Fundamentally revising our understanding of the nature and intellectual contours of early English Protestantism, Karl Gunther argues that sixteenth-century English evangelicals were calling for reforms and envisioning godly life in ways that were far more radical than have hitherto been appreciated. Typically such ideas have been seen as later historical developments, associated especially with radical Puritanism, but Gunther's work draws attention to their development in the earliest decades of the English Reformation. Along the way, the book offers new interpretations of central episodes in this period of England's history, such as the 'Troubles at Frankfurt' under Mary and the Elizabethan vestments controversy. By shedding new light on early English Protestantism, the book ultimately casts the later development of Puritanism in a new light, enabling us to re-situate it in a history of radical Protestant thought that reaches back to the beginnings of the English Reformation itself.

Sanctification is a central theme in the theology of both John and Charles Wesley. However, while John's theology of sanctification has received much scholarly attention, significantly less has been paid to Charles' views on the subject. This book redresses this imbalance by using Charles' many poetic texts as a window into his rich theological thought on sanctification, particularly uncovering the role of resignation in the development of his views on this key doctrine. In this analysis of Charles' theology of sanctification, the centrality he accorded to resignation is uncovered to show a positive attribute involving acts of intention, desire and offering to God. The book begins by putting Charles' position in the context of contemporary theology, and then shows how he differed in attitude from his brother John. It then discusses in depth how his hymns use the concept of resignation, both in relation to Jesus Christ and the believer. It concludes this analysis by identifying the ways in which Charles understood the relationship between resignation and sanctification; namely, that resignation is a lens through which Charles views holiness. The final chapter considers the implications of these conclusions for a twenty-first century theological and spiritual context, and asks whether resignation is still a concept which can be used today. This book breaks new ground in the understanding of Charles Wesley's personal theology. As such, it will be of significant interest to scholars of Methodism and the Wesleys as well as those working in theology, spirituality, and the history of religion.

This major new study is an exploration of the Elizabethan Puritan movement through the eyes of its most determined and relentless opponent, Richard Bancroft, later Archbishop of Canterbury. It analyses his obsession with the perceived threat to the stability of the church and state presented by the advocates of radical presbyterian reform. The book forensically examines Bancroft's polemical tracts and archive of documents and letters, casting important new light on religious politics and culture. Focussing on the ways in which anti-Puritanism interacted with Puritanism, it also illuminates the process by which religious identities were forged in the early modern era. The final book of Patrick Collinson, the pre-eminent historian of sixteenth-century England, this is the culmination of a lifetime of seminal work on the English Reformation and its ramifications.

short description: A translation of the major texts produced by Luther in the critical years of the Reformation, covering the period from the Wittenberg disputation of 1517 to the period after the Diet of Worms in 1521, and including many of his most important writings.

This book examines Protestant loss of power and self-confidence in Ireland since 1795. David Fitzpatrick charts 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 appeal 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.

The dual biography of two remarkable women - Catherine Parr and Anne Askew. One was the last queen of a powerful monarch, the second a countrywoman from Lincolnshire. But they were joined together in their love for the new learning - and their adherence to Protestantism threatened both their lives. Both women wrote about their faith, and their writings are still with us. Powerful men at court sought to bring Catherine down, and used Anne Askew's notoriety as a weapon in that battle. Queen Catherine Parr survived, while Anne Askew, the only woman to be racked, was burned to death. This book explores their lives, and the way of life for women from various social strata in Tudor England.

In 1974 nearly 3,000 evangelicals from 150 nations met at the Lausanne Congress on World Evangelization. Amidst this cosmopolitan setting -and in front of the most important white evangelical leaders of the United States -members of the Latin American Theological Fraternity spoke out against the American Church. Fiery speeches by Ecuadorian Rene Padilla and Peruvian Samuel Escobar revealed a global weariness with what they described as an American style of coldly efficient mission wedded to a myopic, right-leaning politics. Their bold critiques electrified Christians from around the world. The dramatic growth of Christianity around the world in the last century has shifted the balance of power within the faith away from traditional strongholds in Europe and the United States. To be sure, evangelical populists who voted for Donald Trump have resisted certain global pressures, and Western missionaries have carried Christian Americanism abroad. But the line of influence has also run the other way. David R. Swartz demonstrates that evangelicals in the Global South spoke back to American evangelicals on matters of race, imperialism, theology, sexuality, and social justice. From the left, they pushed for racial egalitarianism, ecumenism, and more substantial development efforts. From the right, they advocated for a conservative sexual ethic grounded in postcolonial logic. As Christian immigration to the United States burgeoned in the wake of the Immigration Act of 1965, global evangelicals forced many American Christians to think more critically about their own assumptions. The United States is just one node of a sprawling global network that includes Korea, India, Switzerland, the Philippines, Guatemala, Uganda, and Thailand. Telling stories of resistance, accommodation, and cooperation, Swartz shows that evangelical networks not only go out to, but also come from, the ends of the earth.

Originally published in 1941, this book was originally intended as a popular guide to the Scottish Prayer Book. Perry explains the services in the order in which they appear in the Prayer Book while simultaneously attempting 'to justify the truths embodied in them'. This book will be of value to anyone with an interest in the history of Scottish Protestantism.

In this remarkable work in Atlantic history, Jorge Canizares-Esguerra demonstrates with lavish scholarship and visual imagery the European settlers' struggle with Satanic forces that permeated the colonization and settlement of Europeans, both Hispanic and British, in the Western Hemisphere. He explores the epical narratives written in Spanish, Latin, and English, of that deeply embedded struggle, and shows how Christians in America thereafter fought to preserve a spiritual "garden" free of demonic forces. The struggle he describes in this original and challenging book, experienced by Christians of the time as heroic and inescapable, was an essential part of Atlantic history in the years of its early development.--Bernard Bailyn, Harvard University
"Recent scholarship on early modern Europe has shown how, contrary to the sharp contrasts of historical folklore, the Protestant and Catholic Reformations dreamed comparable dreams, and promoted comparable forms of political, economic, and social development. Now Professor Canizares-Esguerra completes the picture for the Americas of roughly the same era; in a book notable for skillful deployment of a rich visual material, he shows how Spanish and Puritan clerics, at opposite ends of a mutual anathema, dreamed comparable dreams, and shared common fears of an advancing kingdom of the devil."--James Tracy, University of Minnesota

This book offers a creative and illuminating discussion of Protestant theology. Veteran teacher Phillip Cary explains how Luther's theology arose from the Christian tradition, particularly from the spirituality of Augustine. Luther departed from the Augustinian tradition and inaugurated distinctively Protestant theology when he identified the gospel that gives us Christ as its key concept. More than any other theologian, Luther succeeds in carrying out the Protestant intention of putting faith in the gospel of Christ alone. Cary also explores the consequences of Luther's teachings as they unfold in the history of Protestantism.

Congregational Music, Conflict and Community is the first study of the music of the contemporary 'worship wars' - conflicts over church music that continue to animate and divide Protestants today - to be based on long-term in-person observation and interviews. It tells the story of the musical lives of three Canadian Mennonite congregations, who sang together despite their musical differences at the height of these debates in the late 1990s and early 2000s. Mennonites are among the most music-centered Christian groups in North America, and each congregation felt deeply about the music they chose as their own. The congregations studied span the spectrum from traditional to blended to contemporary worship styles, and from evangelical to liberal Protestant theologies. At their core, the book argues, worship wars are not fought in order to please congregants' musical tastes nor to satisfy the theological principles held by a denomination. Instead, the relationships and meanings shaped through individuals' experiences singing in the particular ways afforded by each style of worship are most profoundly at stake in the worship wars. As such, this book will be of keen interest to scholars working across the fields of religious studies and ethnomusicology.

In The Rise and Fall of Protestant Brooklyn, Stuart M. Blumin and Glenn C. Altschuler tell the story of nineteenth-century Brooklyn's domination by upper- and middle-class Protestants with roots in Puritan New England. This lively history describes the unraveling of the control they wielded as more ethnically diverse groups moved into the "City of Churches" during the twentieth century. Before it became a prime American example of urban ethnic diversity, Brooklyn was a lovely and salubrious "town across the river" from Manhattan, celebrated for its churches and upright suburban living. But challenges to this way of life issued from the sheer growth of the city, from new secular institutions-department stores, theaters, professional baseball-and from the licit and illicit attractions of Coney Island, all of which were at odds with post-Puritan piety and behavior. Despite these developments, the Yankee-Protestant hegemony largely held until the massive influx of Southern and Eastern European immigrants in the twentieth century. As The Rise and Fall of Protestant Brooklyn demonstrates, in their churches, synagogues, and other communal institutions, and on their neighborhood streets, the new Brooklynites established the ethnic mosaic that laid the groundwork for the theory of cultural pluralism, giving it a central place within the American Creed.

Originally published in 1932, this book presents an account of the connections between Jansenism and Britain. Using a broad range of material, the text discusses the various ways in which British people came into contact with Jansenism, both at home and abroad. Illustrative figures, a chronology and bibliography are also included. This book will be of value to anyone with an interest in Jansenism and European history.

The first history of the deaconess movement in the United States In the late nineteenth century, a new movement arose within American Protestant Christianity. Unsalaried groups of women began living together, wearing plain dress, and performing nursing, teaching, and other works of welfare. Modeled after the lifestyles of Catholic nuns, these women became America's first deaconesses. Sanctified Sisters,the first history of the deaconess movement in the United States, traces its origins in the late nineteenth century through to its present manifestations. Drawing on archival research, demographic surveys, and material culture evidence, Jenny Wiley Legath offers new insights into who the deaconesses were, how they lived, and what their legacy has been for women in Protestant Christianity. The book argues that the deaconess movement enabled Protestant women-particularly single women-to gain power in a male-dominated Protestant world. They created hundreds of new institutions within Protestantism and created new roles for women within the church. While some who study women's ordination draw a line from the deaconesses' work to the struggle for women's ordination in various branches of Protestant Christianity, Legath argues that most deaconesses were not interested in ordination. Yet, while they didn't mean to, they did end up providing a foundation for today's ordination debates. Their very existence worked to open the possibility of ecclesiastically authorized women's agency.

Originally published in 1913, this book presents a study of the effect of the Puritan Revolution upon the Church of England and the Universities, as institutions closely connected with the Church. The text focuses on the immediate and material results of the Revolution, rather than the influence exercised upon religious thought, the future history of parties within the Church or the relations of the Church to Dissent. Evidence is collected regarding the methods through which the Revolution was accomplished and the outward aspects of the Puritan movement. Appendices are also included. This book will be of value to anyone with an interest in Puritanism, British history and the history of Christianity.

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"This is a timely book about the tortuous journey of biblical feminism in our time. The book will sober its own constituencies while also contributing to the ongoing analysis of contemporary American religion and gender."
--Marie Griffith, author of "God's Daughters: Evangelical Women and the Power of Submission"

"Pamela Cochran interweaves two engaging stories in this carefully researched study, both of which are vitally important to our understanding of American evangelicalism. One story is about the small cadre of feminist leaders within evangelicalism who struggled heroically against the tide of rising political conservatism and male dominance. The other is about evangelicalism's often unwitting embrace of biblical hermeneutics, therapeutic individualism, and consumerism, and its difficulties in adapting to an increasingly pluralistic culture. Scholars in religious studies, history, and the social sciences will benefit greatly from reading this book."
--Robert Wuthnow, author of "Saving America?: Faith-Based Services and the Future of Civil Society"

"A valuable book that tells a story that is obscured amid the thunderous and simplifying voices that dominate public discussion of religion and gender politics."
--"Altar Magazine"

"Finally! Cochran's Evangelical Feminism provides a detailed analysis of the articulation of egalitarianism and feminist ideas--and their opponents--in evangelical organizations, theological debates and leadership in the 1970s and 1980s. A welcome addition to the field."
--Sally K. Gallagher, author of "Evangelical Identity and Gendered Family Life"

"Cochran intends herconcrete analysis of the split among evangelical feminists to exemplify larger themes in the story of American religious life, including inclusivity, anti-institutionalism, individualism, voluntarism, and populism. This text would make a worthy addition to women's studies collections and to theological libraries." --"Choice"

For most people, the terms "evangelical" and "feminism" are contradictory. "Evangelical" invokes images of conservative Christians known for their strict interpretation of the Bible, as well as their support of social conservatism and traditional gender roles. So how could an evangelical support feminism, a movement that seeks, at its most basic level, to redress the inequalities, injustice, and discrimination that women face because of their sex?

Evangelical Feminism offers the first history of the evangelical feminist movement. It traces the emergence and theological development of biblical feminism within evangelical Christianity in the 1970s, how an internal split among members of the movement came about over the question of lesbianism, and what these developments reveal about conservative Protestantism and religion generally in contemporary America.

Cochran shows that biblical feminists have been at the center of changes both within evangelicalism and in American culture more broadly by renegotiating the religious symbols which shape its deepest values.

Winner of the 2013 Christianity Today Book Award for Theology / Ethics
Scholars and laypersons alike regard Jonathan Edwards (1703-58) as North America's greatest theologian. The Theology of Jonathan Edwards is the most comprehensive survey of his theology yet produced and the first study to make full use of the recently-completed seventy-three-volume online edition of the Works of Jonathan Edwards. The book's forty-five chapters examine all major aspects of Edwards's thought and include in-depth discussions of the extensive secondary literature on Edwards as well as Edwards's own writings. Its opening chapters set out Edwards's historical and personal theological contexts. The next thirty chapters connect Edwards's theological loci in the temporally-ordered way in which he conceptualized the theological enterprise-beginning with the triune God in eternity with his angels to the history of redemption as an expression of God's inner reality ad extra, and then back to God in eschatological glory.
The authors analyze such themes as aesthetics, metaphysics, typology, history of redemption, revival, and true virtue. They also take up such rarely-explored topics as Edwards's missiology, treatment of heaven and angels, sacramental thought, public theology, and views of non-Christian religions. Running throughout the volume are what the authors identify as five basic theological constituents: trinitarian communication, creaturely participation, necessitarian dispositionalism, divine priority, and harmonious constitutionalism. Later chapters trace his influence on and connections with later theologies and philosophies in America and Europe. The result is a multi-layered analysis that treats Edwards as a theologian for the twenty-first-century global Christian community, and a bridge between the Christian West and East, Protestantism and Catholicism, conservatism and liberalism, and charismatic and non-charismatic churches.

This book is the first systematic attempt to describe a coherent and comprehensive Anglican understanding of Church. Rather than focusing on one school of thought, Dr Locke unites under one ecclesiological umbrella the seemingly disparate views that have shaped Anglican reflections on Church. He does so by exploring three central historical developments: (1) the influence of Protestantism; (2) the Anglican defence of episcopacy; and (3) the development of the Anglican practice of authority. Dr Locke demonstrates how the interaction of these three historical influences laid the foundations of an Anglican understanding of Church that continues to guide and shape Anglican identity. He shows how this understanding of Church has shaped recent Anglican ecumenical dialogues with Reformed, Lutheran, Orthodox and Roman Catholic Churches. Drawing on the principle that dialogue with those who are different can lead to greater self-understanding and self-realization, Dr Locke demonstrates that Anglican self-identity rests on firmer ecclesiological foundations than is sometimes supposed.

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athis book of offers a degree of courageous moral engagement that builds at least a tenuous bridge across the cultural divide.a
--Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion

a Nelson has given us a wonderfully intimate glimpse into how rituals and belief animate the religious experiences of black-southerners. This is an important work that will challenge scholars of religion and race to rethink the nature of religious experience.a
--American Journal of Sociology

"Nelson reveals the spiritual lives of black Southerners like few authors before him. In beautifully written and theoretically engaging prose, the ritual experience of low country worshippers emerges in rich and compelling detail. This book will surely deepen our understanding of power and authority in African American religious life."
--Marla Frederick, author of "Between Sundays: Black Women and Everyday Struggles of Faith"

"A very welcome book, not just for what we learn about one African American congregation, but for its reminder of what it means to see the world with religious eyes. Nelson's guided tour of a Charleston, South Carolina, pentecostal AME church is both enlightening and elegantly written. This book will shift the terms of debate about the role of ritual and experience in American religious life."
--Jim Spickard, University of Redlands

Dreams and visions, prophetic words from God about "dusty souls," speaking in tongues while "in the spirit"--narratives of these and similar events comprise the heart of Every Time I Feel the Spirit. This in-depth study of a Black congregation in Charleston, South Carolina provides a window intothe tremendously important yet still largely overlooked world of African American religion as the faith is lived by ordinary believers.

For decades, scholars have been preoccupied with the relation between Black Christianity, civil rights, and social activism. Every Time I Feel the Spirit is about black religion as religion. It focuses on the everyday experience of religion in the church, congregants' relationships with God, and the role that God and Satan play in congregants' lives--not only as objects of belief but as actual agents. It explores the concepts of religious experience and religious ritual, while emphasizing the attributions that people make to the operation of spiritual forces and beings in their lives.

Through interviews and field work, Nelson uncovers what religious people themselves see as important about their faith while extending and refining sociological understandings of religious ritual and religious experience.

View the Table of Contents. Read the Preface.

"A timely analysis of a religious movement that is quietly exercising enormous political influence today. Shuck's careful reading of LaHaye's troubling vision establishes unexpected connections with the leading edge of contemporary network culture."
--Mark C. Taylor, author of About Religion: Economies of Faith in Virtual Culture

"With this book, Glenn W. Shuck establishes himself as one of the foremost scholars of American evangelical Christianity. This work is both wonderfully written and creative. Based on Shuck's even-handed and insightful analysis, the reader learns about the meaning and astonishing popularity of books about end times, especially the Left Behind series. Marks of the Beast provides a dynamic lens into the meaning of religion in modern times."
--Michael O. Emerson, Director, Du Bois Center for the Advanced Study of Religion and Race, University of Notre Dame "A provocative study."
--"Berkshire Eagle""Well-researched work employing sociological, literary, and theological perspectives."--"Choice"

The "Left Behind" series by Tim LaHaye and Jerry B. Jenkins has become a popular culture phenomenon, selling an astonishing 40 million copies to date. These novels, written by two well-known evangelical Christians, depict the experiences of those "left behind" in the aftermath of the Rapture, when Christ removes true believers, leaving everyone else to suffer seven years of Tribulation under Satan's proxy, Antichrist.

In Marks of the Beast, Shuck uncovers the reasons behind the books' unprecedented appeal, assessing why the novels have achieved a status within the evangelical community even greater than HalLindsey's 1970 blockbuster "The Late Great Planet Earth," It also explores what we can learn from them about evangelical Christianity in America.

Shuck finds that, ironically, the series not only reflects contemporary trends within conservative evangelicalism but also encourages readers--especially evangelicals--to embrace solutions that enact, rather than engage, their fears. Most strikingly, he shows how the ultimate vision put forth by the series' authors inadvertently undermines itself as the series unfolds.

In Understanding Your Mormon Neighbor, Ross Anderson seeks to help Christians relate to Latter-day Saints by giving insights into Mormon life and culture. Anderson's work is supported both by his lifetime of experiences growing up Mormon and by current research that utilizes many Latter-day Saints' own sources. This book explains the core stories that form the Mormon worldview, shares the experiences that shape the community identity of Mormonism, and shows how Mormons understand truth. Anderson shares how most Mormons see themselves and others around them, illuminating why people join the LDS Church and why many eventually leave. Latter-day Saints will find the descriptions of their values, practices, and experiences both credible and familiar. Understanding Your Mormon Neighbor suggests how Christians can befriend Latter-day Saints with confidence and sensitivity and share the grace of God wisely within their relationships. Anderson includes discussion questions for individuals and small groups, black and white photographs and charts, and an appendix that includes 'Are Mormons Christians?' and 'Should I Vote for a Mormon?'

The story of Adam and Eve, ubiquitous in the art and literature of the period, played a central role in the religious controversies of sixteenth-century Europe. This is the first book to explore stories about Adam and Eve in German Lutheran areas and to analyze their place in Lutheran culture and identity. Kathleen Crowther examines Lutheran versions of the story of Adam and Eve in bibles, commentaries, devotional tracts, sermons, plays, poems, medical and natural history texts, and woodcut images. Her research identifies how Lutheran storytellers differentiated their unique versions of the story from those of their medieval predecessors and their Catholic and Calvinist contemporaries. She also explores the appeal of the story of Adam and Eve to Lutherans as a means to define, defend and disseminate their distinctive views on human nature, original sin, salvation, marriage, family, gender relations and social order.

First published in 1952, this book was based upon extensive close reading of the minute books preserved by the Protestant Dissenting Deputies from their inception in 1732 onwards. The group, also known as the Deputies of the Three Congregations, was made up of 21 elected laymen from the London congregations of the Presbyterians, Congregationalists and Baptists, having the express purpose of protecting the civil rights of Protestant dissenters. The text forms a historical study of the Deputies, providing detailed information on their role in the passing of legislation, as well as their place within the broader currents of British society. Appendices and detailed notes are also contained. This book will be of value to anyone with an interest in the Deputies and the history of Protestant dissent.

Originally published in 1938, this book presents a social history of eighteenth-century elementary education. The main focus is on the different reactions of philanthropists in England, Scotland, Ireland and Wales to the movement for establishing schools on a religious basis for the children of the poor. Intended to draw attention to an often marginalised area, the text provides a detailed analysis of the ideologies behind charity schools and the various difficulties they encountered. A detailed bibliography, appendices and illustrative figures are also included. This book will be of value to anyone with an interest in eighteenth-century history and the role of charity schools in the development of education.