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Books > Religion & Spirituality > Christianity > Protestantism & Protestant Churches > Calvinist, Reformed & Presbyterian Churches > General
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 Delving into the Mathers' private papers and unpublished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 Open Body emerges from a conference held at Harvard Divinity
School in April 2011. The essays in this book reflect on
ecclesiology in the Anglican tradition, that is, they debate
whether and how humans should gather as a "church" in the name of
Christ. While the prompt for this collection of essays is the
contemporary crisis in the Anglican Communion regarding
homosexuality and church governance, this book provides a capacious
re-interpretation and re-imagination of the central metaphor of
Christian community, namely "the Body of Christ". By suggesting
that the Body of Christ is "open", the authors are insisting that
while the recent controversy within the Anglican Communion should
prompt and even influence theological reflection on Christian
community, it should not define or determine it. In other words,
the controversy is regarded as an "opening" or an opportunity to
imagine and to examine the past, present, and future of the Church,
both of the Anglican Communion and of the entire Body of Christ.
Some of the essays begin their reappraisal by looking backward and
offering creative theological retrievals from the early Church;
some essays offer fresh perspectives on the recent Anglican past
and present; others examine the present ecclesiology from a
comparative, interreligious perspective; and still others are keen
to anticipate and influence the possible future(s) of the Body of
Christ.
In this revelatory account of the people who founded the New
England colonies, historian David D. Hall compares the reforms they
enacted with those attempted in England during the period of the
English Revolution. Bringing with them a deep fear of arbitrary,
unlimited authority, these settlers based their churches on the
participation of laypeople and insisted on "consent" as a premise
of all civil governance. Puritans also transformed civil and
criminal law and the workings of courts with the intention of
establishing equity. In this political and social history of the
five New England colonies, Hall provides a masterful re-evaluation
of the earliest moments of New England's history, revealing the
colonists to be the most effective and daring reformers of their
day.
Rutherford played a major role as a reformer at the Westminster
Assembly and was also a crucial figure in the establishment of
Presbyterianism for Scotland in 1689. Rutherford's 'Lex Rex'
heavily influenced John Locke and in turn, the framers of the US
Constitution and Declaration of Independence. Thus Jefferson,
Franklin, Madison and Hamilton discussed and formulated their work
in the light of the work and opinions of Samuel Rutherford. Several
biographies have been written to eulogise Samuel Rutherford but
little has been done to consider the man and his work critically.
Kingsley Rendell uses Rutherford's writings and contemporary
material to present a comprehensive picture of him from his student
days to his death in 1661. Usually described as a model preacher
and pastor, Rendell shows he had an even greater ability as an
apologist and propagandist.
Addressing such questions as "Are You Saved, or Are You
Presbyterian?" and "Is the Bible the Literal Word of God or Just a
Long, Boring Book?" this is an easy-to-understand, slightly
irreverent appraoch to theology and the kind of theological musings
that many youth and others have today. "Bring Presbyterian in the
Bible Belt Today" helps Presbyterian young people articulate their
faith and respond to these questions from a mainline point of
view.
Many students of our national character would agree that, for
better or worse, the Puritan tradition had an enormous effect on
the assumptions and aspirations of today's Americans. This book
tells the story, largely through the participants' own words, of
the emergence of that tradition. It provides a broad range of
primary documents--religious, political, social, legal, familial,
and economic--for an understanding of Puritanism in early New
England. Originally published in 1972, it is reissued here with a
new introduction and two new documents: extracts from Anne
Hutchinson's trial and from John Winthrop's "Experiencia."
Let us Reason Together: Christians and Jews in Conversation
addresses the theological understanding of the relationship that
God intends between Christians and Jews. You will learn to welcome
the differences between faiths and appreciate the how it affects
the God we know and worship.
This volume of essays focuses on the thought of John Gill, the
doyen of High Calvinism in the transatlantic Baptist community of
the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries.
Among the topics covered are Gill's trinitarian theology, his
soteriological views, his Baptist ecclesiology, and his use of
Scripture. Other papers are more focused, examining, for instance,
his clash with the Arminian Methodist leader John Wesley over the
issues of predestination and election, a clash that decisively
shaped Wesley's perspective on Calvinism.
The tercentennial of Gill's birth in 1997 is a fitting occasion to
issue this study of a man whose systematic theology and exposition
of the Old and New Testaments formed the mainstay of many
eighteenth-century Baptist ministers' libraries and who has never
been the subject of a major critical study.
This study examines the influence of John Calvin in ethics
eschatology and education, as well as those influences that
affected him. It examines his writings to determine if his vision
made him an innovator. The research searched for reforms in the
areas of ethics, curriculum, understanding of the teaching office,
and universal education. It also looked at philosophy, economics,
and labor. A belief in the after life and end times was an ethical
motivation for Calvin and education was a means by which the people
that he worked with and wrote to could understand how they should
live and why they should live like that. Thus, there is an
important connection among ethics, eschatology and education. All
people were to work to their potential at their job because in
doing their job they would honor God. Teachers were especially
important. Those who taught would affect the quality of education.
Calvin worked to provide teacher training and support. He believed
that all occupations could be a special calling from God and
education was a means to prepare the young person for his or her
calling. Schools existed in Geneva before Calvin arrived in 1536;
however, they did not function in the way that Calvin would have
liked. Calvin provided the elementary students with a needed text
when he prepared a catechism. The students had written material
that they could read and study and a systematic presentation of the
basic doctrines of the Christian faith. Calvin also wanted more
appropriate facilities in which the students could learn. Although
his organization of the schools improved the atmosphere for
learning, the building of the Academy was his dream and became his
major educational achievement in the city of Geneva. Because16th
century students needed to be prepared for the new world, there was
a need for curriculum change. The students were required to read
many of the prominent Greek and Roman authors in the ancient
languages but the student learned theology, Hebrew, poetry,
dialectic and rhetoric, physics, and mathematics as well. Calvin
wished to graduate a well rounded scholar who could take his or her
place in society. In this way the citizens of Geneva and all those
of the Reformed belief would be better prepared for life on earth
and the after life.
The book explores the lives of the church's foot soldiers, its
ministers, and examines the pressures that reduce some of them
almost to despair. The book offers insights into many of the "Kirk
problems" that go unnoticed by Church members and examines the
church as a living and breathing organization and brings to life
the people who make it tick and those who induce its sclerosis.
This book investigates the Mission of the Reformed Church in
America sent to Arabia in 1889 to preach the Gospel, and which
operated in the Persian Gulf until 1973. It also explores the
various cultural encounters between missionaries and Muslims, and
discusses conversion and the place of Islam in the Protestant
eschatology. It maintains that John G. Lansing from the New
Brunswick Theological Seminary, New Jersey, who founded the Arabian
Mission, deliberately dedicated the Mission to "direct Muslim
evangelism". In terms of premillennialism, Lansing "moved" Islam
into the very centre of the theological discourse, and presented
the evangelization of Muslims as critical for Christ's Second
Coming. This made the Arabian Mission unique among the American
Protestant Missions, and placed the Church and missionaries between
religious pluralism and the obligations of the Great Commission.
Seit 1980 leiten Frauen reformierte Kirchen der Schweiz,
selbstverstandlich und von der Basis unterstutzt. Der vorliegende
Band enthalt Beitrage zur Fuhrungsrolle von Frauen aus einem neuen
Blickwinkel: Esther Girsberger und Karin Ammann befragen die ersten
Frauen in kirchlichen Spitzenpositionen: Was ist ihnen wichtig,
warum haben sie Erfolg? Weiter wird gezeigt, dass fur die
Fuhrungsrolle von Frauen neben der geschichtlichen Entwicklung der
Schweizer Kirchen auch die typisch reformierte Spiritualitat
wichtig ist, die ein anderes Verstandnis von religioser Fuhrung
begrundet. Einer vergleichende Studie ist zu entnehmen, dass -
anders als in den reformierten Kirchen der Schweiz - Frauen in
kirchlichen Spitzenpositionen weltweit noch sehr selten anzutreffen
sind. Mit Beitragen von Claudia Bandixen, Hella Hoppe, Doris
Brodbeck, Ina Praetorius, Sabine Scheuter, Judith Stofer, Luzia
Sutter Rehmann, Anne Waldner. Frank Worbs, Jahrgang 1957, ist
Theologe und Leiter Kommunikation und Marketing der
Evangelisch-reformierten Landeskirche Aargau. Claudia Bandixen ist
Kirchenratsprasidentin der Reformierten Landeskirche Aargau und
Initiantin der Tagung der Kirchenprasidentinnen 2005 auf dem Rugel.
Invites readers to explore the implications of proclaiming the
gospel. Gonzalez maintains that 'to be a congregation ready and
able to proclaim the gospel for the salvation of humankind is to be
the church in its exciting fullness.
A detailed account of social and religious life among urban
Highlanders, based on records of Aberdeen's Gaelic Chapel.
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