In recent years there has been a flowering of interest in the work of Jonathan Edwards. In the last decade this has been encouraged by the publication of many previously unavailable manuscripts, in the Yale edition of Edwards' works. In the same period there has been some interest in the New England theology inspired by Edwards' work, which dominated much of American theology in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. However, the interest in New England Theology has been much less pronounced than that expressed in the work of Edwards. This is strange given the influence of New England Theology and the ways in which the theologians of this movement developed and expressed broadly Edwardsian themes. After Jonathan Edwards offers a reassessment of the New England Theology in light of the work of Jonathan Edwards. Scholars who have made important contributions to our understanding of Edwards are brought together with scholars of New England theology and early American history to produce a groundbreaking examination of the ways in which New England Theology flourished, how themes in Edwards' thought were taken up and changed by representatives of the school, and its lasting influence on the shape of American Christianity.

The Protestant conviction that believers would rise again, in bodily form, after death, shaped their attitudes towards personal and religious identity, community, empire, progress, race, and the environment. In To Walk the Earth Again Christopher Trigg explores the political dimension of Anglo-American Protestant writing about the future resurrection of the dead, examining texts written between the seventeenth and mid-nineteenth centuries. By reading histories, epic poetry, funeral sermons, and scientific tracts alongside works of eschatological exegesis, Trigg challenges the conventional scholarly assumption that Protestantism's rejection of purgatory prepared the way for the individualization and secularization of Western attitudes towards mortality. Puritans, Anglicans, Quakers, and radicals looked to resurrection to understand their communities' prospects in the uncertain terrain of colonial America. Their belief that political identities and religious duties did not expire with their mortal bodies but were carried over into the next life shaped their positions on a wide variety of issues, including the limits of ecclesiastical and civil power, the relationship of humanity to the natural world, and the emerging rhetoric of racial difference. In the early national and antebellum periods, secular and Christian reformers drew on the idea of resurrection to imagine how American republicanism might transform society and politics and ameliorate the human form itself. By taking early modern Protestant beliefs seriously, Trigg unfolds new perspectives on their mutually constitutive visions of earthly and resurrected existence.

Shows that a religious understanding of illness and health persisted well into post-Enlightenment early America The COVID-19 pandemic has demonstrated the power of narrative during times of sickness and disease. As Americans strive to find meaning amid upheaval and loss, some consider the nature of God's will. Early American Protestants experienced similar struggles as they attempted to interpret the diseases of their time. In this groundbreaking work, Philippa Koch explores the doctrine of providence-a belief in a divine plan for the world-and its manifestations in eighteenth-century America, from its origins as a consoling response to sickness to how it informed the practices of Protestant activity in the Atlantic world. Drawing on pastoral manuals, manuscript memoirs, journals, and letters, as well as medical treatises, epidemic narratives, and midwifery manuals, Koch shows how Protestant teachings around providence shaped the lives of believers even as the Enlightenment seemed to portend a more secular approach to the world and the human body. Their commitment to providence prompted, in fact, early Americans' active engagement with the medical developments of their time, encouraging them to see modern science and medicine as divinely bestowed missionary tools for helping others. Indeed, the book shows that the ways in which the colonial world thought about questions of God's will in sickness and health help to illuminate the continuing power of Protestant ideas and practices in American society today.

Based on interview material with a wide range of Protestant clergy in Northern Ireland, this book examines how Protestant identity impacts on the possibility of peace and stability and argues for greater involvement by the Protestant churches in the transition from conflict to a 'post-conflict' Northern Ireland.

Once a vibrant part of religious life for many Pennsylvania Germans in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, Fraktur manuscripts today are primarily studied for their decorative qualities. The Word in the Wilderness takes a different view, probing these documents for what they tell us about the lived religious experiences of the Protestant communities that made and used them and opening avenues for reinterpretation of this well-known, if little understood, set of cultural artifacts. The resplendent illuminated religious manuscripts commonly known as Fraktur have captivated collectors and scholars for generations. Yet fundamental questions about their cultural origins, purpose, and historical significance remain. Alexander Lawrence Ames addresses these by placing Fraktur manuscripts within a "Pietist paradigm," grounded in an understanding of how their makers viewed "the Word," or scripture. His analysis combines a sweeping overview of Protestant Christian religious movements in Europe and early America with close analysis of key Pennsylvania devotional manuscripts, revealing novel insights into the religious utility of calligraphy, manuscript illumination, and devotional reading as Protestant spiritual enterprises. Situating the manuscripts in the context of transatlantic religious history, early American spirituality, material culture studies, and the history of book and manuscript production, Ames challenges long-held approaches to Pennsylvania German studies and urges scholars to engage with these texts and with their makers and users on their own terms. Featuring dozens of illustrations, this lively, engaging book will appeal to Fraktur scholars and enthusiasts, historians of early America, and anyone interested in the material culture and spiritual practices of the German-speaking residents of Pennsylvania.

The Ottoman Syrians - residents of modern Syria and Lebanon - formed the first Arabic-speaking Evangelical Church in the region. This book offers a fresh narrative of the encounters of this minority Protestant community with American missionaries, Eastern churches and Muslims at the height of the Nahda, from 1860 to 1915.

The home of Martin Luther for thirty six years and seat of the German Reformation, Wittenberg, Germany is now a UNESCO World Heritage site. Wittenberg has long been Protestant sacred space, but since the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989, the city and surrounding region have been developing their considerable cultural capital. Today, Wittenberg is host to two large-scale annual Luther-themed festivals, and is becoming a center for pilgrimage and heritage tourism. In a recent study, Charles Taylor notes that festivity is experiencing a renaissance as "one of the new forms of religion in our world." Festivals and pilgrimage routes are an integral part of contemporary religion and spirituality, and important cultural institutions in a globalized world. In Performing the Reformation, Stephenson offers a field-based case study of contemporary festivity and pilgrimage in the City of Luther. Welcome to Lutherland, where atheists dress up as monks and nuns for Luther's Wedding; conservative Lutherans work to sacralize the secular, carnival-like festivities; and medieval players, American Gospel singers, and Peruvian pan flute bands compete for the attention of the bustling crowds. Festivals and tourism in Wittenberg include a range of performative genres (parades and processions, liturgies and concerts, music and dance), cut across multiple cultural domains (religion, politics, economics), and effect connections and shifts among identities (religious, secular, American, German, traditional, postmodern). Incorporating visual methodologies and grounded in historical and social contexts, Stephenson provides an on-the-ground account of the annual Luther's Wedding Festival, the Reformation Day Festival, and Lutheran pilgrimage. He also brings his case study into dialogue with important methodological and theoretical issues informing the fields of ritual studies and performance studies. A model of interdisciplinary research, the book includes a DVD with over 2.5 hours of material, extending and animating textual accounts and interpretations.

If one is saved by faith alone in Jesus Christ, then what is the origin of that faith? Is it a preordained gift of God to elect individuals, or is some measure of human free choice involved?
The debate over the relation between election and free will has a central place in the study of Reformation theology. Phillipp Melanchthon's reputation as the intellectual founder of Lutheranism has tended to obscure the differences between the mature doctrinal positions of Melanchthon and Martin Luther on this key issue. Gregory Graybill charts the progression of Melanchthon's position on free will and divine predestination as he shifts from agreement to an important innovation upon Luther's thought.
Initially Melanchthon concurred with Luther that the human will is completely bound by sin, and that the choice of faith can flow only from God's unilateral grace. Over time, this understanding caused Melanchthon increasing concern. The problem of its eternal implications for those whom God has not chosen, and its pastoral implications for believers, combined with Melanchthon's own intellectual aversion to paradox and prompted him to continue developing his ideas.
Melanchthon came to believe that the human will does play a key role in the origins of a saving faith in Jesus Christ. This was not the Roman Catholic free will of Erasmus, rather it was belief in a limited free will tied to justification by faith alone; an evangelical free will.

A richly documented study of the interrelation between religious reformation and territorial state-building in the German region of upper Franconia from the later Middle Ages through the Confessional era. Religious reform and the rise of the territorial state were the central features of early modern German history. Reformation and state-building, however, had a much longer history, beginning in the later Middle Ages and continuingthrough the early modern period. In this insightful new study, Smith explores the key relationship between the rise of the territorial state and religious upheavals of the age, centering his investigation on the diocese of Bamberg in upper Franconia. During the Reformation, the diocese was split in half: the parishes in the domains of the Franconian Hohenzollerns became Lutheran; those under the secular jurisdiction of the bishops of Bamberg remainedCatholic. Drawing from a broad range of archival sources, Smith offers a compelling look at the origins and course of Catholic and Protestant reform. He examines the major religious crises of the period -- the Great Schism, the Conciliar Movement, the Hussite War, the Peasant's War, the Thirty Years' War, and the Witch Craze -- comparing their impact on the two states and showing how events played out on the local, territorial, and imperial stages. Careful analysis of the sources reveals how religious beliefs shaped politics in the emerging territorial principalities, explaining both the similarities as well as the profound differences between Lutheran and Catholic conceptions ofthe state. William Bradford Smith is Professor of History at Oglethorpe University.

'His finest work and one that was both symptom and engine of the concept of "history from below" ... Here Levellers, Diggers, Ranters, Muggletonians, the early Quakers and others taking advantage of the collapse of censorship to bid for new kinds of freedom were given centre stage' Times Higher Education In 'The World Turned Upside Down' Christopher Hill studies the beliefs of such radical groups as the Diggers, the Ranters, the Levellers and others, and the social and emotional impulses that gave rise to them. The relations between rich and poor classes, the part played by wandering 'masterless' men, the outbursts of sexual freedom, the great imaginative creations of Milton and Bunyan - these and many other elements build up into a marvellously detailed and coherent portrait of this strange, sudden effusion of revolutionary beliefs. 'Established the concept of an "English Revolution" every bit as significant and potentially as radical as its French and Russian equivalents' Daily Telegraph 'Brilliant ... marvellous erudition and sympathy' David Caute, New Statesman 'This book will outlive our time and will stand as a notable monument to the man, the committed radical scholar, and one of the finest historians of the age' The Times Literary Supplement 'The dean and paragon of English historians' E.P. Thompson

Max Weber is best known as one of the founders of modern sociology and the author of the Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism, but he also made important contributions to modern political and democratic theory. In Democracy and the Political in Max Weber's Thought, Terry Maley explores, through a detailed analysis of Weber's writings, the intersection of recent work on Weber and on democratic theory, bridging the gap between these two rapidly expanding areas of scholarship.Maley critically examines how Weber's realist 'model' of democracy defines and constrains the possibilities for democratic agency in modern liberal-democracies. Maley also looks at how ideas of historical time and memory are constructed in his writings on religion, bureaucracy, and the social sciences. Democracy and the Political in Max Weber's Thought is both an accessible introduction to Weber's political thought and a spirited defense of its continued relevance to debates on democracy.

Auch Erlebnis- und Kampfbilder beeinflussen Beschreibung und Deutung der 'Kirchlichen Zeitgeschichte'. Von einer theologienahen, selbstrechtfertigenden Erforschung des 'Kirchenkampfes' hin zu einer historisch-kritischen Rekonstruktion des protestantischen Milieus: Dieses heute vor allem von Allgemeingeschichtlern vertretene Forschungsziel eroeffnet neue Wege zur Wahrnehmung und Interpretation einer vor allem fur den Protestantismus schwierigen Zeit. Es enthalt aber auch die Erkennen und Verstehen beeintrachtigenden Vorannahmen und Defizite, die hier - auch unter Einbeziehung der christlichen Studentenverbindung 'Wingolf' - durch eine Untersuchung des sich bis in die Gegenwart auswirkenden Verhaltnisses von Politik und Religionskultur in Hessen und Nassau bearbeitet werden.

Drawing on both Canadian and Japanese sources, this book investigates the life, work, and attitudes of Canadian Protestant missionaries in Japan, Korea, and Taiwan (the three main constituent parts of the pre-1945 Japanese empire) from the arrival of the first Canadian missionary in East Asia in 1872 until 1931. Canadian missionaries made a significant contribution to the development of the Protestant movement in the Japanese Empire. Yet their influence also extended far beyond the Christian sphere. Through their educational, social, and medical work; their role in introducing new Western ideas and social pursuits; and their outspoken criticism of the brutalities of Japanese rule in colonial Korea and Taiwan, the activities of Canadian missionaries had an impact on many different facets of society and culture in the Japanese Empire. Missionaries residing in the Japanese Empire served as a link between citizens of Japan and Canada and acted as trusted interpreters of things Japanese to their home constituents.

Based on unprecedented access to the Order's internal documents, this book provides the first systematic social history of the Orange Order - the Protestant association dedicated to maintaining the British connection in Northern Ireland.
Kaufmann charts the Order's path from the peak of its influence, in the early 1960s, to its present-day crisis. Along the way, he sketches a portrait of many of Orangeism's leading figures, from ex-Prime Minister John Andrews to Ulster Unionist Party politicians like Martin Smyth, James Molyneaux, and David McNarry. Kaufmann also includes the highly revealing correspondence with adversaries such as Ian Paisley and David Trimble.
Packed with analyses of mass-membership trends and attitudes, the book also takes care to tell the story of the Order from "below" as well as from above. In the process, it argues that the traditional Unionism of West Ulster is giving way to the more militant Unionism of Antrim and Belfast which is winning the hearts of the younger generation in cities and towns throughout the province.

In shaping the modern academy and in setting the agenda of modern Christian theology, few institutions have been as influential as the German universities of the nineteenth century. This book examines the rise of the modern German university from the standpoint of the Protestant theological faculty, focusing especially on the University of Berlin (1810), Prussia's flagship university in the nineteenth century. In contradistinction to historians of modern higher education who often overlook theology, and to theologians who are frequently inattentive to the social and institutional contexts of religious thought, Thomas Albert Howard argues that modern university development and the trajectory of modern Protestant theology in Germany should be understood as interrelated phenomena.

Martin Luther's thought continues to challenge people throughout the world in the twenty-first century. His paradigmatic shift in defining God and what it means to be human left behind a foundation for viewing human creatures that was anchored in Aristotle's anthropology. Luther defined the Revealed God in terms of his mercy and love for human beings, based not on their merit and performance but rather on his unconditioned grace. He placed 'fearing, loving, and trusting God above all else' at the heart of his definition of being human.
This volume places the development and exposition of these key presuppositions in Luther's thinking within the historical context of late medieval theology and piety as well as the unfolding dynamics of political and social change at the dawn of the modern era. Special attention is given the development of a 'Wittenberg way' of practicing theology under Luther's leadership. It left behind a dependence on allegorical methods of biblical interpretation for a 'literal-prophetic' approach to Scripture. More importantly, it placed the distinction between the 'gospel' as God's unmerited gift of identity as his children and the 'law', the expression of God's expectations for the performance of his children in good works, at the heart of all interpretation of the Bible. This presuppositional framework for practicing theology reflects Luther's personal experience and his deep commitment to pastoral care of common Christians as well as his reading of the biblical text. It is supported by his distinction of two kinds of human righteousness (passive in God's sight, active in relationship to others), his distinction of two realms or dimensions of human life, and his theology of the cross. The volume unfolds Luther's maturing thought on the basis of this method.

Jonathan Edwards (1703-58) is widely recognized as America's greatest religious mind. A torrent of books, articles, and dissertations on Edwards have been released since 1949, the year that Perry Miller published the intellectual biography that launched the modern explosion of Edwards studies. This collection offers an introduction to Edwards's life and thought, pitched at the level of the educated general reader. Each chapter serves as a general introduction to one of Edwards's major topics, including revival, the Bible, beauty, literature, philosophy, typology, and even world religions. Each is written by a leading expert on Edwards's work. The book will serve as an ideal first encounter with the thought of "America's theologian."

At the dawn of the twentieth century, while Lima's aristocrats hotly debated the future of a nation filled with "Indians," thousands of Aymara and Quechua Indians left the pews of the Catholic Church and were baptized into Seventh-day Adventism. One of the most staggering Christian phenomena of our time, the mass conversion from Catholicism to various forms of Protestantism in Latin America was so successful that Catholic contemporaries became extremely anxious on noticing that parts of the Indigenous population in the Andean plateau had joined a Protestant church. In Sacrifice and Regeneration Yael Mabat focuses on the extraordinary success of Seventh-day Adventism in the Andean highlands at the beginning of the twentieth century and sheds light on the historical trajectories of Protestantism in Latin America. By approaching the religious conversion among Indigenous populations in the Andes as a multifaceted and dynamic interaction between converts, missionaries, and their social settings and networks, Mabat demonstrates how the religious and spiritual needs of converts also brought salvation to the missionaries. Conversion had important ramifications on the way social, political, and economic institutions on the local and national level functioned. At the same time, socioeconomic currents had both short-term and long-term impacts on idiosyncratic religious practices and beliefs that both accelerated and impeded religious change. Mabat's innovative historical perspective on religious transformation allows us to better comprehend the complex and often contradictory way in which Protestantism took shape in Latin America.