New England theologian Jonathan Edwards came to prominence at the culmination of a dramatic paradigm shift in millennialism that had begun in the sixteenth century, declaring that a thousand-year earthly kingdom would arrive in the future. For Edwards, the land of Israel would be the ideal location of the millennial kingdom, and the people of Israel, after their restoration, would play critical and decisive roles in the millennium's commencement. Edwards's millennial vision was also cosmic, however, and included both Europe and China. Unlike his Protestant predecessors and his Puritan contemporaries, Edwards's millennialism de-centralized England and New England. Contrary to what many have argued, Edwards neither originated nor advocated the notion of the American redeemer nation. In America's Theologian Beyond America, Victor Zhu establishes the coherence of Edwards's Judeo-centric and cosmic vision of the millennial kingdom and argues that this vision is an indispensable part of Edwards's theological system. He highlights three theological loci in Edwards's millennialism: the greatness of God's divine sovereignty, the magnificence of His glory, and the capaciousness of His kingdom. Zhu demonstrates Edwards's conviction of the progressive realization of the kingdom, refuting the prevailing misinterpretation that Edwards thought the millennium was imminent. He explores Edwards's cosmic vision of the millennial kingdom, which extended from New England and Israel to China and other parts of the "heathen" world. In conclusion, Zhu examines the contemporary relevance of Edwards's millennialism in Chinese millennial movements.

Hill's landmark work in southern religious history returns to print updated and expanded - and compellingly relevant. In 1966, Samuel S. Hill's Southern Churches in Crisis argued that southern Protestantism, a cornerstone of white southern society and culture, was shirking its moral duty by refusing to join in the fight for racial justice. Hill predicted that the church was risking its standing in southern society and that it would ultimately decline in influence and power. A groundbreaking study at the time, Hill's book helped establish southern religious history as a field of scholarly inquiry. Three decades later, Southern Churches in Crisis continues to be widely read, quoted, and cited. In Southern Churches in Crisis Revisited, which reprints the 1966 text in full, Hill reexamines his earlier predictions in an introductory essay that also describes how the study of religion in the south has become a major field of scholarly inquiry. Hill skillfully engages his critics and revisers integrating new perspectives and recent scholarship. He suggests new areas for exploration and provides a selected bibliography of key studies in southern religious history that have been published during the last three decades. In a second essay entitled 'Thirty Years Later,' Hill contends that a new crisis has emerged. He finds that the current dilemma, unlike the externally driven crisis of the 1960s is strictly an internal affair, initiated by the churches and related to doctrinal orthodoxy. He concludes that the triumph of rational purity over 'the religion of the heart' has inaugurated an era in the South's religious life that promises to produce major changes in the storied relation of church and culture in this most visibly religious section of the United States. Southern Churches in Crisis Revisited will be of value to scholars and students interested in the author's reexamination of this powerful and influential force in Southern religion.

Conventional wisdom holds that tradition and history meant little to nineteenth-century American Protestants, who relied on common sense and "the Bible alone." The Old Faith in a New Nation challenges this portrayal by recovering evangelical engagement with the Christian past. Even when they appeared to be most scornful toward tradition, most optimistic and forward-looking, and most confident in their grasp of the Bible, evangelicals found themselves returning, time and again, to Christian history. They studied religious historiography, reinterpreted the history of the church, and argued over its implications for the present. Between the Revolution and the Civil War, American Protestants were deeply interested in the meaning of the Christian past. Paul J. Gutacker draws from hundreds of print sources-sermons, books, speeches, legal arguments, political petitions, and more-to show how ordinary educated Americans remembered and used Christian history. While claiming to rely on the Bible alone, antebellum Protestants frequently turned to the Christian past on questions of import: how should the government relate to religion? Could Catholic immigrants become true Americans? What opportunities and rights should be available to women? To African Americans? Protestants across denominations answered these questions not only with the Bible but also with history. By recovering the ways in which American evangelicals remembered and used Christian history, The Old Faith in a New Nation shows how religious memory shaped the nation and interrogates the meaning of "biblicism."

During the second half of the seventeenth century the entire intellectual framework of educated Europe underwent a radical transformation. A secularized view of humanity and nature was replacing faith in the direct operation of God's will in the temporal world, while a growing confidence in human reason and the Scientific Revolution turned back the epistemological skepticism spawned by the Reformation. By focusing on the Dutch Collegiants, a radical Protestant group that flourished in Holland from 1620 to 1690, Andrew Fix explicates the mechanisms at work in this crucial intellectual transition from traditional to modern European worldview. Starting from Rijnsburg, near Leiden, the Collegiants spread over the course of the century to every major Dutch city. At the same time, their thinking evolved from a millenarian spiritualism influenced heavily by the sixteenth-century Radical Reformation to a philosophical rationalism similar to the ideas of Spinoza. Fix has taken on an important topic in the history of ideas: the circumstances under which natural reason came to be accepted as an autonomous source of truth for the individual conscience. He also has fresh and concrete things to say about the relationship between religion and science in early modern European history. Originally published in 1990. 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.

The Reformed Conformity that flourished within the Early Stuart English Church was a rich, vibrant, and distinctive theological tradition that has never before been studied in its own right. While scholars have observed how Reformed Conformists clashed with Laudians and Puritans alike, no sustained academic study of their teaching on grace and their attitude to the Church has yet been undertaken, despite the centrality of these topics to Early Stuart theological controversy. This ground-breaking monograph recovers this essential strand of Early Stuart Christian identity. It examines and analyses the teachings and writings of ten prominent theologians, all of whom made significant contributions to the debates that arose within the Church of England during the reigns of James I and Charles I and all of whom combined loyalty to orthodox Reformed teaching on grace and salvation with a commitment to the established polity of the English Church. The study makes the case for the coherence of their theological vision by underlining the connections that these Reformed Conformists made between their teaching on grace and their approach to Church order and liturgy. By engaging with a robust and influential theological tradition that was neither puritan nor Laudian, Grace and Conformity significantly enriches our account of the Early Stuart Church and contributes to the ongoing scholarly reappraisal of the wider Reformed tradition. It builds on the resurgence of academic interest in British soteriological discussion, and uses that discussion, as previous studies have not, to gain valuable new insights into Early Stuart ecclesiology.

A blend of understandable explanations and real-life stories. "Why I Am a Lutheran explores the foundational teachings of the Christian church. In each chapter, Daniel Preus calls upon more than 20 years of pastoral experience to reveal Jesus as the center of the Christian faith. As he addresses central doctrines such as sin and grace, Law and Gospel, the person and work of Jesus Christ, worship, the Sacraments, and the office of the ministry, Preus keeps the focus on Jesus Christ--who is "always and only at the center of all Christian teaching."

Is the longevity of the Catholic Church what Rome says it is? Were Christ's Apostles the original Catholics? Did Mary the mother of Jesus really help her Son to redeem mankind? Was the Gospel Jesus left to His disciples incomplete and in need of many additions to perfect it? This book, written by a convert from Catholicism to biblical Christianity, puts the chief claims and doctrines of the Catholic religion under the divine light of God's Word; searches for them in the halls of history; combs through the writings of apostolic fathers for evidence of their veracity.

Chapter by chapter, Scripture by Scripture, the facade of holiness and patristic authority is peeled away, and the true apostate nature of Catholicism is exposed. For evangelical Christians, this work is a gold mine of information about Catholic doctrines and how to deal with the deeply embedded beliefs of those who call themselves Roman Catholics. To the devout Catholic, this book will be either a source of enduring anger, or a bright neon arrow pointing to the eternal, soul-saving Word of God.

Award of Merit, 2019 Christianity Today Book Awards (History/Biography) More than forty years ago, conservative Christianity emerged as a major force in American political life. Since then the movement has been analyzed and over-analyzed, declared triumphant and, more than once, given up for dead. But because outside observers have maintained a near-relentless focus on domestic politics, the most transformative development over the last several decades-the explosive growth of Christianity in the global south-has gone unrecognized by the wider public, even as it has transformed evangelical life, both in the US and abroad. The Kingdom of God Has No Borders offers a daring new perspective on conservative Christianity by shifting the lens to focus on the world outside US borders. Melani McAlister offers a sweeping narrative of the last fifty years of evangelical history, weaving a fascinating tale that upends much of what we know-or think we know-about American evangelicals. She takes us to the Congo in the 1960s, where Christians were enmeshed in a complicated interplay of missionary zeal, Cold War politics, racial hierarchy, and anti-colonial struggle. She shows us how evangelical efforts to convert non-Christians have placed them in direct conflict with Islam at flash points across the globe. And she examines how Christian leaders have fought to stem the tide of HIV/AIDS in Africa while at the same time supporting harsh repression of LGBTQ communities. Through these and other stories, McAlister focuses on the many ways in which looking at evangelicals abroad complicates conventional ideas about evangelicalism. We can't truly understand how conservative Christians see themselves and their place in the world unless we look beyond our shores.

In their zeal to tell the true story of sixteenth-century radicalism, some sympathizers of the Anabaptist movement have portrayed the once maligned individuals and groups as innocent, pious people who suffered cruel persecution at the hands of the wicked state-churchmen. Their side of the story is thus often as one-sided as was the story of the enemies of Anabaptism.

This book, written by a Mennonite scholar, seeks to understand the reasons for the clash between Luther and the radicals, a point often neglected when one or the other side is emphasized. The study keeps Luther, however, in a central position, exploring the issues which led to the Reformer's attitude toward the radicals and analyzing the principles that were at stake in his struggle with the dissident groups.

Inspired by the ideas of the Dutch theologian Jacob Arminius, Arminianism was the subject of important theological controversies in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, and still today remains an important position within Protestant thought. What became known as Arminian theology was held by people across a wide swath of geographical and ecclesial positions. This theological movement was in part a reaction to the Reformed doctrine of predestination and was founded on the assertion that God's sovereignty and human free will are compatible. More broadly, it was an attempt to articulate a holistic view of God and salvation that is grounded in Scripture and Christian tradition as well as adequate to the challenges of life. First developed in European, British, and American contexts, the movement engaged with a wide range of intellectual challenges. While standing together in their common rejection of several key planks of Reformed theology, supporters of Arminianism took varying positions on other matters. Some were broadly committed to catholic and creedal theology, while others were more open to theological revision. Some were concerned primarily with practical matters, while others were engaged in system-building as they sought to articulate and defend an over-arching vision of God and the world. The story of Arminian development is complex, yet essential for a proper understanding of the history of Protestant theology. The historical development of Arminian theology, however, is not well known. In After Arminius, Thomas H. McCall and Keith D. Stanglin offer a thorough historical introduction to Arminian theology, providing an account that will be useful to scholars and students of ecclesiastical history and modern Christian thought.

A deep and rich description of the Christian life that responds to God's love for all of us and celebrates our commitment to him.

From about 1740 to 1850, evangelical Protestantism became a major cultural force in virtually all areas of America. Emerging from this religious movement was a rich vernacular literature of conversion narratives and spiritual autobiographies-writings in which believers described their own salvation in hopes of converting others. In The Self and the Sacred, Rodger M. Payne examines these neglected texts in depth, focusing particularly on what they reveal about notions of selfhood and how those notions were incorporated into Christian orthodoxy. As Payne explains, conversion narratives point to a fascinating paradox that became evident among evangelicals as they were confronted by the disruptions and discontinuities marking their culture's passage into modernity. On the one hand, these narratives asserted the traditional Christian values of humility and self-effacement-an annihilation of the self in the divine. On the other hand, they created a discourse that allowed one to embrace the modern idea of an autonomous self: only by speaking from personal experience could a convert testify to the power of God. "Despite protests to the contrary," Payne writes, "the central character of any conversion account, spiritual diary, or spiritual autobiography was the convert, not God." Using the theology of Jonathan Edwards as a key example, Payne shows how Puritan piety encouraged the development of autobiographical spiritual narratives. He goes on to explain the ways in which the discourse of conversion functioned apart from the control of the church and marked the growth of evangelicalism into "a discursive community." Finally, he considers how the language of conversion functioned as a "rhetorical space" in which believers situated themselves individually within sacred space and time before turning back to society with a renewed regard for others. Drawing throughout on the insights of such theorists as Michel Foucault and Victor Turner, Payne's penetrating analysis reveals the early conversion accounts as mythic texts through which the modern self emerged. The Author: Rodger M. Payne is associate professor of religious studies at Louisiana State University. He is editor-in-chief of The Journal of Southern Religion, an electronic publication available on the World Wide Web.

This collection of essays charts the influence of the Lutheran Reformation on various (northern) European languages and texts written in them. The central themes of Languages in the Lutheran Reformation: Textual Networks and the Spread of Ideas are: how the ideas related to Lutheranism were adapted to the new areas, new languages, and new contexts during the Reformation period in the 16th and 17th centuries; and how the Reformation affected the standardization of the languages. Networks of texts, knowledge, and authors belong to the topics of the present volume. The contributions look into language use, language culture, and translation activities during the Reformation, but also in the prelude to the Reformation as well as after it, in the early modern period. The contributors are experts in the study of their respective languages, including Czech, Dutch, English, Estonian, Finnish, High German, Icelandic, Latvian, Lithuanian, Low German, Norwegian, Polish, and Swedish. The primary texts explored in the essays are Bible translations, but genres other than biblical are also discussed.

As religious leaders, ministers are often assumed to embody the faith of the institution they represent. As cultural symbols, they reflect subtle changes in society and belief-specifically people's perception of God and the evolving role of the church. For more than forty years, Douglas Alan Walrath has tracked changing patterns of belief and church participation in American society, and his research has revealed a particularly fascinating trend: portrayals of ministers in American fiction mirror changing perceptions of the Protestant church and a Protestant God.

From the novels of Harriet Beecher Stowe, who portrays ministers as faithful Calvinists, to the works of Herman Melville, who challenges Calvinism to its very core, Walrath considers a variety of fictional ministers, including Garrison Keillor's Lake Woebegon Lutherans and Gail Godwin's women clergy. He identifies a range of types: religious misfits, harsh Puritans, incorrigible scoundrels, secular businessmen, perpetrators of oppression, victims of belief, prudent believers, phony preachers, reactionaries, and social activists. He concludes with the modern legacy of nineteenth- and early-twentieth-century images of ministers, which highlights the ongoing challenges that skepticism, secularization, and science have brought to today's religious leaders and fictional counterparts. "Displacing the Divine" offers a novel encounter with social change, giving the reader access, through the intimacy and humanity of literature, to the evolving character of an American tradition.

This volume is made up of the autobiographical writings of thirty of the women who lived in the major North American Moravian settlement of Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, at varying points in the eighteenth century. What follows are their memoirs, fascinating documents that contain insights into the lives of the women and men who lived in the Moravian communities in North America.... These Moravian women's memoirs reveal the intersection of the private and the public spheres of their lives. They are records of their spiritual paths in a world that in most cases challenged the bounds of knowledge inherited from their parents. However, whatever private insights these memoirs afforded the writers they were written to be shared with the congregation as a public relation of the author's spiritual and secular path through life. These memoirs formed part of the discourse of faith within the Moravian church.

This is a compelling account of Protestant loss of power and self-confidence in Ireland since 1795. David Fitzpatrick charts a shared awareness of the declining power and influence of the Protestant community in Ireland and the strategies adopted in the face of this decline, presenting rich personal testimony that illustrates how individuals experienced and perceived 'descendancy'. Focusing on the attitudes and strategies adopted by the eventual losers rather than victors, he addresses contentious issues in Irish history through an analysis of the growth of the Orange Order, the Ulster Covenant of 1912, and 'ethnic cleansing' in the Irish Revolution. Avoiding both apologetics and sentimentality when probing the psychology of those undergoing 'descendancy', the book examines the social and political ramifications of religious affiliation and belief as practised in fraternities, church congregations, and isolated sub-communities.

@lt;DIV@gt;Here is a ground-breaking book that suggests some new possibilities of interpretation around the challenge of religious pluralism. The subject of the book is the finality of Jesus Christ in a world of different religions. Pinnock explains succinctly the factors that have made religious pluralism a major challenge for Christian theology. Then he places the issue in the history of doctrine leading up to the present day. Five chapters follow this introductory material and cover the field very systematically: The first chapter deals with God's global reach in salvation and shows that God is concerned for all people in all nations; chapter two highlights the Christology through which God is known to be the God of grace; the third chapter shows how the Bible views other religions as they presently exist and how we can understand them; chapter four deals with religions as non-static entities and the object of divine power bringing in the kingdom; and the fifth chapter discusses eschatology, or how it is possible to understand salvation in generous and large terms. A Wideness in God's Mercy is one of the very few books to present a strong proposal on the issue of religious pluralism while maintaining a rock-solid evangelical stance. It will no doubt launch a decade of discussion on a higher level among Christians.@lt;/div@gt;

What does the practice of religion look like in Latin American today? In this book, which examines religious practice in three Latin American cities- Lima, Peru; Cordoba, Argentina; and Montevideo, Uruguay- Gustavo Morello reveals the influence of modernity on average citizens' cultural practices. Technological development, the dynamics of capitalism, the specialization of spheres of knowledge- all these aspects of modernity were thought to diminish the importance of religion. Yet, Morello argues, if we look at religion as ordinary Latin Americans practice it, we discover that modernity has not diminished religion, but transformed it, creating what Morello calls "enchanted modernity." In Latin America, there is more religion than secularists expect, but of a different kind than religious leaders would wish. Morello explores how urban, contemporary Latin Americans, both believers and non-believers, from different social classes and religious affiliations, experience transcendence in everyday life. Using semi-structured interviews with 254 individuals in three cities with shifting religious landscapes and different cultural histories, Morello highlights the diversity within Latin America, exploring societies that are understudied and examining a broad array of religious traditions: "nones" (agnostics, non-affiliated, atheist), Catholics, Evangelicals (including mainstream Protestants, Pentecostals, neo-Evangelicals), and other traditions (including Jews, Muslims, Mormons, African-derived traditions, and Buddhists). Morello emphasizes elements, nuances, and dynamics that have previously been overlooked and that can enrich the study of religion other non-western societies. The book seeks to contribute to a critical theory of contemporary religion- one that is not centered in the North Atlantic world and that takes seriously the voices of the Latin American people.

The priesthood of all believers is a core Protestant belief. But what does it actually mean? Uche Anizor and Hank Voss set the record straight in this concise treatment of a doctrine that lies at the center of church life and Christian spirituality. The authors look at the priesthood of all believers in terms of the biblical witness, the contribution of Martin Luther and the doctrine of the Trinity. They place this concept in the context of the canonical description of Israel and the church as a royal priesthood that responds to God in witness and service to the world. Representing Christ is much more than a piece of Reformation history. It shows that the priesthood of all believers is interwoven with the practical, spiritual and missional life of the church.

Historians have debated how the clergy's support for political resistance during the American Revolution should be understood, often looking to influence outside of the clergy's tradition. This book argues, however, that the position of the patriot clergy was in continuity with a long-standing tradition of Protestant resistance. Drawing from a wide range of sources, Justifying Revolution: The American Clergy's Argument for Political Resistance, 1750-1776 answers the question of why so many American clergyman found it morally and ethically right to support resistance to British political authority by exploring the theological background and rich Protestant history available to the American clergy as they considered political resistance and wrestled with the best course of action for them and their congregations. Gary L. Steward argues that, rather than deviating from their inherited modes of thought, the clergy who supported resistance did so in ways that were consistent with their own theological tradition.

Evangelical Christians in the United States today are known for their hard-line, restrictive approach to immigration and refugees. This book shows that this has not always been the case and is, in fact, a relatively new position. The history of evangelical involvement with refugees and immigrants has been overlooked in the current debate. Since the early 1960s, evangelical Christians have been integral players in US immigration and refugee policy. Motivated by biblical teachings to "welcome the stranger," they have helped tens of thousands of newcomers by acting as refugee sponsors or providing legalization assistance to undocumented immigrants. Until the 1990s, many evangelicals did not distinguish between documented and undocumented newcomers - all were to be loved and welcomed. In the last decade of the twentieth century, however, a growing anti-immigrant consensus in American society grew alongside evangelicals' political alignment with the Republican Party, leading to a rethinking of their theology. Following the GOP's lead, evangelicals increasingly emphasized the need to obey American law, which many argued undocumented immigrants failed to do. Today, the evangelical movement is more divided than ever about immigration policy. While conservative evangelicals are often immigration hard-liners, many progressive and Latinx evangelicals hope to convince their fellow evangelicals to take a more welcoming approach. The Strangers in Our Midst argues that the key to understanding evangelicals' divided approaches to immigration is to look at both their theology and their politics. Both of which have shaped how-and especially to whom-they extend their biblical values of hospitality.

In Baring Witness, Holly Welker and thirty-six Mormon women write about devotion and love and luck, about the wonder of discovery, and about the journeys, both thorny and magical, to humor, grace, and contentment. They speak to a diversity of life experiences: what happens when one partner rejects Church teachings; marrying outside one's faith; the pain of divorce and widowhood; the horrors of spousal abuse; the hard journey from visions of an idealized marriage to the everyday truth; sexuality within Mormon marriage; how the pressure to find a husband shapes young women's actions and sense of self; and the ways Mormon belief and culture can influence second marriages and same-sex unions. The result is an unflinching look at the earthly realities of an institution central to Mormon life.