What do the Canons of Dordt mean to people in the Las Vegas airport---and does anyone there even care? In the movie Hardcore, a pious Calvinist elder tries unsuccessfully to explain the TULIP theology of his Dutch Reformed faith to a prostitute in the Las Vegas airport. This incongruous conversation demonstrates how Calvinism is often perceived today: irrelevant, harsh, even disrespectful. Beginning with this movie scene, Calvinism in the Las Vegas Airport addresses the weaknesses of Calvinism and points to its strengths. How does Calvinism shed light on today? Instead of reciting the Canons of Dordt, what s a more compassionate way to relate to nonbelievers? What might it look like to live out the doctrines of TULIP with gentleness and respect? This conversational book provides answers and shatters some stereotypes. Calvinism in the Las Vegas Airport encourages you to live every aspect of life---business, family, education, politics, activities, and more---before the face of a generous, sovereign God. Calvinists and non-Calvinists alike will find this an enjoyable read. You will discover that Reformed theology can speak relevantly and compellingly today, both to you and to people in the Las Vegas airport. Does Calvinism Have Anything to Do with the 21st Century? What do you think about Calvinism? Do you view it positively or negatively? Or has its day passed? Let s face it, many non-Calvinists hold a less-than-positive view, sometimes due to caricatures. This friendly, conversational book helps clear up some misconceptions and distorted views. If you re not a Calvinist, here is an engaging inside look. And if you are a Calvinist, Richard Mouw shows how to live gently and respectfully with others---Christians and non-Christians---who hold different perspectives. Calvinism in the Las Vegas Airport focuses not on what Calvinists believe but on how they live. From a movie scene to the author s personal experiences in Las Vegas, you are invited to travel with Mouw and see the Reformed faith in a new light. Yes, it still does travel well "

With sound historical scholarship and penetrating insight, Roland Bainton examines Luther's widespread influence. He re-creates the spiritual setting of the sixteenth century, showing Luther's place within it and influence upon it. Richly illustrated with more than 100 woodcuts and engravings from Luther's own time, Here I Stand dramatically brings to life Martin Luther, the great Reformer. A specialist in Reformation history, Roland H. Bainton was for forty-two years Titus Street Professor of Ecclesiastical History at Yale, and he continued his writing well into his twenty years of retirement. Bainton wore his scholarship lightly and had a lively, readable style. His most popular book was Here I Stand: A Life of Martin Luther (1950), which sold more than a million copies.

This book attempts to understand Calvin in his sixteenth-century context, with attention to continuities and discontinuities between his thought and that of his predecessors, contemporaries, and successors. Richard Muller is particularly interested in the interplay between theological and philosophical themes common to Calvin and the medieval doctors, and in developments in rhetoric and method associated with humanism.

The first book-length treatment of its topic, this study is aimed at abolishing the old cliche that Congregationalism failed to adapt to the democratizing culture of the westward migration. Drawing on hundreds of previously unused letters, journals, and sermons, the author argues that Congregational missionaries were aggressive evangelists who successfully adjusted to the egalitarian demands of the early republican frontier. Keepers of the Covenant critically examines the various explanations for the decline of Congregationalism after the American Revolution, and in the process, overturns generalizations that have prevailed for years. The conclusion offers a reinterpretation of Congregationalist decline that challenges much conventional wisdom about church growth. It will interest not only church historians and students of early republican America, but also sociologists and all those concerned with the decline of the Protestant "mainline" today.

This solid volume is very rare indeed. It contains THE DOCTRINE OF SOVEREIGN GRACE - OPENED & VINDICATED (1771) ELECTION, PERSEVERANCE AND GOD'S DECREES (1789) THE SOVEREIGN DECREES OF GOD (1773) THE GREAT FALLING AWAY: Ther Last Days in Fulfillment (1773) VERY LARGE AND READABLE PRINT.

" The Life and Thought of David Craig " tells the story of one Canadian Presbyterian missionary whose life spanned more than six decades and three continents. From humble Ontario origins, David studied and served in several diverse languages and cultures. After a near death experience as a missionary in Nigeria, David became increasingly involved in French evangelism and Reformed theological education. Most significantly, from 1976 until his death in 2001, David served as a pastor in three successive French-speaking congregations in the province of Quebec. David's career evidences not only the emotions and adventure of one man, but the joys and challenges more generally experienced by Christian missionaries in the second half of the 20th century.
JASON ZUIDEMA (Ph.D., McGill) is lecturer in Church History at Farel Reformed Theological Seminary and McGill University. He has written a number of articles and several books including the recently-released "Peter Martyr Vermigli (1499-1562) " and the "Outward Instruments of Divine Grace" (Vandenhoeck & Ruprect). He is an ordained minister in the Eglise reformee du Quebec and resides with his wife and two children in Repentigny, Quebec.

For years, scholars have attempted to understand the powerful hold that the sermon had upon the imagination of New England Puritans. In this book Emory Elliott puts forth a complex and striking thesis: that Puritan religious literature provided the myths and metaphors that helped the people to express their deepest doubts and fears, feelings created by their particular cultural situation and aroused by the crucial social events of seventeenth-century America. In his early chapters, the author defines the psychological needs of the second- and third-generation Puritans, arguing that these needs arose from the generational conflict between the founders and their children and from the methods of child rearing and religious education employed in Puritan New England. In the later chapters, he reveals how the ministers responded to the crisis in their society by reshaping theology and constructing in their sermons a religious language that helped to fulfill the most urgent psychological needs of the people. Originally published in 1975. The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.

Why is so little heard about John Cotton, who was acknowledged in his own lifetime as the greatest Puritan preacher in America? Why has he alone remained an enigma among the founding fathers of American protestantism? Professor Ziff examines Cotton's career as a teacher and preacher, both in England and New England; comparing Cotton's preaching and theology with that of his contemporaries in both the established church and the various Puritan sects, he shows Cotton as a significant man of his own time. Yet his influence, although of great importance to the crucial early beginnings of the protestant churches in America, could not extend itself beyond his generation. In this study, Cotton emerges clearly as a vital stabilizing influence between the separatist extremists and those who sought to re-establish the old order in the new world. Originally published in 1962. The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.

Although John Calvin often likened sacramental confession to butchery, the Council of Trent declared that for those who approached it worthily, it was made easy by its "great benefits and consolations." Thomas Tentler describes and evaluates the effectiveness of sacramental confession as a functioning institution designed "to cause guilt as well as cure guilt," seeing it in its proper place as a part of the social fabric of the Middle Ages. The author examines the institution of confession in practice as well as in theory, providing an analysis of a practical literature whose authors wanted to explain as clearly as they safely could what confessors and penitents had to believe, do, feel, say, and intend, if sacramental confession were to forgive sins. In so doing he recreates the mentality and experience that the Reformers attacked and the Counter-Reformers defended. Central to his thesis is the contention that Luther, Calvin, and the Fathers of Trent regarded religious institutions as the solution to certain social and psychological problems, and that an awareness of this attitude is important for an assessment of the significance of confession in late medieval and Reformation Europe. Originally published in 1977. The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.

For years, scholars have attempted to understand the powerful hold that the sermon had upon the imagination of New England Puritans. In this book Emory Elliott puts forth a complex and striking thesis: that Puritan religious literature provided the myths and metaphors that helped the people to express their deepest doubts and fears, feelings created by their particular cultural situation and aroused by the crucial social events of seventeenth-century America. In his early chapters, the author defines the psychological needs of the second- and third-generation Puritans, arguing that these needs arose from the generational conflict between the founders and their children and from the methods of child rearing and religious education employed in Puritan New England. In the later chapters, he reveals how the ministers responded to the crisis in their society by reshaping theology and constructing in their sermons a religious language that helped to fulfill the most urgent psychological needs of the people. Originally published in 1975. The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.

In this concise introduction to Calvin's life and thought, Christopher Elwood offers an insightful and accessible overview of Calvin's key teachings within his historical context. The trials and travails Calvin encountered as he ministered and taught in Geneva are discussed, with special attention given to theological controversies associated with the Trinity and predestination. Elwood indicates the ways that Calvinism developed and its influence in today's world. Illustrations are interspersed throughout the text and humorously illuminate key points providing an engaging introduction to this important theologian. Written by experts but designed for the novice, the Armchair series provides accurate, concise, and witty overviews of some of the most profound moments and theologians in Christian history. These books are essential supplements for first-time encounters with primary texts, lucid refreshers for scholars and clergy, and enjoyable reads for the theologically curious.

The body looks healthy on the outside, but inside a sickness has set in. With the line between truth and error blurred, theological distinctives considered inconsequential, and the pulpit becoming the focal point of a commitment to entertainment rather than the faithful ministry of the Word of God, postmodern evangelicalism is suffering from theological anemia. In spite of this weakening state, a strengthening cure is available.In Life transforming truth: an introduction to the doctrines of grace, William E. Payne has provided the mega-vitamins so needed today. With a thoroughly biblical approach coupled with clarity of thought and expression, Life-transforming truth is the perfect primer for a weak and ailing Christian church. Explaining and amplifying "the doctrines of grace with the grace of the doctrines," Pastor Payne provides answers to the profound questions of those struggling with the wonderful truth of God's sovereign grace while strengthening and bringing a deeper understanding to those already embracing these God-honouring doctrines. Understanding depravity - Rejoicing in election - Affirming particular redemption - Effectual calling - Explaining perseverance - Exploring regeneration - Declaring justification - Experiencing sanctification - The privilege of adoption - The hope of glorification. Be prepared to be challenged and changed as you read these pages and discover God's gracious dealings with humankind. These truths will transform your life - from the inside out - as you consider God's wonderful kindness to a sinful world. 80 pages, 6" x 9," perfectbound Published March 2001.

Stanford Lehmberg, a noted authority on the Tudor period, examines the impact of the Reformation on the cathedrals of England and Wales. Based largely on manuscript materials from the cathedral archives themselves, this book is the first attempt to draw together information for all twenty-nine of the cathedrals that existed in the Tudor period. The author scrutinizes the major changes that took place during this era in the institutional structure, personnel, endowments, liturgy, and music of the cathedral and shows how the cathedrals, unlike the monasteries that were dissolved by Henry VIII, succeeded in adapting successfully to the Reformation. Forty-two illustrations depict sixteenth-century changes in cathedral buildings.

Narrative chapters trace the changes that occurred during the reigns of Henry VIII, Edward VI, "Bloody" Mary, and Elizabeth I. Analytical sections are devoted to cathedral finance and cathedral music. The changing lives of cathedral musicians are described in some detail, and even greater attention is paid to the cathedral clergy, whose living conditions changed markedly when they were allowed to marry. Using a variety of sources, including such physical remains as tombs and monuments, the concluding chapter discusses the role of cathedrals in English society.

Originally published in 1989.

The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These paperback editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.

Dissenting Daughters reveals that devout women made vital contributions to the spread and practice of the Reformed faith in the Dutch Republic in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. The six women at the heart of this study: Cornelia Teellinck, Susanna Teellinck, Anna Maria van Schurman, Sara Nevius, Cornelia Leydekker, and Henrica van Hoolwerff, were influential members of networks known for supporting a religious revival known as the Further Reformation. These women earned the support and appreciation of their religious leaders, friends, and relatives by seizing the tools offered by domestic religious study and worship and forming alliances with prominent ministers including Willem Teellinck, Gijsbertus Voetius, Wilhelmus a Brakel, and Melchior Leydekker as well as with other well-connected, well-educated women. They deployed their talents to bolster the Dutch Reformed Church from 1572, the first year its members could publicly organize, to the death of this book's last surviving subject Cornelia Leydekker in 1725. In return for their adoption of religious teachings that constricted them in many ways, they gained the authority to minister to their family members, their female friends, and a broader audience of men and women during domestic worship as well as through their written works. These "dissenting daughters" vehemently defended their faith - against Spanish and French Catholics, as well as their neighbors, politicians, and ministers within the Dutch Republic whom they judged to be lax and overly tolerant of sinful behavior, finding ways to flourish among the strictest orthodox believers within the Dutch Reformed Church.

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

Since its original publication in 1985, Church and University in the Scottish Enlightenment has come to be regarded as a classic work in 18th-century Scottish history and Enlightenment studies. It depicts Hugh Blair, Alexander Carlyle, Adam Ferguson, John Home, and William Robertson as an intimate coterie that played a central role in the Scottish Enlightenment, seen here not only as an intellectual but as a cultural movement. These men were among the leaders in the University of Edinburgh, in the Moderate party in the Church of Scotland, and in Edinburgh's thriving clubs. They used their institutional influence and their books, plays, sermons, and pamphlets to promulgate the tenets of Moderatism, including polite Presbyterianism, Christian Stoicism, civic humanism, social and political conservatism, and the tolerant, cosmopolitan values of the international Enlightenment. Using a wide variety of sources and an interdisciplinary methodology, this collective biography portrays these 'Moderate Iiterati' as zealous activists for the cause in which they believed, ranging from support for a Scots militia, Ossian, and Roman Catholic relief to opposition to the Jacobite rebellion of 1745 and the American and French Revolutions

This book offers a new interpretation of political reform in the settler colonies of Britain's empire in the early nineteenth century. It examines the influence of Scottish Presbyterian dissenting churches and their political values. It re-evaluates five notorious Scottish reformers and unpacks the Presbyterian foundation to their political ideas: Thomas Pringle (1789-1834), a poet in Cape Town; Thomas McCulloch (1776-1843), an educator in Pictou; John Dunmore Lang (1799-1878), a church minister in Sydney; William Lyon Mackenzie (1795-1861), a rebel in Toronto; and Samuel McDonald Martin (1805?-1848), a journalist in Auckland. The book weaves the five migrants' stories together for the first time and demonstrates how the campaigns they led came to be intertwined. The book will appeal to historians of Scotland, Britain, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, the British Empire and the Scottish diaspora.

Between the sixteenth and eighteenth centuries, many thousands of Protestants fled religious persecution in France and the Low Countries. They became one of the most influential immigrant communities in the countries where they settled, and many families in modern-day Britain will find a Huguenot connection in their past. Kathy Chater's authoritative handbook offers an accessible introduction to Huguenot history and to the many sources that researchers can use to uncover the Huguenot ancestry they may not have realized they had. She traces the history of the Huguenots; their experience of persecution, and their flight to Britain, North America, the West Indies and South Africa, concentrating on the Huguenot communities that settled in England, Ireland, Scotland and the Channel Islands. Her work is also an invaluable guide to the various sources researchers can turn to in order to track their Huguenot ancestors, for she describes the wide range of records that is available in local, regional and national archives, as well as through the internet and overseas.Her expert overview is essential reading for anyone studying their Huguenot ancestry or immigrant history in Britain.

This study begins with an examination of Girolamo Zanchi's De Tribus Elohim (1572), setting this important defense of the doctrine of the Trinity in the immediate context of the recent rise of antitrinitarianism within the Reformed Palatinate. De Tribus Elohim focused on the grammatical peculiarity of the Hebrew word Elohim (God) in order to refute the biblicism of its contemporary antitrinitarians. In doing so, Zanchi's argument followed an exegetical thread common within the late medieval case for the doctrine of the Trinity, but which ran contrary to the exegetical sensibilities of many of Zanchi's own Reformed colleagues. This disagreement over the correct interpretation of the word Elohim, then became a touchstone for distinguishing between two different approaches to the Hebrew text with the Reformed Church of the late sixteenth century, and becomes a significant piece in understanding the development of Reformed exegesis.

A daily Luther breviary for pastors and laity, for use in college, seminary, and university, and for reading at home; the book is suitable for Christian believers, inquirers, as well as for those interested in studying Reformation history. Martin Luther did not bequeath to us a system of theological thought, but his sermons, poetry, letters, and essays are all written with specific situations in mind. This book takes the same approach in dealing with topics. Twelve topics, spread over the months of the year, introduce the reader to Luther's theology. The selected readings from the Wittenberg reformer are translated into modern English and explained in everyday language. The passages from his writings have been selected with an eye to the Christian year and its festivals; at the same time they describe the nature and consequences of Luther's reformational insights. With the added benefit of a commentary on the selected Luther texts as well as on the art work for each month, this book promises to be not only a helpful and entertaining companion for the journey through the church year, but also a compendium of Luther's theology.

"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 new resource for sung worship.

What explains the rapid growth of state power in early modern Europe? While most scholars have pointed to the impact of military or capitalist revolutions, Philip S. Gorski argues instead for the importance of a disciplinary revolution unleashed by the Reformation. By refining and diffusing a variety of disciplinary techniques and strategies, such as communal surveillance, control through incarceration and bureaucratic office-holding, Calvin and his followers created an infrastructure of religious governance and social control that served as a model for the rest of Europe -and the world. Gorski shows, for instance, how Calvinist-inspired social discipline contributed to the governance and pacification of Dutch society and to the rationalization and centralization of the Prussian state. He also compares religious and social disciplining as practiced by Calvinists, Lutherans and Catholics and finds that Calvinists took the disciplinary revolution much farther and faster, which helps explain the greater political strength of the Calvinist states. Written with clarity and vigour, "The Disciplinary Revolution" should be seen as a major work in European history, political science, social theory and religion.

This original look at the French Reformation pits immovable object--the French appellate courts or parlements--against irresistible force--the most dynamic forms of the Protestant Reformation. Without the slightest hesitation, the high courts of Renaissance France opposed these religious innovators. By 1540, the French monarchy had largely removed the prosecution of heresy from ecclesiastical courts and handed it to the parlements. Heresy trials and executions escalated dramatically. But within twenty years, the irresistible force had overcome the immovable object: the prosecution of Protestant heresy, by then unworkable, was abandoned by French appellate courts.

Until now no one has investigated systematically the judicial history of the French Reformation. William Monter has examined the myriad encounters between Protestants and judges in French parlements, extracting information from abundant but unindexed registers of official criminal decisions both in Paris and in provincial capitals, and identifying more than 425 prisoners condemned to death for heresy by French courts between 1523 and 1560. He notes the ways in which Protestants resisted the French judicial system even before the religious wars, and sets their story within the context of heresy prosecutions elsewhere in Reformation Europe, and within the long-term history of French criminal justice.