Originally published in 1988, and the companion book to The Puritan Gentry, covering the period of the Civil War, the English republic and the Restoration of Charles II in 1660, this book gives an account of how the godly interest of the Puritans dissolved into faction and impotence. The fissures among the Puritan gentry stemmed, as the book shows, from a conflict between their zeal in religion and the conservative instincts which owed much to their wealth and status.

This STUDY GUIDE is a companion resource to Wayne Grudem's Christian Beliefs, revised edition. Not every Christian needs to go to seminary, but there are certain teachings of the Bible that every Christian should know. Whether you're a relatively new believer in Jesus or a mature Christian looking for a better understanding of basics of the faith, the Christian Beliefs Study Guide can help you reflect on and deeply internalize the core teachings of Christianity, when used in conjunction with Christian Beliefs, revised edition (sold separately). This STUDY GUIDE will help you think through important topics like: The Bible and its authority for our lives The characteristics of God The importance of prayer Angels and the reality of spiritual warfare What it means that we are created in the image of God What God has done for us in Christ The purpose of the church What happens when Christ returns The biblical understanding of heaven And much more Chapter by chapter, this STUDY GUIDE will lead you to examine and reflect on Christian Beliefs, revised edition (sold separately), by providing: Summary: A short summary of the chapter to help remind readers what they read. Key terms: Definitions of important terminology introduced in the chapter. Key quotes: Selection of one or two key quotes from the chapter. Central Scripture Passage: An important biblical passage related to the chapter for reflection or memorization. Content Questions: Questions that reflect on the theological content of the chapter. Practical Application Questions: Questions that help tie the theological content of the chapter to real-life situations. For Further Reading: Lists where to find more information on theological topics in Systematic Theology, second edition, by Wayne Grudem so readers know where to go for a deeper dive into specific subjects they want to know more about. The Christian Beliefs Study Guide is the ideal resource for every Christian who wants a solid foundation for understanding the most basic and essential teachings of the Bible.

Rejoice and Sing is a completely new collection of hymns and songs for the United Reformed Church. It is the first major hymnbook to draw together the three traditions within the URC and as such represents a significant landmark in the history of the denomination. The editors and compilers have aimed to offer a worship tool for use by today's Church. The material included ranges from the traditional and familiar to those pieces with a more contemporary feel. In addition to hymns and psalms, Rejoice and Sing contains a number of liturgical items, including responses and prayers for congregational use. Although intended primarily to reflect the distinctive character of the URC, Rejoice and Sing is also offered to Christians in wider ecumenical circles as an important resource for sung worship.

Originally published in 1988, this was the first full and scholarly account of the formal Elizabethan and Jacobean debates between Presbyterians and conformists concerning the government of the church. This book shed new light on the crucial disagreements between puritans and conformists and the importance of these divisions for political processes within both the church and wider society. The originality and complexity of Richard Hooker's thought is discussed and the extent to which Hooker redefined the essence of English Protestantism. The book will be of interest to historians of the late 16th and 17th Centuries and to those interested in church history and the development of Protestantism.

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.

Creation is the theater of God's glory. Scripture is like a pair of glasses that clarifies our vision of God. Justification is the hinge on which religion turns. These and other affirmations are often associated with John Calvin, the 16th-century French Protestant Reformer best known for his ministry in Geneva and his authorship of the Institutes of the Christian Religion. Over the course of his lifetime and through several editions, Calvin expanded the Institutes from a brief study to a four-volume book that covers the main doctrines of the Christian faith and continues to shape the theology of the Reformed tradition. In this volume, Reformed theologian Yudha Thianto guides readers through a careful study of Calvin's Institutes. After setting Calvin and his writing in their historical context, he outlines the most significant aspects of Calvin's theology, guiding those who would know more about his work and, through it, the God who inspired him. Books in the Explorer's Guide series are accessible guidebooks for those studying the great Christian texts and theologians from church history, helping readers explore the context in which these texts were written and navigate the rich yet complex terrain of Christian theology.

Recent years have witnessed a revival of interest in the history of the Huguenots, and new research has increased our understanding of their role in shaping the early-modern world. Yet while much has been written about the Huguenots during the sixteenth-century wars of religion, much less is known about their history in the following centuries. The ten essays in this collection provide the first broad overview of Huguenot religious culture from the Restoration of Charles II to the outbreak of the French Revolution. Dealing primarily with the experiences of Huguenots in England and Ireland, the volume explores issues of conformity and nonconformity, the perceptions of 'refuge', and Huguenot attitudes towards education, social reform and religious tolerance. Taken together they offer the most comprehensive and up-to-date survey of Huguenot religious identity in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.

The excellent memoirs of Charles G. Finney are published here in their original form: the preface, all thirty-six chapters and the conclusion are included. Charles G. Finney stands as one of the greatest preachers to ever grace the United States. In this book we encounter his life story, told in his own moving and eloquent terms. We journey with the great reverend as he captains revival after revival, preaching the word of God to crowds in great cities and villages alike. His eloquent and conscientious sermons, and support of Christian perfection, appealed to many Americans of the era. An inspiring story honestly told, we witness the spiritual growth of Finney and the lessons he dispensed to congregations far and wide. Eventually Finney would spread his spiritual wisdom to England and Scotland, where he received a warm reception. A leading Presbyterian, it was through tireless campaigning that Finney united many Christians voices against the slavery, which was abolished after the American Civil War.

The doctrine of deification or theosis is typically associated with the Eastern Orthodox tradition. Indeed, the language of participation in the divine nature as a way to understand salvation often sounds like strange music in the ears of Western Christians despite passages like 2 Peter 1:4 where it appears. However, recent scholarship has argued that the theologies of some of the most prominent figures in the history of the Western church, including Martin Luther, John Calvin, and John Wesley, share more in common with deification than has been acknowledged. In this New Explorations in Theology volume, theologian James Salladin considers the role of deification in the theology of another well-known Western theologian: Jonathan Edwards. In addition, he reflects upon the question of how Edwards's soteriology compares with the rest of the broader Reformed tradition. Here, we discover how Edwards's theology affirms what it means for sinners to be brought into the hands of a loving God. Featuring new monographs with cutting-edge research, New Explorations in Theology provides a platform for constructive, creative work in the areas of systematic, historical, philosophical, biblical, and practical theology.

In 2008 a media firestorm erupted when snippets of Reverend Jeremiah Wright Jr.'s sermons were picked up by media outlets around the world. At that time presidential candidate Barack Obama was a member of Wright's church, Trinity United Church of Christ in Chicago. Wright's words were frequently used to question the patriotism of Obama. The scrutiny over Obama and Wright's relationship made Trinity UCC a flashpoint in the 2008 campaign. The Moment tells the inside story of Trinity UCC during this time of turmoil. Carl and Shelby Grant describe "the Moment" as it unfolded, from Wright's first appearances in the media to Obama's resignation from Trinity Church. They also provide helpful background information, including general history of the black church, African American immigration to Chicago, and black politics in the Windy City. In this context, the voices of Trinity UCC members come alive to show the impact of "the Moment" within and beyond the presidential election, illustrating the thorny intersections of religion, race, politics, and the media in the United States.

Many events were staged and a plethora of new books appeared to mark the quincentenary of the birth of John Calvin, in 2009. But one area received considerably less attention in that anniversary year - namely, Calvin's ecclesiology. This study explores the development and fundamental legacy of Calvin's perspectives on and relationship with the church. Contributions are included which explore the later development and denominational variations' of Calvin's ecclesiology, along with ecumenical discussions/responses to and implications of Calvin's understanding of the church. There are further chapters which focus on particular aspects such as Calvin's ecclesiological method, understanding of ministry, the sacramental' principle, the invisible church' etc. Contributions on the use of Calvin's ecclesiology by later and modern/contemporary ecclesiologists also feature. This is a volume that brings together leading and emerging theological voices from Europe, North America and Latino America and from across the different theological sub-disciplines. Significantly, it also a book from genuinely ecumenical perspectives, with writers from several different denominational traditions contributing.

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.

This volume sheds new light on the origin of Calvinism and the Reformed faith through a detailed examination of the Reformation in the Pays de Vaud. A specifically Calvinist identity and theology emerged out of two key conflicts in the region: first, the fight to turn away from Catholic practices and traditions a population that had been forced to convert to Protestantism by the Bernese after their conquest of Vaud in 1536; second, the struggle against the Zwinglian political and theological ideas that dominated the Swiss Confederation and differed from the Calvinists' understanding of ecclesiastical discipline, the Eucharist, and predestination. The Pays de Vaudwas central to this struggle, for it was subject politically to Zwinglian, German-speaking Bern, but many of its ministers were more strongly influenced by Calvin...

Irish Presbyterians and the Shaping of Western Pennsylvania, 1770-1830 is a historical study examining the religious culture of Irish immigrants in the early years of America. Despite fractious relations among competing sects, many immigrants shared a vision of a renewed Ireland in which their versions of Presbyterianism could flourish free from the domination of landlords and established church. In the process, they created the institutional foundations for western Pennsylvanian Presbyterian churches. Rural Presbyterian Irish church elders emphasized community and ethnoreligious group solidarity in supervising congregants' morality. Improved transportation and the greater reach of the market eliminated near-subsistence local economies and hastened the demise of religious traditions brought from Ireland. Gilmore contends that ritual and daily religious practice, as understood and carried out by migrant generations, were abandoned or altered by American-born generations in the context of major economic change.

Abraham Kuyper was, by any standard, one of the most extraordinary figures in modern Christian history. He was a Dutch Reformed minister, a gifted theologian, a prolific journalist, the leader of a political party, the cofounder of the Free University of Amsterdam (where he was professor of theology), a member of the Dutch Parliament, and eventually prime minister of the Netherlands. Kuyper's remarkable legacy lives on today in the tradition of Dutch Calvinism that he developed. As his writings become more widely available, this tradition continues to find new adherents attracted by his comprehensive vision of Christian faith. But what defines the Kuyperian tradition? Renowned South African theologian and philosopher Craig Bartholomew has written the first systematic introduction to this tradition. Drawing on Kuyper's entire corpus, Bartholomew has identified the key themes and ideas that define this tradition, including worldview, sphere sovereignty, creation and redemption, the public square, and mission. He also goes beyond Kuyper to show how later thinkers developed these ideas. They include, among others, Herman Bavinck, J. H. Bavinck, Gerrit C. Berkouwer, and Herman Dooyeweerd. Widely known but little read, Kuyper is now receiving the global recognition that his fertile and influential thought deserves. Contours of the Kuyperian Tradition is an indispensable guide to one of the most significant schools of thought in the modern age.

This book describes Reformed ecclesiology through the lived faith of the Filipino American Christian diaspora. It proposes a contextual, constructive ecclesiology by engaging with the Presbyterian/Reformed theological tradition's understanding of the ascension of Jesus Christ with the Old Testament book of Habakkuk as a conversation partner.

This book investigates a host of primary sources documenting the Calvinist Reformation in Geneva, exploring the history and epistemology of religious listening at the crossroads of sensory anthropology and religion, knowledge, and media. It reconstructs the social, religious, and material relations at the heart of the Genevan Reformation by examining various facets of the city's auditory culture which was marked by a gradual fashioning of new techniques of listening, speaking, and remembering. Anna Kvicalova analyzes the performativity of sensory perception in the framework of Calvinist religious epistemology, and approaches hearing and acoustics both as tools through which the Calvinist religious identity was constructed, and as objects of knowledge and rudimentary investigation. The heightened interest in the auditory dimension of communication observed in Geneva is studied against the backdrop of contemporary knowledge about sound and hearing in a wider European context.

While congregational studies have expanded our understanding of American religion, little is known about the local practices of a single denomination at its smallest jurisdiction. This book explores how national denominational commitments are affecting the practices of local United Church of Christ congregations inside a single association in the Shenandoah Valley. Nationally, the UCC defines itself as a united and uniting church in its ecumenical work; as multiracial and multicultural in its diversity; as accessible to all in welcoming those with disabilities; as open and affirming for its LGBT members; and as a just peace church in its support of social justice. So, how fully have local congregations embraced these commitments? Might congregations be more attached to their older identities, particularly in areas where the church's predecessors were strongly rooted? Or are the national church's commitments being lived out at the grassroots level? The book measures congregational life in one of the UCC's oldest and smallest associations. Books on congregational studies either focus on a case study of a particular congregation, or large-scale surveys of U.S. congregations that explore aggregate data to explain their work. This book looks instead at a group of local congregations inside a small judicatory (the Shenandoah Association) of the United Church of Christ to explain religious life at the grassroots level.

Blackness, as a concept, is extremely fluid: it can refer to cultural and ethnic identity, socio-political status, an aesthetic and embodied way of being, a social and political consciousness, or a diasporic kinship. It is used as a description of skin color ranging from the palest cream to the richest chocolate; as a marker of enslavement, marginalization, criminality, filth, or evil; or as a symbol of pride, beauty, elegance, strength, and depth. Despite the fact that it is elusive and difficult to define, blackness serves as one of the most potent and unifying domains of identity. God and Blackness offers an ethnographic study of blackness as it is understood within a specific community--that of the First Afrikan Church, a middle-class Afrocentric congregation in Atlanta, Georgia. Drawing on nearly two years of participant observation and in‑depth interviews, Andrea C. Abrams examines how this community has employed Afrocentrism and Black theology as a means of negotiating the unreconciled natures of thoughts and ideals that are part of being both black and American. Specifically, Abrams examines the ways in which First Afrikan's construction of community is influenced by shared understandings of blackness, and probes the means through which individuals negotiate the tensions created by competing constructions of their black identity. Although Afrocentrism operates as the focal point of this discussion, the book examines questions of political identity, religious expression and gender dynamics through the lens of a unique black church.