In this gripping biography, journalist Markus Baum presents Eberhard Arnold's life (1883-1935) as a challenge to all of us to reconsider our response to Jesus' command to "leave everything and follow me".

Baum's account recreates a colorful slice of history, a time when thousands of young men and women across Weimar Germany rejected bourgeois mores and struck out on a different path. Arnold, an aspiring young writer and speaker, was a driving force behind this "Youth Movement". But he went further, leaving the limelight, a comfortable lifestyle, and a promising career, to live the answers he had found. He started a community based on Christ's teachings and example. Arnold was able to unite a motley assortment of workers, aristocrats, and students from diverse political and religious persuasions under a shared vision of Christ's kingdom as a living reality.

Against the Wind explores the forces that shaped Arnold's life -- the early Church, the Anabaptists, the Salvation Army, Charles Finney's Evangelical revival in America -- and his influence on other spiritual leaders of his day -- Karl Barth, Paul Tillich, and Martin Buber among them. It recounts his lonely stand against the rise of Nazism, and presents his continuing legacy, the Bruderhof community movement, which carries on his commitment to integrate faith and social action so needed today.

Most of all, Against the Wind gives flesh, blood, and personality to a man whose role in history has been obscured. Arnold abhorred private property and institutional religion, hated hypocrisy and embraced absolutes. Even during his lifetime he was dubbed a "modern St. Francis". But he also struggled to find his convictions and put theminto action. He chose to walk resolutely against the prevailing winds, but not without difficulty and disappointment.

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This book is a history of an astounding transatlantic phenomenon, a popular evangelical revival known in America as the first Great Awakening (1735-1745). Beginning in the mid-1730s, supporters and opponents of the revival commented on the extraordinary nature of what one observer called the "great ado," with its extemporaneous outdoor preaching, newspaper publicity, and rallies of up to 20,000 participants. Frank Lambert, biographer of Great Awakening leader George Whitefield, offers an overview of this important episode and proposes a new explanation of its origins.

The Great Awakening, however dramatic, was nevertheless unnamed until after its occurrence, and its leaders created no doctrine nor organizational structure that would result in a historical record. That lack of documentation has allowed recent scholars to suggest that the movement was "invented" by nineteenth-century historians. Some specialists even think that it was wholly constructed by succeeding generations, who retroactively linked sporadic happenings to fabricate an alleged historic development. Challenging these interpretations, Lambert nevertheless demonstrates that the Great Awakening was invented--not by historians but by eighteenth-century evangelicals who were skillful and enthusiastic religious promoters. Reporting a dramatic meeting in one location in order to encourage gatherings in other places, these men used commercial strategies and newly popular print media to build a revival--one that they also believed to be an "extraordinary work of God." They saw a special meaning in contemporary events, looking for a transatlantic pattern of revival and finding a motive for spiritual rebirth in what they viewed as a moral decline in colonial America and abroad.

By examining the texts that these preachers skillfully put together, Lambert shows how they told and retold their revival account to themselves, their followers, and their opponents. His inquiries depict revivals as cultural productions and yield fresh understandings of how believers "spread the word" with whatever technical and social methods seem the most effective.

When Cecil B. DeMille's epic, The Ten Commandments, came out in 1956, lines of people crowded into theaters across America to admire the movie's spectacular special effects. Thanks to DeMille, the commandments now had fans as well as adherents. But the country's fascination with the Ten Commandments goes well beyond the colossal scenes of this Hollywood classic. In this vividly rendered narrative, Jenna Weissman Joselit situates the Ten Commandments within the fabric of American history. Her subjects range from the 1860 tale of the amateur who claimed to have discovered ancient holy stones inside a burial mound in Ohio to the San Francisco congregation of Sherith Israel, which commissioned a luminous piece of stained glass depicting Moses in Yosemite for its sanctuary; from the Kansas politician Charles Walter, who in the late nineteenth century proposed codifying each commandment into state law, to the radio commentator Laura Schlessinger, who popularized the Ten Commandments as a psychotherapeutic tool in the 1990s. At once text and object, celestial and earthbound, Judaic and Christian, the Ten Commandments were not just a theological imperative in the New World; they also provoked heated discussions around key issues such as national identity, inclusion, and pluralism. In a country as diverse and heterogeneous as the United States, the Ten Commandments offered common ground and held out the promise of order and stability, becoming the lodestar of American identity. While archaeologists, theologians, and devotees across the world still wonder what became of the tablets that Moses received on Mount Sinai, Weissman Joselit offers a surprising answer: they landed in the United States.

At the end of the 1920s, in the aftermath of the Scopes `monkey trial', fundamentalism in the USA was intellectually bankrupt and publically disgraced. Yet it not only survived, but in the 1940s re-emerged as a thriving and influential public movement. Joel Carpenter looks at the evolution of fundamentalism during its `hidden years' and uncovers the reasons for its survival and resurgence. Opening entirely new historical territory, this important study provides a fresh understanding of the persistence and influence of fundamentalist religion in American culture.

In contrast to most accounts of Puritan-Indian relations, New England Frontier argues that the first two generations of Puritan settlers were neither generally hostile toward their Indian neighbors nor indifferent to their territorial rights. Rather, American Puritans-especially their political and religious leaders-sought peaceful and equitable relations as the first step in molding the Indians into neo-Englishmen. With a new introduction, this third edition affords the reader a clear, balanced overview of a complex and sensitive area of American history. "Vaughan has exhaustively examined the records and written a book of indispensable value to any student of colonial New England."-New York Times Book Review Alden T. Vaughan, Professor Emeritus of History at Columbia University is the author or editor of numerous books, including The Puritan Tradition in America, 1620-1730, New England's Prospect, and Puritans among the Indians.

Judy Robertson shares her unique insider's viewpoint as a woman in the Mormon church. After she and her husband rediscovered God's truth, they faced torment and persecution upon leaving the LDS church. This reader-friendly book is one of the few Christian books that focuses first on an individual's journey from Mormonism rather than on theology or Christian doctrines. The revised edition includes testimonies of others who have left the Mormon church and what God is doing today through Concerned Christians. Readers will find Out of Mormonism a useful resource for understanding and witnessing to friends and family in the LDS church.

The five-volume Oxford History of Protestant Dissenting Traditions series is governed by a motif of migration ('out-of-England'). It first traces organized church traditions that arose in England as Dissenters distanced themselves from a state church defined by diocesan episcopacy, the Book of Common Prayer, the Thirty-Nine Articles, and royal supremacy, but then follows those traditions as they spread beyond England-and also traces newer traditions that emerged downstream in other parts of the world from earlier forms of Dissent. Secondly, it does the same for the doctrines, church practices, stances toward state and society, attitudes toward Scripture, and characteristic patterns of organization that also originated in earlier English Dissent, but that have often defined a trajectory of influence independent ecclesiastical organizations. Volume IV examines the globalization of dissenting traditions in the twentieth century. During this period, Protestant Dissent achieved not only its widest geographical reach but also the greatest genealogical distance from its point of origin. Covering Africa, Asia, the Middle East, America, Europe, Latin America, and the Pacific, this collection provides detailed examination of Protestant Dissent as a globalizing movement. Contributors probe the radical shifts and complex reconstruction that took place as dissenting traditions encountered diverse cultures and took root in a multitude of contexts, many of which were experiencing major historical change at the same time. This authoritative overview unambiguously reveals that 'Dissent' was transformed as it travelled.

A shepherd and his sheep. Although this familiar analogy may apply to a pastor's spiritual leadership, it doesn't accurately describe his role as a political leader. He can encourage and inspire through his own political involvement; he cannot prod an unwilling congregation into action.As Eric McDaniel demonstrates in his study of Black congregations in the U.S., a church's activism results from complex negotiations between the pastor and the congregation. The church's traditions, its institutional organization, and its cultural traditions influence the choice to make politics part of the church's mission. The needs of the local community and opportunities to vote, lobby, campaign, or protest are also significant factors.By probing the dynamics of churches as social groups, McDaniel opens new perspectives on civil rights history and the evangelical politics of the twenty-first century. ""Politics in the Pews"" contributes to a clearer understanding of the forces that motivate any organization, religious or otherwise, to engage in politics. This title examines the factors underlying the political mobilization of Black churches.

How might our worship recapture and reflect the enchanted world of God's nearness in Jesus Christ? In this first volume in IVP Academic's Dynamics of Christian Worship series, John D. Rempel offers a vision for this kind of transformative worship. A theologian and minister in the Mennonite Church, Rempel considers the role of the sacraments and ritual within the Free Church tradition. While the Free Churches rightly sought to cleanse the church of the abuses of sacramentalism, in that process they also set aside some of the church's historic practices and the theology behind them, which ultimately impoverished their worship. In response to this liturgically thin space, Rempel appeals to the incarnation of Christ, whose taking on of flesh can help us perceive the sacramental nature of our faith and worship. By embracing life-giving and peacemaking practices, the worship of not only the Free Church tradition but of the whole body of Christ might be transformed and become enchanted once again. The Dynamics of Christian Worship series draws from a wide range of worshiping contexts and denominational backgrounds to unpack the many dynamics of Christian worship-including prayer, reading the Bible, preaching, baptism, the Lord's Supper, music, visual art, architecture, and more-to deepen both the theology and practice of Christian worship for the life of the church.

Born into a traditional culture in 1833, Emanuel Suter cultivated the art of pottery and expanded markets across the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia, creating a thriving company and leaving thousands of examples of utilitarian ceramic ware that have survived down to the present. Drawing on Suter's diary-rich with meticulous descriptions of his ceramic wares, along with glazing recipes and the quotidian details of nineteenth-century business-as well as myriad other primary and secondary sources, Suter's great-great-grandson Scott Hamilton Suter tells the story of how a farmer with a seasonal sideline developed into a technologically advanced entrepreneur who operated a modern industrial company. As a farmer, Emanuel Suter innovated by adopting new time-saving equipment; this progressive thinking bled over into his religious life, as he endeavored to change the traditional way of choosing ministers by lot and advocated for the formation of Sunday schools in the Mennonite Church. But Suter largely made his mark as a potter, and A Potter's Progress is enhanced by nearly two dozen color images and a close study of the techniques (including kilns and jigger wheels), products, shop organization, marketing, and labor of Suter's shops, revealing the revolutionary role they played in the world of Rockingham County, Virginia, pottery manufacture. This tightly focused case study of the trials and triumphs of one craftsman as he moved from a cottage industry to a full-scale industrial enterprise-prefiguring the market economy that would characterize the twentieth century-serves as a microcosm for examining the American spirit of progress in late nineteenth-century America.

Evangelicals have been scandalized by their association with Donald Trump, their megachurches summarily dismissed as "religious Walmarts." In The Subversive Evangelical Peter Schuurman shows how a growing group of "reflexive evangelicals" use irony to critique their own tradition and distinguish themselves from the stereotype of right-wing evangelicalism. Entering the Meeting House - an Ontario-based Anabaptist megachurch - as a participant observer, Schuurman discovers that the marketing is clever and the venue (a rented movie theatre) is attractive to the more than five thousand weekly attendees. But the heart of the church is its charismatic leader, Bruxy Cavey, whose anti-religious teaching and ironic tattoos offer a fresh image for evangelicals. This charisma, Schuurman argues, is not just the power of one individual; it is a dramatic production in which Cavey, his staff, and attendees cooperate, cultivating an identity as an "irreligious" megachurch and providing followers with a more culturally acceptable way to practise their faith in a secular age. Going behind the scenes to small group meetings, church dance parties, and the homes of attendees to investigate what motivates these reflexive evangelicals, Schuurman reveals a playful and provocative counterculture that distances itself from prevailing stereotypes while still embracing a conservative Christian faith.

The claim that the Bible was 'the Christian's only rule of faith and practice' has been fundamental to Protestant dissent. Dissenters first braved persecution and then justified their adversarial status in British society with the claim that they alone remained true to the biblical model of Christ's Church. They produced much of the literature that guided millions of people in their everyday reading of Scripture, while the voluntary societies that distributed millions of Bibles to the British and across the world were heavily indebted to Dissent. Yet no single book has explored either what the Bible did for dissenters or what dissenters did to establish the hegemony of the Bible in British culture. The protracted conflicts over biblical interpretation that resulted from the bewildering proliferation of dissenting denominations have made it difficult to grasp their contribution as a whole. This volume evokes the great variety in the dissenting study and use of the Bible while insisting on the factors that gave it importance and underlying unity. Its ten essays range across the period from the later seventeenth to the mid-twentieth century and make reference to all the major dissenting denominations of the United Kingdom. The essays are woven together by a thematic introduction which places the Bible at the centre of dissenting ecclesiology, eschatology, public worship and 'family religion', while charting the political and theological divisions that made the cry of 'the Bible only' so divisive for dissenters in practice.

This is the biography of a contested memory, how it was born, grew, changed the world, and was changed by it. It's the story of the story of how the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints began. Joseph Smith, the church's founder, remembered that his first audible prayer, uttered in spring of 1820 when he was about fourteen, was answered with a vision of heavenly beings. Appearing to the boy in the woods near his parents' home in western New York State, they told Smith that he was forgiven and warned him that Christianity had gone astray. Smith created a rich and controversial historical record by narrating and documenting this event repeatedly. In First Vision, Steven C. Harper shows how Latter-day Saints (beginning with Joseph Smith) and others have remembered this experience and rendered it meaningful. When and why and how did Joseph Smith's first vision, as saints know the event, become their seminal story? What challenges did it face along the way? What changes did it undergo as a result? Can it possibly hold its privileged position against the tides of doubt and disbelief, memory studies, and source criticism-all in the information age? Steven C. Harper tells the story of how Latter-day Saints forgot and then remembered accounts of Smith's experience and how Smith's 1838 account was redacted and canonized. He explores the dissonance many saints experienced after discovering multiple accounts of Smith's experience. He describes how, for many, the dissonance has been resolved by a reshaped collective memory.

David Brainerd is simultaneously one of the most enigmatic and recognizable figures in American religious history. Born in 1718 and known for his missionary work among the Indians (as well as for being expelled from Yale), Brainerd and the story of his life entered the realm of legend almost immediately upon his death at the age of twenty-nine.
Much of his reputation is based on the picture of Brainerd constructed by Jonathan Edwards in his best-selling Life of David Brainerd. This new biography seeks to restore Brainerd to the context of the culture in which he lived. Combining archival research with the most recent scholarship on the Great Awakening and Indian missions, John A. Grigg argues that Brainerd was shaped by two formative experiences. On the one hand, he was the child of a prosperous, well-respected Connecticut family that was part of the political and social establishment. On the other, he was a participant in one of the more fundamental challenges to that establishment-the religious revivals of the 1740s. Brainerd's work among the Indians, Grigg argues, was a way to combine the sense of order and tradition inherited from his family with his radical experiences in the revival movement. Moving beyond biography, Grigg also examines how the myth of Brainerd came to be. He argues that both Edwards and John Wesley crafted their versions of Brainerd's life in order to address specific problems in their own churches, and he examines how subsequent generations of evangelicals utilized Brainerd for their own purposes.
The Lives of David Brainerd is the first truly scholarly biography of Brainerd, drawing on everything from town records and published sermons to hand-written fragments to tell the story not only of his life, but of his legend. The David Brainerd who emerges from this work is a man who is both familiar and remarkably new.