The apparent disappearance of mysticism in the Protestant world after the Reformation used to be taken as an example of the arrival of modernity. However, as recent studies in history and literary history reveal, the "Reformation" was not experienced in such a drastically transformative manner, not least because the later Middle Ages itself was marked by a series of reform movements within the Catholic Church in which mysticism played a central role. In Mysticism and Reform, 1400-1750, contributors show that it is more accurate to characterize the history of early modern mysticism as one in which relationships of continuity within transformations occurred. Rather than focus on the departures of the sixteenth-century Reformation from medieval traditions, the essays in this volume explore one of the most remarkable yet still under-studied chapters in its history: the survival and transformation of mysticism between the late Middle Ages and the early modern period. With a focus on central and northern Europe, the essays engage such subjects as the relationship of Luther to mystical writing, the visual representation of mystical experience in fifteenth- and sixteenth-century art, mystical sermons by religious women of the Low Countries, Valentin Weigel's recasting of Eckhartian gelassenheit for a Lutheran audience, and the mysticism of English figures such as Gertrude More, Jane Lead, Elizabeth Hooten, and John Austin, the German Catharina Regina von Greiffenberg, and the German American Marie Christine Sauer.

Essays and letters by Sasse written between 1927 and 1939 create a $$$ of a pastoral theologian.

Billy Graham's ministry is often described as a quintessentially American success story. However, by 1954, Billy Graham was bigger news in London than in Texas. Altar Call explores how Graham's encounters and perception in Europe shaped what was from the beginning on an international ministry. Graham was responsible for an unparalleled transformation of US evangelicalism in the second half of the twentieth century. He is also remembered as America's pastor-in-chief, having met with every US President since Harry S. Truman. But Graham's path to triumph was paved abroad. The revival meetings Graham held in London, Berlin, and New York in the 1950s provided lively fora for ministers, politicians, and ordinary Christians to imagine and experience the future of faith, the role of religion in the Cold War, and the intersections between faith and consumer culture in new ways. Graham challenged believers and religious leaders alike to re-position religion amidst the rise of consumerism, moral post-war regeneration, and cold-war tensions. At this confluence of anxieties and desires across the Atlantic, Graham's ministry revealed remarkably similar needs among the faithful and those yearning for renewal. It is the responses of Church leaders to this need, rather than inherent differences in religious sensitivities, that helps to explain the divergent paths to secularization between the US and its European allies, Germany and the UK.

The heart of this book lies in the important discovery that a pivotal Tudor argument in favor of the Royal Supremacy-the argument from Psalm 82 that earthly kings are 'gods' on this earth-is in fact Zwinglian in origin. This teaching from Psalm 82, which originated in Zurich in the mid-1520s, was soon used extensively in England to justify the Supremacy, and English evangelicals-from Tyndale to Cranmer-unanimously embraced this Protestant argument in their writings on political obedience. The discovery of this link shows conclusive, textual proof of the 'Zurich Connection' between Swiss political teachings and those popular under Tudor kings. This study argues, then, that evangelical attitudes towards royal authority were motivated by the assumption that Protestantism supported 'godly kingship' over against 'papal tyranny'. As such, it is the first monograph to find a vital connection between early Swiss Protestant similar teachings on obedience and later teachings by evangelicals.

Covering a vast geographical and chronological span, and bringing new and exciting material to light, The Reformation and the Visual Arts provides a unique overvie of religious images and iconoclasm, starting with the consequences of the Byzantine image controversy and ending with the Eastern Orthodox churches of the nineteenth century. The author argues that the image question played a large role in the divisions within European Protestantism and was intricately connected with the Eucharist controversy. He analyses the positions of the major Protestant reformers - Luther, Zwingli, Calvin and Karlstadt - on the legitimacy of religious paintings and investigates iconoclasm both as a form of religious and political protest and as a complex set of mock-revolutionary rites and denigration rituals. The book also contains new research on relations between Protestant iconoclasm and the extreme icon-worship of the Eastern Orthodox churches, and provides a brief discussion of Eastern protestantizing sects, especially in Russia.

eBook available with sample pages: 020341425X

Evangelical Protestantism in Ulster is the most influential and historically significant sector of Christianity in Northern Ireland. It is often associated only with the controversial figure of Ian Paisley, but this book includes fresh analysis of a spectrum of Evangelical opinion. Covering the period from Partition in 1921 to the 1998 Good Friday Agreement, Patrick Mitchel explores why and how Evangelical Christians are deeply divided over politics, national identity, and the current Peace Process. The result is an original and significant study that provides an invaluable guide to understanding both the past and contemporary mindset of Ulster Protestantism.

A textbook of Luther's political writings presented with careful attention to historical context, peer reveiwed by top scholars in the fields of political science and Reformation studies.

This is a detailed and scholarly account of religious belief and conflict in the strategically important province of Inner Austria between 1580 and 1630. Dr Pörtner analyses the aims, achievements, and shortcomings of the Habsburgs' confessional crusade in Styria, showing how although the progress of Protestantization was reversed, the Counter-Reformation left an ambivalent legacy to the modern Austrian state.

Volume 50 of the American Edition of Luther's Works is the third and final volume of letters in this series; it presents 89 letters written by Luther in the period from January 1532, to February 14, 1546, a date four days prior to Luther's death.

A Companion to German Pietism offers an introduction to recent Pietism scholarship on both sides of the Atlantic, in German, Dutch, and English. The focus is upon early modern German Pietism, a movement that arose in the late 17th century German Empire within both Reformed and Lutheran traditions. It introduced a new paradigm to German Protestantism that included personal renewal, new birth, women-dominated conventicles, and millennialism. The "Introduction" offers a concise overview of modern research into German Pietism. The Companion is then organized according to the different worlds of Pietist existence-intellectual, devotional, literary-cultural, and social-political.

The experience of the King's church in early America was shaped by the unfolding imperial policies of the English government after 1675. London-based civil and ecclesiastical officials supervised the extension and development of the church overseas. The recruitment, appointment and financial support of the ministers were guided by London officials. Transplanted to the New World without the traditional hierarchical structure of the church - no bishop served in the colonies during the colonial period at the time of the American Revolution - it was neither an English-American nor American-English church, yet it modified in a distinctive manner. instrument of imperial policy and an examination of: unfolding imperial policies of the Committee of Trade and Plantations that aided and supported the extension of the King's church overseas; the civil and ecclesiastical agencies and leaders that developed and implemented the policies for the development and supervision of the church in the American colonies; the financial support of the King's church in America; and the impact of the American Revolution on the King's church.

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 book offers an historical and comparative profile of classical pentecostal movements in Brazil and the United States in view of their migratory beginnings and transnational expansion. Pentecostalism's inception in the early twentieth century, particularly in its global South permutations, was defined by its grassroots character. In contrast to the top-down, hierarchical structure typical of Western forms of Christianity, the emergence of Latin American Pentecostalism embodied stability from the bottom up-among the common people. While the rise to prominence of the Assemblies of God in Brazil, the Western hemisphere's largest (non-Catholic) denomination, demanded structure akin to mainline contexts, classical pentecostals such as the Christian Congregation movement cling to their grassroots identity. Comparing the migratory and missional flow of movements with similar European and US roots, this book considers the prospects for classical Brazilian pentecostals with an eye on the problems of church growth and polity, gender, politics, and ethnic identity.

This book highlights the expansion of the influential Pentecostal Hillsong Church global megachurch network from Australia across global cities. Ethnographic research in Amsterdam and New York City shows that global cities harbor nodes in transnational religious networks in which media play a crucial role. By taking a lived religion approach, media is regarded as integral part of everyday practices of interaction, expression and consumption of religion. Key question raised is how processes of mediatization shape, alter and challenge this thriving cosmopolitan expression of Pentecostalism. Current debates in the study of religion are addressed: religious belonging and community in global cities; the interrelation between media technology, religious practices and beliefs; religion, media and social engagement in global cities; media and emerging modes of religious leadership and authority. In this empirical study, pressing societal issues like institutional responses to sexual abuse of children, views on gender roles, misogyny and mediated constructions of femininity are discussed.

Approximately 2,500 Anabaptists were martyred in sixteenth- and early seventeenth-century Europe. Their surviving brethren compiled stories of those who suffered and died for the faith into martyr books. The most historically and culturally significant of these, The Bloody Theater-more commonly known as Martyrs Mirror-was assembled by the Dutch Mennonite minister Thieleman van Braght and published in 1660. Today, next to the Bible, it is the single most important text to Anabaptists-Amish, Mennonites, and Hutterites. In some Anabaptist communities, it is passed to new generations as a wedding or graduation gift. David L. Weaver-Zercher combines the fascinating history of Martyrs Mirror with a detailed analysis of Anabaptist life, religion, and martyrdom. He traces the publication, use, and dissemination of this key martyrology across nearly four centuries and explains why it holds sacred status in contemporary Amish and Mennonite households. Even today, the words and deeds of these martyred Christians are referenced in sermons, Sunday school lessons, and history books. Weaver-Zercher argues that Martyrs Mirror was designed to teach believers how to live a proper Christian life. In van Braght's view, accounts of the martyrs helped to remind readers of the things that mattered, thus inspiring them to greater faithfulness. Martyrs Mirror remains a tool of revival, offering new life to the communities and people who read it by revitalizing Anabaptist ideals and values. Meticulously researched and illustrated with sketches from early publications of Martyrs Mirror, Weaver-Zercher's ambitious history weaves together the existing scholarship on this iconic text in an accessible and engaging way.

While much has been written on the connections between Lollardy and the Reformation, this collection of essays is the first detailed and satisfactory interpretation of many aspects of the problem. Margaret Aston shows how Protestant Reformers derived encouragement from their predecessors, while interpreting Lollards in the light of their own faith.
This highly readable book makes an important contribution to the history of the Reformation, bringing to life the men and women of a movement interesting for its own sake and for the light it sheds on the religious and intellectual history of the period.

The cultural conflict that increasingly divides American society is particularly evident within Protestant Christianity. Liberals and evangelicals clash in bitter competition for the future of their respective subcultures. In this book, James Wellman examines this conflict as it is played out in the American Northwest.
Drawing on an in-depth study of twenty-four of the area's fastest-growing evangelical churches and ten vital liberal Protestant congregations, Wellman captures the leading trends of each group and their interaction with the wider American culture. He finds a remarkable depth of disagreement between the two groups on almost every front.
Where evangelicals are willing to draw sharp lines on gay marriage and abortion, liberals complain about evangelical self-righteousness and disregard for personal freedoms. Liberals prefer the moral power of inclusiveness, while evangelicals frame their moral stances as part of a metaphysical struggle between good and evil. The entrepreneurial nature of evangelicalism translates into support of laissez-faire capitalism and democratic political advocacy. Liberals view both policies with varying degrees of apprehension. Such differences are significant on a national scale, with implications for the future of American Protestantism in particular and American culture in general.
Both groups act in good faith and with good intentions, and each maintains a moral core that furthers its own identity, ideology, ritual, mission, and politics. In some situations, they share similar attitudes despite having different beliefs. Attending church services and interviewing senior pastors, lay leaders and new members, Wellman is able toprovide new insights into the convenient categories of "liberal" and "evangelical," the nature of the conflict, and the myriad ways both groups affect and are affected by American culture.