Chosen by Yahweh, saved by Jesus, Messianic Jews identify themselves as both Christian and Jewish and yet neither. Passing Over Easter brings this peculiar movement to life with an ethnographic look at Adat HaRauch, a Messianic Jewish congregation in Southern California. The ethnic Jews who have "found the Lord," the Gentiles with a "heart for Israel" that make up Adat HaRauch negotiate their identity borrowing from both traditions. The congregants see Yshua (the Hebrew name for Jesus) as the Jewish Messiah, the passover matzoh as symbolic of Yshua's body being broken for sinners, the New Testament as a fulfillment of the Old. Through participant observation, in-depth interviews, and reflections on her own beliefs and role as researcher, Feher paints a fascinating picture of this fluctuating religious group. Passing Over Easter makes a compelling read for sociologists concerned with new religious movements and group formation, students of Jewish identity and Jewish-Christian relations and anyone interested in the contemporary American religious scene.

The purpose of this book is to provide valuable anthropological data on the identity construction of a rapidly growing Chinese Christian population in the United States. As more and more Chinese of different generations and varying cultural backgrounds practice evangelical Christianity, the meaning of Chinese American will change accordingly. The book provides significant linguistic data for a nascent but important area of anthropological research. The scope of the book encompasses Asian American homiletics, discourse analysis and prosody, types of sermons and roles of men and women in a diverse, multilingual church. Parallels between Confucianism and Christianity and the role of "gradual evangelism" in identity construction are discussed. These elements are contextualized within current sociocultural and economic spheres and address the implications of the "model minority" and Asian patriarchy. The book provides original linguistic data of sermons in Mandarin, Cantonese and English. The book posits that the Chinese of the Boston church have developed an ethno-Christian identity and this identity demonstrated through ethnically marked prosodic cues, unites the congregation in the ethnic church. This position challenges some current approaches to identity construction and the role of religion in immigrant communities.

On September 11, 1857, a band of Mormon militia, under a flag of truce, lured unarmed members of a party of emigrants from their fortified encampment and, with their Paiute allies, killed them. More than 120 men, women, and children perished in the slaughter.
Massacre at Mountain Meadows offers the most thoroughly researched account of the massacre ever written. Drawn from documents previously not available to scholars and a careful re-reading of traditional sources, this gripping narrative offers fascinating new insight into why Mormons settlers in isolated southern Utah deceived the emigrant party with a promise of safety and then killed the adults and all but seventeen of the youngest children. The book sheds light on factors contributing to the tragic event, including the war hysteria that overcame the Mormons after President James Buchanan dispatched federal troops to Utah Territory to put down a supposed rebellion, the suspicion and conflicts that polarized the perpetrators and victims, and the reminders of attacks on Mormons in earlier settlements in Missouri and Illinois. It also analyzes the influence of Brigham Young's rhetoric and military strategy during the infamous "Utah War" and the role of local Mormon militia leaders in enticing Paiute Indians to join in the attack. Throughout the book, the authors paint finely drawn portraits of the key players in the drama, their backgrounds, personalities, and roles in the unfolding story of misunderstanding, misinformation, indecision, and personal vendettas.
The Mountain Meadows Massacre stands as one of the darkest events in Mormon history. Neither a whitewash nor an expose, Massacre at Mountain Meadows provides the clearest and most accurate account of a key event in American religious history."

'The limits of radicalism are those which end not in chaos but in the breaking of fresh ground.' Howard E. Root Previously unpublished--and only recently rediscovered by Dr Christopher R. Brewer in an uncatalogued box in the archives of Lambeth Palace Library--Canon Howard E. Root's 1972 Bampton Lectures, 'The Limits of Radicalism', have to do with nothing less than 'what theology is', a topic no less relevant today than it was in 1972. Against the radical reductionism of his time, Root defended the integrity of theology and 'theological truth'. Advocating a 'backward-looking' radicalism, he thought that tradition should display 'recognisable continuity', and yet at the same time--against reductionistic tendencies--that it might be enriched and enlarged via a wide variety of 'additive imagery' including, though not limited to, poetry and pop art, music and even television. We must 'begin where we are', said Root, for we cannot, in the manner of Leonard Hodgson, 'think ourselves into the minds and feelings of men 2000 years ago.' In this volume, which begins with a substantial, mostly biographical introduction, Dr Brewer argues that Root--a backward-looking radical who defended metaphysics and natural theology, and insisted that theologians look to the arts as theological resources--anticipates the work of David Brown and others concerned with tradition and imagination, relevance and truth. A fascinating glimpse into the recent history of British Christianity, Root's lectures, as well as the related appendices, are essential reading for theologians interested in the dynamics of a developing tradition and the theme of openness, as well as those with a particular interest in 1960s Cambridge radicalism and the British reception of the Second Vatican Council.

American Evangelicals Today assesses the contemporary social, religious, and political characteristics of evangelical Protestants today, and it does so in light of (1) whether these characteristics are similar to, or different from, the corresponding characteristics of adherents of other major faith traditions in American religious life, and (2) the extent which these particular characteristics among evangelicals may have changed over the past four decades. In addition, it analyzes the extent which evangelicals are divided today, and it does so within the framework of four potential factors that might shape such divisions -- racial/ethnic differences, generational differences, educational differences, and religious differences. American Evangelicals Today is designed to serve as an accessible, but scholarly, overview of American evangelicals, one that is appealing to all scholars, students, and laity alike. Smidt offers a discussion of the nature of evangelical Protestantism, highlights the particular analytical issues at play when one seeks to determine just who are to be classified as evangelicals, and reveals some of the contradictory findings that can emerge through the use of these different analytical frameworks for defining evangelicals. The volume not only analyzes the current characteristics of evangelicals in light of those exhibited by other religious traditions as well as how evangelicals have changed over time, but it looks toward the future, addressing generational differences and other possible factors for change among evangelical Protestants.

A radical new interpretation of the political and intellectual history of Puritan Massachusetts, The Making of an American Thinking Class envisions the Bay colony as a seventeenth century one-party state, where congregations served as ideological 'cells' and authority was restricted to an educated elite of ministers and magistrates. From there Staloff offers a broadened conception of the interstices of political, social, and intellectual authority in Puritan Massachusetts and beyond, arguing that ideologies, as well as ideological politics, are produced by self-conscious, and often class-conscious, thinkers.

When approaching the most public disagreement over predestination in the eighteenth century, the 'Free Grace' controversy between John Wesley and George Whitefield, the tendency can be to simply review the event as a row over the same old issues. This assumption pervades much of the scholarly literature that deals with early Methodism. Moreover, much of that same literature addresses the dispute from John Wesley's vantage point, often harbouring a bias towards his Evangelical Arminianism. Yet the question must be asked: was there more to the 'Free Grace' controversy than a simple rehashing of old arguments? This book answers this complex question by setting out the definitive account of the 'Free Grace' controversy in first decade of the Evangelical Revival (1739-49). Centred around the key players in the fracas, John Wesley and George Whitefield, it is a close analysis of the way in which the doctrine of predestination was instrumental in differentiating the early Methodist societies from one another. It recounts the controversy through the lens of doctrinal analysis and from two distinct perspectives: the propositional content of a given doctrine and how that doctrine exerts formative pressure upon the assenting individual(s). What emerges from this study is a clearer picture of the formative years of early Methodism and the vital role that doctrinal pronouncement played in giving a shape to early Methodist identity. It will, therefore, be of great interest to scholars of Methodism, Evangelicalism, Theology and Church History.

A major treatment of the early history of the Evangelical Movement in 18th century England, showing how Anglican evangelicalism was quite distinct from the Methodist revival under Wesley and Whitefield. A great contribution to the study of evangelicalism and the relationship between Anglicanism and Nonconformity.

After Joseph Smith and Brigham Young, Parley P. Pratt was the most influential figure in early Mormon history and culture. Missionary, pamphleteer, theologian, historian, and martyr, Pratt was perennially stalked by controversy--regarded, he said, "almost as an Angel by thousands and counted an Imposter by tens of thousands."
Tracing the life of this colorful figure from his hardscrabble origins in upstate New York to his murder in 1857, Terryl Givens and Matthew Grow explore the crucial role Pratt played in the formation and expansion of early Mormonism. One of countless ministers inspired by the antebellum revival movement known as the Second Great Awakening, Pratt joined the Mormons in 1830 at the age of twenty three and five years later became a member of the newly formed Quorum of the Twelve Apostles, which vaulted him to the forefront of church leadership for the rest of his life. Pratt's missionary work--reaching from Canada to England, from Chile to California--won hundreds of followers, but even more important were his voluminous writings. Through books, newspaper articles, pamphlets, poetry, fiction, and autobiography, Pratt spread the Latter-day Saint message, battled the many who reviled it, and delineated its theology in ways that still shape Mormon thought.
Drawing on letters, journals, and other rich archival sources, Givens and Grow examine not only Pratt's writings but also his complex personal life. A polygamist who married a dozen times and fathered thirty children, Pratt took immense joy in his family circle even as his devotion to Mormonism led to long absences that put heavy strains on those he loved. It was during one such absence, a mission trip to the East, that the estranged husband of his twelfth wife shot and killed him--a shocking conclusion to a life that never lacked in drama.

Published in 1905: This book discusses Evangelism and Christianity.

Evangelical Christianity was a predominant stream of religion during the early history of the United States. Mark Noll describes and interprets American Evangelical Christianity, utilizing research by theologians, sociologists and political scientists, as well as the author's own historical interests, to explain the position Evangelicalism now occupies at the beginning of the new century.Evangelical Christians existed as a large but disintegrating force for the first half of the twentieth century, developing into an increasingly visible presence over recent decades. Noll examines their frequently misunderstood political bearing over the latter half of the last century, arguing that exploitation of the resources of Evangelical theology might improve the quality of Evangelical politics. The central concern of the book is to sell American Evangelical Christianity as a form of 'culturally adaptive biblical experimentalism' and to show why this portrayal makes sense of both Evangelical religion and the place of Evangelicals in American religion.This book is intended to provide insights for Evangelicals, and even more so for those who aren't, into the meaning of Evangelical activities, aspirations and ideologies throughout American history. It provides a fascinating insight into a stream of religion which now exerts a considerable social, political and cultural force.

This is the first major study of the enigmatic religious society. By examining the Jehovah's Witnesses' dramatic recent expansion, Andrew Holden reveals the dependency of their quasi-totalitarian movement on the physical and cultural resources which have brought about the privatisation of religion, the erosion of community and the separation of 'fact' from faith.

This is the first major study of the enigmatic religious society. By examining the Jehovah's Witnesses' dramatic recent expansion, Andrew Holden reveals the dependency of their quasi-totalitarian movement on the physical and cultural resources which have brought about the privatisation of religion, the erosion of community and the separation of 'fact' from faith.

This case study examines the history of the Netherlandic Mennonite community living in and around Hamburg after the Thirty Years War. Based on detailed archival research, it expands the scope of Radical Reformation studies to include the confessional age (c. 1550-1750). During this period Mennonites had to conform politically while trying to preserve many of the nonconformist ideals of their forebears, such as the refusal to baptize children, bear arms and swear solemn oaths. The research presented in Obedient Heretics will, therefore, be of interest to scholars of minority communities in addition to those concerned with the Reformation's legacy, confessionalization and confessional identity.

Tracing the religious history of Siler City, North Carolina, Chad E. Seales argues that southern whites cultivated their own regional brand of American secularism and employed it, alongside public religious performances, to claim and regulate public spaces. Over the course of the twentieth century, they wielded secularism to segregate racialized bodies, to challenge local changes resulting from civil rights legislation, and to respond to the arrival of Latino migrants. Combining ethnographic and archival sources, Seales studies the themes of industrialization, nationalism, civility, privatization, and migration through the local history of Siler City; its neighborhood patterns, Fourth of July parades, Confederate soldiers, minstrel shows, mock weddings, banking practices, police shootings, Good Friday processions, public protests, and downtown mural displays. Offering a spatial approach to the study of performative religion, The Secular Spectacle presents a generative narrative of secularism from the perspective of evangelical Protestants in the American South.

Philip Jenkins looks at how the image of the cult evolved and why panics about such groups occur at certain times. He examines the deep roots of cult scares in American history, offering the first-ever history and analysis of cults and their critics from the 19th century to the present day. Contrary to popular belief, Jenkins shows, cults and anti-cult movements were not an invention of the 1960's, but in fact are traceable to the mid- 19th century, when Catholics, Mormons and Freemasons were equally denounced for violence, fraud and licentiousness. He finds that, although there are genuine instances of aberrant behaviour, a foundation of truth about fringe religious movements is all but obscured by a vast edifice of myth, distortion and hype.

This tale of mind control, the use of fear to manipulate vulnerable people, and final escape from a suffocating cult environment is a revealing exposT of a secretive contemporary sect, as well as a true psychological thriller. Diane Wilson spent twenty-five precious years of her life, first becoming indoctrinated by the dogma of the Watchtower Society, and then struggling to free herself from its pervasive, intimidating clutches. In this probing, brutally honest assessment, Wilson describes how a childhood of psychological abuse and lack of self-confidence rendered her vulnerable to the seductive doctrines of the Jehovah's Witnesses. Yet as time went on and the society demanded rigid control over every aspect of her life, even her every thought, Wilson began to rebel. Her gradual awakening, at first unconsciously through physical and psychological ailments, and then consciously as a caring therapist helped her rediscover her true self, is a fascinating story.
What she reveals about the goings-on within the closed Watchtower Society will shock the average person who assumes the polite, well-dressed people who pass out leaflets are much like any other conservative religious group. Wilson contends that membership in the Jehovah's Witnesses requires obedience bordering on psychological enslavement and complete suppression of individuality. Her engrossing memoir will be of great interest to former Witnesses, students of cult phenomena, and anyone who has ever had contact with Jehovah's Witnesses.

American Evangelicals Today assesses the contemporary social, religious, and political characteristics of evangelical Protestants today, and it does so in light of (1) whether these characteristics are similar to, or different from, the corresponding characteristics of adherents of other major faith traditions in American religious life, and (2) the extent which these particular characteristics among evangelicals may have changed over the past four decades. In addition, it analyzes the extent which evangelicals are divided today, and it does so within the framework of four potential factors that might shape such divisions -- racial/ethnic differences, generational differences, educational differences, and religious differences. American Evangelicals Today is designed to serve as an accessible, but scholarly, overview of American evangelicals, one that is appealing to all scholars, students, and laity alike. Smidt offers a discussion of the nature of evangelical Protestantism, highlights the particular analytical issues at play when one seeks to determine just who are to be classified as evangelicals, and reveals some of the contradictory findings that can emerge through the use of these different analytical frameworks for defining evangelicals. The volume not only analyzes the current characteristics of evangelicals in light of those exhibited by other religious traditions as well as how evangelicals have changed over time, but it looks toward the future, addressing generational differences and other possible factors for change among evangelical Protestants.

On September 11, 1857, a band of Mormon militia, under a flag of truce, lured unarmed members of a party of emigrants from their fortified encampment and, with their Paiute allies, killed them. More than 120 men, women, and children perished in the slaughter.
Massacre at Mountain Meadows offers the most thoroughly researched account of the massacre ever written. Drawn from documents previously not available to scholars and a careful re-reading of traditional sources, this gripping narrative offers fascinating new insight into why Mormons settlers in isolated southern Utah deceived the emigrant party with a promise of safety and then killed the adults and all but seventeen of the youngest children. The book sheds light on factors contributing to the tragic event, including the war hysteria that overcame the Mormons after President James Buchanan dispatched federal troops to Utah Territory to put down a supposed rebellion, the suspicion and conflicts that polarized the perpetrators and victims, and the reminders of attacks on Mormons in earlier settlements in Missouri and Illinois. It also analyzes the influence of Brigham Young's rhetoric and military strategy during the infamous "Utah War" and the role of local Mormon militia leaders in enticing Paiute Indians to join in the attack. Throughout the book, the authors paint finely drawn portraits of the key players in the drama, their backgrounds, personalities, and roles in the unfolding story of misunderstanding, misinformation, indecision, and personal vendettas.
The Mountain Meadows Massacre stands as one of the darkest events in Mormon history. Neither a whitewash nor an expose, Massacre at Mountain Meadows provides theclearest and most accurate account of a key event in American religious history.

Christian punk is a surprisingly successful musical subculture and a fascinating expression of American evangelicalism. Situating Christian punk within the modern history of Christianity and the rapidly changing culture of spirituality and secularity, this book illustrates how Christian punk continues punk's autonomous and oppositional creative practices, but from within a typically traditional evangelical morality. Analyzing straight edge Christian abstinence and punk-friendly churches, this book also focuses on gender performance within a subculture dominated by young men in a time of contested gender roles and ideologies. Critically-minded and rich in ethnographic data and insider perspectives, Christian Punk will engage scholars of contemporary evangelicalism, religion and popular music, and punk and all its related subcultures.

In the closing decades of the nineteenth century, college-age Latter-daySaints began undertaking a remarkable intellectual pilgrimage to the nation'selite universities, including Harvard, Columbia, Michigan, Chicago, andStanford. Thomas W. Simpson chronicles the academic migration of hundredsof LDS students from the 1860s through the late 1930s, when churchauthority J. Reuben Clark Jr., himself a product of the Columbia UniversityLaw School, gave a reactionary speech about young Mormons' search forintellectual cultivation. Clark's leadership helped to set conservative parametersthat in large part came to characterize Mormon intellectual life.At the outset, Mormon women and men were purposefully dispatched tosuch universities to "gather the world's knowledge to Zion." Simpson, drawingon unpublished diaries, among other materials, shows how LDS studentscommonly described American universities as egalitarian spaces that fostereda personally transformative sense of freedom to explore provisionalreconciliations of Mormon and American identities and religious and scientificperspectives. On campus, Simpson argues, Mormon separatism diedand a new, modern Mormonism was born: a Mormonism at home in theUnited States but at odds with itself. Fierce battles among Mormon scholarsand church leaders ensued over scientific thought, progressivism, and thehistoricity of Mormonism's sacred past. The scars and controversy, Simpsonconcludes, linger.

'The limits of radicalism are those which end not in chaos but in the breaking of fresh ground.' Howard E. Root Previously unpublished--and only recently rediscovered by Dr Christopher R. Brewer in an uncatalogued box in the archives of Lambeth Palace Library--Canon Howard E. Root's 1972 Bampton Lectures, 'The Limits of Radicalism', have to do with nothing less than 'what theology is', a topic no less relevant today than it was in 1972. Against the radical reductionism of his time, Root defended the integrity of theology and 'theological truth'. Advocating a 'backward-looking' radicalism, he thought that tradition should display 'recognisable continuity', and yet at the same time--against reductionistic tendencies--that it might be enriched and enlarged via a wide variety of 'additive imagery' including, though not limited to, poetry and pop art, music and even television. We must 'begin where we are', said Root, for we cannot, in the manner of Leonard Hodgson, 'think ourselves into the minds and feelings of men 2000 years ago.' In this volume, which begins with a substantial, mostly biographical introduction, Dr Brewer argues that Root--a backward-looking radical who defended metaphysics and natural theology, and insisted that theologians look to the arts as theological resources--anticipates the work of David Brown and others concerned with tradition and imagination, relevance and truth. A fascinating glimpse into the recent history of British Christianity, Root's lectures, as well as the related appendices, are essential reading for theologians interested in the dynamics of a developing tradition and the theme of openness, as well as those with a particular interest in 1960s Cambridge radicalism and the British reception of the Second Vatican Council.

In this new edition of "The Amish and the State" Donald Kraybill brings together legal scholars and social scientists to explore the unique series of conflicts between a traditional religious minority and the modern state. In the process, the authors trace the preservation--and the erosion--of religious liberty in American life. Kraybill begins with an overview of the Amish in North America and describes the "negotiation model" used throughout the book to interpret a variety of legal conflicts. Subsequent chapters deal with specific aspects of religious freedom over which the Amish and the state have clashed. Focusing on the period from 1925 to 2001 in the United States, the authors examine conflicts over military service and conscription, Social Security and taxes, education, health care, land use and zoning, regulation of slow-moving vehicles, and other first amendment issues. New concluding chapters, by constitutional expert William Ball, who defended the Amish before the Supreme Court in 1972 in the landmark "Wisconsin v. Yoder" case, and law professor Garret Epps, assess the Amish contribution to preserving religious liberty in the United States.