Strategic to the study of popular evangelical movements, this volume provides a thorough description of the holdings of one of the major evangelical resource centers in the United States. The Billy Graham Center, with its focus on efforts by Evangelicals around the world to spread the Christian Gospel, with a special emphasis on North America, has developed a superb array of sources to document this vigorous yet largely uncharted aspect of modern Christianity. The special strengths of the Graham Center's Library, Museum, and Archives are documented here. Books, magazines, photographs, paintings, artifacts, diaries, letters, and files of Christian organizations are among the types of sources described. Two appendices, comprising 20 percent of this volume, give detailed summaries of holdings in 161 other archives and libraries throughout the United States. Also included are 61 photographs of artifacts and documents from the Graham Center. This guide includes three main chapters on the Library, Museum, and Archives of the Billy Graham Center at Wheaton College. Chapters on the collections of the Library and Museum discuss their thematic strengths, featured holdings, and services. A lengthy chapter on the Archives provides an overview, an annotated catalog of its more than 525 collections, and a list of subjects treated in each collection. Two appendices provide extensive descriptions of other archival and library collections around the country. A comprehensive index of subjects and names quickly helps researchers determine what the Graham Center and other North American research centers offer. The user can enjoy a general overview or receive direct information on a specific topic. This volume is designed for the varied interests of pastor, missionary, scholar, journalist, or interested layperson.

A powerful plan to transform church members into impassioned disciples.Drawing on his experience at Prince of Peace, Foss makes the case for transforming congregations from a membership model to a discipleship model of church affiliation. The book begins with a careful analysis of recent patterns in church membership/demographics which argue for this paradigm shift. Subsequent chapters detail the unique leadership and organizational needs of a discipleship model; explore the building and maintaining of fundamental trust-in God and in His people-as the cornerstone of the model; and provide practical helps for assessing the present and strategies for moving into the future. Addressed to rostered and non-rostered professional and non-professional church leaders interested in transforming their churches into centers for discipleship and mission, Power Surge makes the case for a dynamic, functional model of church affiliation that moves away from a membership model centered on prerogatives of membership to a discipleship model centered on the notion of Christian vocation/calling. It proposes a grace-centered, rather than legalistic, model of discipleship and builds a bridge through transferable principles between congregational mission mindedness and the individual Christian's life of faith. This book utilizes assessment tools and practical helps so that congregations can make the transition between membership and discipleship paradigms, as it draws on the experience of Prince of Peace Lutheran Church as a case study illustrating the principles of a discipleship model of church affiliation.

This volume is a comprehensive collection of articles on Bunyan as well as including several broader views of the Nonconformist tradition.

One of the most significant developments within contemporary American Christianity, especially among younger evangelicals, is a groundswell of interest in the Reformed tradition. In Reformed Resurgence, Brad Vermurlen provides a comprehensive sociological account of this phenomenon - known as New Calvinism - and what it entails for the broader evangelical landscape in the United States. Vermurlen develops a new theory for understanding how conservative religion can be strong and thrive in the hypermodern Western world. His paradigm uses and expands on strategic action field theory, a recent framework proposed for the study of movements and organizations that has rarely been applied to religion. This approach to religion moves beyond market dynamics and cultural happenstance and instead shows how religious strength can be fought for and won as the direct result of religious leaders' strategic actions and conflicts. But the battle comes at a cost. For the same reasons conservative Calvinistic belief is experiencing a resurgence, present-day American evangelicalism has turned in on itself. Vermurlen argues that in the end, evangelicalism in the United States consists of pockets of subcultural and local strength within the "cultural entropy" of secularization, as religious meanings and coherence fall apart.

An accessible and academic reading of the doctrine of justification by faith. It is often assumed that the Reformation taught justification by faith as if there was a monolithic view of the doctrine. Since We Are Justified By Faith is a collection of important essays that dispel this myth, demonstrating the diverse theologies of that period. Experts in the field, including Cameron MacKenzie, Aaron OKelly, Jeff Fisher, Kirk MacGregor, Mary Patton Baker, Karin Spiecker Stetina, David Hall, Bonnie Pattison, Timothy Shaun Price, Andre Gazal, and Chris Ross, write on the theologies of Luther, Melanchthon, Oecolampadius, Marpeck, Calvin, and the English reformers to give a nuanced reading of the doctrine in sixteenth-century Protestant theology.

It is equally true that the Reformation was inspired and defined by the Bible and that the Bible was reshaped by the intellectual, political, and cultural forces of the Reformation. In this book, a distinguished scholar-whose contributions to the field of religious studies have won him wide renown-explores this relationship, examining both the role of the Bible in the Reformation and the effect of the Reformation on the text of the Bible, Biblical studies, preaching and exegesis, and European culture in general. Jaroslav Pelikan begins by discussing the philological foundations of the "reformation" of the Biblical text, focusing on the revival of Greek and Hebrew language study and the important contributions to textual criticism by humanist scholars. He then examines the changing patterns of interpretation and communication of the Biblical text, the proliferation of vernacular versions of scripture and their impact on various national cultures, and the impact of the Reformation Bible on art, music, and literature of the period. The book is richly illustrated with examples of early printed editions of Bibles, commentaries, sermons, vernacular translations, and other works with Biblical themes, all of which are identified and discussed. The book serves as the catalog for a major exhibition of early Bibles and Reformation texts that has been organized at Bridwell Library, Perkins School of Theology, Southern Methodist University, and will also be shown at the Yale Center for British Art, the Houghton Library and the Widener Library at Harvard University, and the Rare Book and Manuscript Library at Columbia University. Copublished with the Bridwell Library, Southern Methodist University

In the course of the nineteenth century, the boundaries that divided Protestants, Catholics and Jews in Germany were redrawn, challenged, rendered porous and built anew. This book addresses this redrawing. It considers the relations of three religious groups-Protestants, Catholics, and Jews-and asks how, by dint of their interaction, they affected one another.Previously, historians have written about these communities as if they lived in isolation. Yet these groups coexisted in common space, and interacted in complex ways. This is the first book that brings these separate stories together and lays the foundation for a new kind of religious history that foregrounds both cooperation and conflict across the religious divides. The authors analyze the influences that shaped religious coexistence and they place the valences of co-operation and conflict in deep social and cultural contexts. The result is a significantly altered understanding of the emergence of modern religious communities as well as new insights into the origins of the German tragedy, which involved the breakdown of religious coexistence.

Liberal Christian theology permeates mainlines denominations and progressive circles of the church to this day. But what is liberal theology? What are progressive Christians progressing toward, and what are they leaving behind?

In Against Liberal Theology, professor and theologian Roger E. Olson warns progressive and mainline Christians against passively accepting the ideas of liberal theology without thinking through the consequences. In doing so, he examines the basic beliefs of the Christian faith, the main ideas of liberal theology, the way today's mainline and progressive Christianity relates to classic liberalism, and how classic Christian faith and liberal Christianity connect and contradict. Following in the footsteps of Gresham Machen's now-classic Christianity and Liberalism 100 years ago, Olson worries that liberal Christianity may not be Christianity but a different religion altogether.

After examining the origins of liberal theology in the nineteenth century, Olson examines how liberal theology views:

• Sources of truth
• The Bible
• God
• Jesus Christ
• Salvation
• The Future

Gentle but direct, Olson provides an even-handed assessment and critique of the ideas of liberal theology and worries that liberal Christianity has strayed too far from the classic Christian orthodoxy of the fathers and creeds to be considered "Christian" at all.

This explores the rich heritage and basic beliefs of the Lutheran denomination. Using inclusive language, it provides a broad ecumenical view, and can help with "refresher" courses or new member classes.

This innovative urban history of Dublin explores the symbols and spaces of the Irish capital between the Restoration in 1660 and the advent of neoclassical public architecture in the 1770s. The meanings ascribed to statues, churches, houses, and public buildings are traced in detail, using a wide range of visual and written sources.

The Huguenots are among the best known of early modern European religious minorities. Their suffering in 16th and 17th-century France is a familiar story. The flight of many Huguenots from the kingdom after 1685 conferred upon them a preeminent place in the accounts of forced religious migrations. Their history has become synonymous with repression and intolerance. At the same time, Huguenot accomplishments in France and the lands to which they fled have long been celebrated. They are distinguished by their theological formulations, political thought, and artistic achievements. This volume offers an encompassing portrait of the Huguenot past, investigates the principal lines of historical development, and suggests the interpretative frameworks that scholars have advanced for appreciating the Huguenot experience.

Concise text includes the latest historical and theological research, sections on contemporary Lutheranism, and discussion questions.

While Protestant Christians made up only a small percentage of China's overall population during the Republican period, they were heavily represented among the urban elite. Protestant influence was exercised through churches, hospitals, and schools, and reached beyond these institutions into organizations such as the YMCA (Young Men's Christian Association) and YWCA (Young Women's Christian Association). The YMCA's city associations drew their membership from the urban elite and were especially influential within the modern sectors of urban society. Chinese Protestant leaders adapted the social message and practice of Christianity to the conditions of the republican era. Key to this effort was their belief that Christianity could save China - that is, that Christianity could be more than a religion focused on saving individuals, but could also save a people, a society, and a nation. Saving the Nation recounts the history of the Protestant elite beginning with their participation in social reform campaigns in the early twentieth century, continuing through their contribution to the resistance against Japanese imperialism, and ending with Protestant support for a social revolution. The story Thomas Reilly tells is one about the Chinese Protestant elite and the faith they adopted and adapted, Social Christianity. But it is also a broader story about the Chinese people and their struggle to strengthen and renew their nation - to build a New China.

Lutherans often have questions about Lutheran theology and beliefs that are basic to the Christian faith itself. Featuring a unique question-and-answer format, Lutheran Questions, Lutheran Answers is an accessible and concise treatment that provides the most frequently asked questions on important topics and brief but complete answers from a distinguished Lutheran historian and theologian. Contents include questions and answers about: Lutheran History and Heritage Bible God Jesus Christ Humanity Holy Spirit Salvation Church Worship Sacraments Christian Life Reign of God Polity

This classic work by one of Europe's most respected twentieth-century legal minds tackles law through the eyes of Martin Luther. Johannes Heckel first reveals the basic features of Luther's doctrine of law in its totality, drawing from an overwhelming amount of material from all genres of Luther's writing. Heckel then considers how Luther viewed law as the framework for the existence of a Christian in this world. He develops a picture of Luther's position on law by grounding it in Luther's theology, arguing that his concept of natural law has to be understood in terms of the divine and the secular. Finally, Heckel shows the practicality of Luther's position by focusing on the places in which a Christian interacts with legality in this world -- church, marriage and family, and politics. / "When Johannes Heckel's Lex Charitatis appeared more than half a century ago it brought new clarity to the much disputed issue of Luther's understanding of the law and of God's governance of his created order. . . . Having Heckel's work in English will assist scholars and students alike in putting Luther's insights to use in the context of twenty-first-century problems." / -- Robert Kolb, Concordia Seminary

This is the first full-length biography of the Reverend Thomas K. Beecher, a member of the most famous family of reformers in 19th-century America. Unlike his famous siblings, Thomas Beecher defended slavery on the eve of the Civil War and condemned the abolitionist, temperance, and women's rights movements. This account of his anti-reform views examines important, but relatively unexplored, questions in the historiography of antebellum reform: Why did some Northern evangelical Protestants oppose these movements? To what extent did their opposition represent a backlash against the legacy of American Revolutionary ideals? Glenn emphasizes how Thomas Beecher's life and work illustrate important changes in the Protestant ministry during the latter half of the 19th century. This is an insightful and thorough biography that will appeal to readers interested in American cultural and religious history.

For much of his career as a Reformer John Calvin was involved in trinitarian controversy. Not only did these controversies span his career, but his opponents ranged across the spectrum of theological approaches-from staunch traditionalists to radical antitrinitarians. Remarkably, the heart of Calvin's argument, and the heart of others' criticism, remained the same throughout: Calvin claimed that the only-begotten Son of the Father is also, as the one true God, 'of himself'.
Brannon Ellis investigates the various Reformation and post-Reformation responses to Calvin's affirmation of the Son's aseity (or essential self-existence), a significant episode in the history of theology that is often ignored or misunderstood. Calvin neither rejected eternal generation, nor merely toed the line of classical exposition. As such, these debates turned on the crucial pivot between simple unity and ordered plurality-the relationship between the processions and consubstantiality-at the heart of the doctrine of the Trinity. Ellis's aim is to explain the historical significance and explore the theological implications of Calvin's complex solidarity with the classical tradition in his approach to thinking and speaking of the Triune God. He contends that Calvin's approach, rather than an alternative to classical trinitarianism, is actually more consistent with this tradition's fundamental commitments regarding the ineffable generation of God from God than its own received exposition.

Protestant institutions of higher learning have historically enrolled fewer students of color than nonsectarian colleges and universities. In this book, George Yancey explores the racial climate on Protestant campuses, examining the reasons why these institutions succeed or fail to attract a diverse student body and why students of color who do attend such institutions either succeed or fail to graduate. Of course, no major Protestant denomination endorses overt racism, and Protestant educators have indicated a wish to increase racial diversity on their campuses. Despite this expressed desire, however, Yancey finds numerous barriers to achieving such diversity. On the one hand, evangelical institutions, like the denominations that sponsor them, tend to espouse an individualistic, "colorblind" ideology that ignores racial injustices and discourages the attendance of students of color. Mainline Protestants have much more progressive racial attitudes than conservatives. Ironically, however, Protestants of color tend to be theologically conservative, and have deep disagreements with the mainline on such theological issues as biblical inerrancy and social issues like homosexuality. Yancey finds that many traditional approaches to enhancing diversity appear ineffective. Such diversity programs, he discovers, are not as effective as curriculum reforms or student led multicultural groups. Educational courses and student led groups that deal with racial issues prove to be more highly correlated with a diverse student body than multicultural, anti-racism, community, or non-European cultural programs.

Abraham Kuyper is known as the energetic Dutch Protestant social activist and public theologian of the 1898 Princeton Stone Lectures, the Lectures on Calvinism. In fact, the church was the point from which Kuyper's concerns for society and public theology radiated. In his own words, ''The problem of the church is none other than the problem of Christianity itself.'' The loss of state support for the church, religious pluralism, rising nationalism, and the populist religious revivals sweeping Europe in the nineteenth century all eroded the church's traditional supports. Dutch Protestantism faced the unprecedented prospect of ''going Dutch''; from now on it would have to pay its own way. John Wood examines how Abraham Kuyper adapted the Dutch church to its modern social context through a new account of the nature of the church and its social position. The central concern of Kuyper's ecclesiology was to re-conceive the relationship between the inner aspects of the church-the faith and commitment of the members-and the external forms of the church, such as doctrinal confessions, sacraments, and the relationship of the church to the Dutch people and state. Kuyper's solution was to make the church less dependent on public entities such as nation and state and more dependent on private support, especially the good will of its members. This ecclesiology de-legitimated the national church and helped Kuyper justify his break with the church, but it had wider effects as well. It precipitated a change in his theology of baptism from a view of the instrumental efficacy of the sacrament to his later doctrine of presumptive regeneration wherein the external sacrament followed, rather than preceded and prepared for, the intenral work grace. This new ecclesiology also gave rise to his well-known public theology; once he achieved the private church he wanted, as the Netherlands' foremost public figure, he had to figure out how to make Christianity public again.

Bonhoeffer says spiritual care is a function of the congregation and that it is an aspect of the broader, more encompassing activity of proclamation. In Spiritual Care, we are confronted with the awesome truth that in speech God's presence is known and that speech is also our own; in silence God's presence is known and that silence is also our own. The text demands us to consider how the gospel message is brought to people in the midst of their personal lives, and his message and counsel use the tools given within the traditional life of the church so that such grace becomes enacted, enfleshed, and incarnate in the Christian community.

The Dublin stage of the Restoration and the 18th century has largely been dismissed as "West British" and its plays for the most part have been forgotten. This book examines the works by Protestant dramatists that reveal the complex alliance and fissures of Anglo-Irish society during the age of the Penal Laws. From Richard Head's Hic et Ubique (1663) to Mary O'Brien's The Fallen Patriot (1790), Wheatley shows how selected plays demonstrate that the Irish Protestants were far from a monolithic caste united by the shared interest of maintaining control over the Catholic majority. He traces the slow transition by which the English of Ireland came to think of themselves as Irish - without necessarily being prepared to allow Irish emancipation. Precisely because drama is the product of a complex interaction between text, company and audience, these plays reveal the many divergent factions and conflicting impulses that shaped Ireland between about 1660 and 1800, the traces of which remain in Irish society today. Beneath Ierne's Banners: Irish Protestant Drama of the Restoration and 18th Century offers an important picture of how these Protestant playwrights thought about the world, and is a valuable resource for Irish studies and drama scholars.

Power, Politics, and the Missouri Synod follows the rise of two Lutheran clergymen - Herman Otten and J. A. O. Preus - who led different wings of a conservative movement that seized control of a theologically conservative but socially and politically moderate church denomination (LCMS) and drove "moderates" from the church in the 1970s. The schism within what was then one of the largest Protestant denominations in the United States ultimately reshaped the landscape of American Lutheranism and fostered the polarization that characterizes today's Lutheran churches.