South Carolina-shaped the response to Darwin's theories. Were they tolerated, repudiated, or welcomed? Livingstone shows how Darwin was read in different ways, with meaning distilled from Darwin's texts depending on readers' own histories-their literary genealogies and cultural preoccupations. That the theory of evolution fared differently in different places, Livingstone writes, is "exactly what Darwin might have predicted. As the theory diffused, it diverged." Dealing with Darwin shows the profound extent to which theological debates about evolution were rooted in such matters as anxieties over control of education, the politics of race relations, the nature of local scientific traditions, and challenges to traditional cultural identity. In some settings, conciliation with the new theory, even endorsement, was possible - demonstrating that attending to the specific nature of individual communities subverts an inclination to assume a single relationship between science and religion in general, evolution and Christianity in particular. Livingstone concludes with contemporary examples to remind us that what scientists can say and what others can hear in different venues differ today just as much as they did in the past.

In 1690, the Church of Scotland rejected episcopal authority and settled as Presbyterian. The adjacent Presbyteries of Stirling and Dunblane covered an area that included both lowland and highland communities, speaking both English and Gaelic and supporting both the new government and the old thus forming a representative picture of the nation as a whole. This book examines the ways in which the two Presbyteries operated administratively, theologically and geographically under the new regime. By surveying and analysing surviving church records from 1687 to 1710 at Presbytery and parish level, Muirhead shows how the two Presbyteries related to civil authorities, how they dealt with problematic discipline cases referred by the Kirk Sessions, their involvement in the Union negotiations and their overall functioning as human, as well as religious, institution in seventeenth-century Scotland. The resulting study advances our understanding of the profound impact that Presbyteries had on those involved with them in any capacity.

In 1539, Cardinal Jacopo Sadoleto, Bishop of Carpentras, addressed a letter to the magistrates and citizens of Geneva, asking them to return to the Roman Catholic faith. John Calvin replied to Sadoleto, defending the adoption of the Protestant reforms. Sadoleto's letter and Calvin's reply constitute one of the most interesting exchanges of Roman Catholic/Protestant views during the Reformationand an excellent introduction to the great religious controversy of the sixteenth century. These statements are not in vacuo of a Roman Catholic and Protestant position. They were drafted in the midst of the religious conflict that was then dividing Europe. And they reflect too the temperaments and personal histories of the men who wrote them. Sadoleto's letter has an irenic approach, an emphasis on the unity and peace of the Church, highly characteristic of the Christian Humanism he represented. Calvin's reply is in part a personal defense, an apologia pro vita sua, that records his own religious experience. And its taut, comprehensive argument is characteristic of the disciplined and logical mind of the author of The Institutes of the Christian Religion.

A revealing new portrait of John Calvin that captures his human complexity and the sixteenth-century world in which he fought his personal and theological battles During the glory days of the French Renaissance, young John Calvin (1509-1564) experienced a profound conversion to the faith of the Reformation. For the rest of his days he lived out the implications of that transformation-as exile, inspired reformer, and ultimately the dominant figure of the Protestant Reformation. Calvin's vision of the Christian religion has inspired many volumes of analysis, but this engaging biography examines a remarkable life. Bruce Gordon presents Calvin as a human being, a man at once brilliant, arrogant, charismatic, unforgiving, generous, and shrewd. The book explores with particular insight Calvin's self-conscious view of himself as prophet and apostle for his age and his struggle to tame a sense of his own superiority, perceived by others as arrogance. Gordon looks at Calvin's character, his maturing vision of God and humanity, his personal tragedies and failures, his extensive relationships with others, and the context within which he wrote and taught. What emerges is a man who devoted himself to the Church, inspiring and transforming the lives of others, especially those who suffered persecution for their religious beliefs.

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.

Faith and Slavery in the Presbyterian Diaspora considers how, in areas as diverse as the New Hebrides, Scotland, the United States, and East Central Africa, men's and women's shared Presbyterian faith conditioned their interpretations of and interactions with the institution of chattel slavery. The chapters highlight how Presbyterians' reactions to slavery -which ranged from abolitionism, to indifference, to support-reflected their considered application of the principles of the Reformed Tradition to the institution. Consequently, this collection reveals how the particular ways in which Presbyterians framed the Reformed Tradition made slavery an especially problematic and fraught issue for adherents to the faith. Faith and Slavery, by situating slavery at the nexus of Presbyterian theology and practice, offers a fresh perspective on the relationship between religion and slavery. It reverses the all too common assumption that religion primarily served to buttress existing views on slavery, by illustrating how groups' and individuals reactions to slavery emerged from their understanding of the Presbyterian faith. The collection's geographic reach-encompassing the experiences of people from Europe, Africa, America, and the Pacific-filtered through the lens of Presbyterianism also highlights the global dimensions of slavery and the debates surrounding it. The institution and the challenges it presented, Faith and Slavery stresses, reflected less the peculiar conditions of a particular place and time, than the broader human condition as people attempt to understand and shape their world.

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.

Puritan Family and Community in the English Atlantic World examines the dynamics of marriage, family and community life during the "Great Migration" through the microhistorical study of one puritan family in 1638 Rhode Island. Through studying the Verin family, a group of English non-conformists who took part in the "Great Migration", this book examines differing approaches within puritanism towards critical issues of the age, including liberty of conscience, marriage, family, female agency, domestic violence, and the role of civil government in responding to these developments. Like other nonconformists who challenged the established Church of England, the Verins faced important personal dilemmas brought on by the dictates of their conscience even after emigrating. A violent marital dispute between Jane and her husband Joshua divided the Providence community and resulted, for the first time in the English-speaking colonies, in a woman's right to a liberty of conscience independent of her husband being upheld. Through biographical sketches of the founders of Providence and engaging with puritan ministerial and prescriptive literature and female-authored petitions and pamphlets, this book illustrates how women saw their place in the world and considers the exercise of female agency in the early modern era. Connecting migration studies, family and community studies, religious studies, and political philosophy, Puritan Family and Community in the English Atlantic World will be of great interest to scholars of the English Atlantic World, American religious history, gender and violence, the history of New England, and the history of family.

This book offers a unique approach to Calvin by introducing the individuals and groups who, through their opposition to Calvin's theology and politics, helped shape the Reformer, his theology, and his historical and religious legacy. Respected church historian Gary Jenkins shows how Calvin had to defend or rethink his theology in light of his tormentors' challenges, giving readers a more nuanced view of Calvin's life and thought. The book highlights the central theological ideas of the Swiss Reformation and introduces figures and movements often excluded from standard texts.

Was Jonathan Edwards the stalwart and unquestioning Reformed theologian that he is often portrayed as being? In what ways did his own conversion fail to meet the standards of his Puritan ancestors? And how did this affect his understanding of the Divine Being and of the nature of justification? Becoming Divine investigates the early theological career of Edwards, finding him deep in a crisis of faith that drove him into an obsessive lifelong search for answers. Instead of a fear of God, which he had been taught to understand as proof of his conversion, he experienced a 'surprising, amazing joy'. Suddenly he saw the Divine Being in everything and felt himself transported into a heavenly world, becoming one with the Divine family. What he developed, as he sought to make sense of this unexpected joy, is a theology that is both ancient and early modern: a theology of divine participation rooted in the incarnation of Christ.

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.

This four-volume work combines rigorous historical and theological scholarship with application and practicality―characterized by an accessible, Reformed, and experiential approach.

In this volume, Joel R. Beeke and Paul M. Smalley unpack the doctrine of humanity (anthropology) and the doctrine of Christ (Christology), revealing to us what the Bible says about who we are, who Jesus is, and how we should live in light of that knowledge.

Nathaniel Taylor was arguably the most influential and the most frequently misrepresented American theologian of his generation. While he claimed to be an Edwardsian Calvinist, very few people believed him. This book attempts to understand how Taylor and his associates could have counted themselves Edwardsians. In the process, it explores what it meant to be an Edwardsian minister and intellectual in the 19th century.

In an exciting reinterpretation of the early nineteenth century, Leo Hirrel demonstrates the importance of religious ideas by exploring the relationship between religion and reform efforts during a crucial period in American history. The result is a work that moves the history of antebellum reform to a higher level of sophistication.

Hirrel focuses upon New School Congregationalists and Presbyterians who served at the forefront of reform efforts and provided critical leadership to anti-Catholic, temperance, antislavery, and missionary movements. Their religion was an attempt to reconcile traditional Calvinist language with the prevalent intellectual trends of the time. New School theologians preserved Calvinist language about depravity, but they incorporated an assertion of nominal human ability to overcome sin and a belief in the fixed, immutable nature of truth.

Describing both the origins of New School Calvinism and the specific reform activities that grew out of these beliefs, Hirrel provides a fresh perspective on the historical background of religious controversies.

How do Christians account for the widespread presence of goodness in a fallen world? Richard Mouw, one of the most influential evangelical voices in America, presents his mature thought on the topic of common grace. Addressing a range of issues relevant to engaging common grace in the 21st century, Mouw shows how God takes delight in all things that glorify him--even those that happen beyond the boundaries of the church--and defends the doctrine of common grace from its detractors.

The Covenant of the Torch made with Abraham is the most significant among all the covenants in the Bible. Why? It's the most detailed yet condensed summary of God's divine administration for redemption that outlines the work of restoration of His godly people and holy land.In this book, Rev. Abraham Park brings to life the Covenant of the Torch and helps us to understand accurately, and in chronological detail 692 years of redemptive history starting from Abraham, including the great exodus, the wilderness journey and the conquest of Canaan.Just as his best-seller The Genesis Genealogies has helped readers to better understand the time frames and relationships in The Book of Genesis, Rev. Park now helps us to study the books of Exodus up to Joshua carefully and to realise what those events and participants tell us regarding God's larger plan. This book offers: A detailed chronology of 692 years from Abraham to the Israelites' conquest of Canaan. The first-ever map of all 42 campsites in the wilderness. colour photos of the locations in the wilderness journey. A theologically sound method of viewing God's Word through the perspective of God's administration in the history of redemption. Wisdom and insight on how to overcome the spiritual wilderness in our lives of faith today. Despite periods of spiritual darkness, unbelief, complaining and grumbling by the people of God as they wandered in the desert, we see God's faithfulness in fulfilling His Word and the Covenant of the Torch. And by understanding the chronological flow of the biblical events in a systematic manner, we gain a much broader and deeper grasp of God's plan of salvation.This title is part of The History of Redemption series which includes: Book 1: The Genesis GenealogiesBook 2: The Covenant of the TorchBook 3: The Unquenchable Lamp of the CovenantBook 4: God's Profound and Mysterious ProvidenceBook 5: The Promise of the Eternal Covenant

This book offers a broad-based study of Jonathan Edwards as a religious thinker. Much attention has been given to Edwards in relation to his Puritan and Calvinist forebears. McClymond, however, examines Edwards in relation to his eighteenth-century intellectual context. Among the topics considered are spiritual perception, metaphysics, contemplation, ethics and morality, and apologetics.

This biography offers an in-depth look at R. C. Sproul's life and ministry, detailing his contributions to the trajectory of the Reformed tradition and his influence on American evangelicalism.