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Books > Religion & Spirituality > Christianity > Protestantism & Protestant Churches > Other Protestant & Nonconformist Churches
Originally published in 1920, this book presents an account of the
Brownist movement in Norwich and Norfolk at around 1580. Notes are
incorporated throughout and previously unseen historical sources
are discussed. This book will be of value to anyone with an
interest in the Brownists and sixteenth-century religious history.
The five-volume Oxford History of Dissenting Protestant Traditions
series is governed by a motif of migration ('out-of-England'). It
first traces organized church traditions that arose in England as
Dissenters distanced themselves from a state church defined by
diocesan episcopacy, the Book of Common Prayer, the Thirty-Nine
Articles, and royal supremacy, but then follows those traditions as
they spread beyond England -and also traces newer traditions that
emerged downstream in other parts of the world from earlier forms
of Dissent. Secondly, it does the same for the doctrines, church
practices, stances toward state and society, attitudes toward
Scripture, and characteristic patterns of organization that also
originated in earlier English Dissent, but that have often defined
a trajectory of influence independent ecclesiastical organizations.
The Oxford History of Protestant Dissenting Traditions, Volume II
charts the development of protestant Dissent between the passing of
the Toleration Act (1689) and the repealing of the Test and
Corporation Acts (1828). The long eighteenth century was a period
in which Dissenters slowly moved from a position of being a
persecuted minority to achieving a degree of acceptance and,
eventually, full political rights. The first part of the volume
considers the history of various dissenting traditions inside
England. There are separate chapters devoted to Presbyterians,
Congregationalists, Baptists and Quakers-the denominations that
traced their history before this period-and also to Methodists, who
emerged as one of the denominations of 'New Dissent' during the
eighteenth century. The second part explores that ways in which
these traditions developed outside England. It considers the
complexities of being a Dissenter in Wales and Ireland, where the
state church was Episcopalian, as well as in Scotland, where it was
Presbyterian. It also looks at the development of Dissent across
the Atlantic, where the relationship between church and state was
rather looser. Part three is devoted to revivalist movements and
their impact, with a particular emphasis on the importance of
missionary societies for spreading protestant Christianity from the
late eighteenth century onwards. The fourth part looks at
Dissenters' relationship to the British state and their involvement
in the campaigns to abolish the slave trade. The final part
discusses how Dissenters lived: the theology they developed and
their attitudes towards scripture; the importance of both sermons
and singing; their involvement in education and print culture and
the ways in which they expressed their faith materially through
their buildings.
As a "remnant of the remnant," Seventh-day Adventism's early years
were distinguished by the leadership of women, most prominently the
visionary and prophet Ellen White. However, after 1915 the number
of Adventist women in leadership began a dramatic and uninterrupted
decline that was not challenged until the 1980s. Tracing the views
of the church through its official and unofficial publications and
through interviews with dozens of Adventist informants, Laura Vance
reveals a significant shift around the turn of the century in
women's roles advocated by the church: from active participation in
the functioning, spiritual leadership, teaching, and evangelism of
Adventism to an insistence on homemaking as a woman's sole proper
vocation. These changes in attitude, Vance maintains, are
inextricably linked to Adventism's shift from sect to church: in
effect, to its maturation as a denomination. Vance suggests that
the reemergence of women in positions of influence within the
church in recent decades should be viewed not as a concession to
secular feminist developments but rather as a return to Adventism's
earlier conception of gender roles. By examining changes in the
movement's relationship with the world and with its own history,
Seventh-day Adventism in Crisis offers a probing examination of how
a sect founded on the leadership of women came to define women's
roles in ways that excluded them from active public participation
and leadership in the church.
The spiritual text that forms the basis of Mormonism?in the last
edition edited by its founder, Joseph Smith, Jr.
"THE BOOK OF MORMON" is one of the most influential? as well as
controversial?religious documents in American history, and is
regarded as sacred scripture by followers around the world,
including members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day
Saints, the fourth-largest religious body in the United States.
According to Mormon belief, "The Book of Mormon" was inscribed on
golden plates by ancient prophets. I t contains stories of ancient
peoples migrating from the Near East to the Americas, and also
explains that Jesus Christ appeared to the New World after his
resurrection. The golden plates were discovered in upstate New York
and translated by Joseph Smith, Jr., under the guidance of an
angel, Moroni. From this divine revelation, Smith founded the
Mormon sect, which is now comprised of more than 12.5 million
members worldwide.
The Evangelical Age of Ingenuity in Industrial Britain argues that
British evangelicals in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth
centuries invented new methods of spreading the gospel, as well as
new forms of personal religious practice, by exploiting the era's
growth of urbanization, industrialization, consumer goods,
technological discoveries, and increasingly mobile populations.
While evangelical faith has often been portrayed standing in
inherent tension with the transitions of modernity, Joseph
Stubenrauch demonstrates that developments in technology, commerce,
and infrastructure were fruitfully linked with theological shifts
and changing modes of religious life. This volume analyzes a
vibrant array of religious consumer and material culture produced
during the first half of the nineteenth century. Mass print and
cheap mass-produced goods-from tracts and ballad sheets to teapots
and needlework mottoes-were harnessed to the evangelical project.
By examining ephemera and decorations alongside the strategies of
evangelical publishers and benevolent societies, Stubenrauch
considers often overlooked sources in order to take the pulse of
"vital" religion during an age of upheaval. He explores why and how
evangelicals turned to the radical alterations of their era to
bolster their faith and why "serious Christianity" flowered in an
industrial age that has usually been deemed inhospitable to it.
The Universal Church of the Kingdom of God (UCKG), a church of
Brazilian origin, has been enormously successful in establishing
branches and attracting followers in post-apartheid South Africa.
Unlike other Pentecostal Charismatic Churches (PCC), the UCKG
insists that relationships with God be devoid of 'emotions', that
socialisation between members be kept to a minimum and that charity
and fellowship are 'useless' in materialising God's blessings.
Instead, the UCKG urges members to sacrifice large sums of money to
God for delivering wealth, health, social harmony and happiness.
While outsiders condemn these rituals as empty or manipulative,
this book shows that they are locally meaningful, demand sincerity
to work, have limits and are informed by local ideas about human
bodies, agency and ontological balance. As an ethnography of people
rather than of institutions, this book offers fresh insights into
the mass PCC movement that has swept across Africa since the early
1990s.
What Faith Is teaches believers how to lay hold of the desires of
hope and bring them into the realm of reality.
Emily B. Baran offers a gripping history of how a small,
American-based religious community, the Jehovah's Witnesses, found
its way into the Soviet Union after World War II, survived decades
of brutal persecution, and emerged as one of the region's fastest
growing religions after the Soviet Union's collapse in 1991. In
telling the story of this often misunderstood faith, Baran explores
the shifting boundaries of religious dissent, non-conformity, and
human rights in the Soviet Union and its successor states. Soviet
Jehovah's Witnesses are a fascinating case study of dissent beyond
urban, intellectual nonconformists. Witnesses, who were generally
rural, poorly educated, and utterly marginalized from society,
resisted state pressure to conform. They instead constructed
alternative communities based on adherence to religious principles
established by the Witnesses' international center in Brooklyn, New
York. The Soviet state considered Witnesses to be the most
reactionary of all underground religious movements, and used
extraordinary measures to try to eliminate this threat. Yet
Witnesses survived, while the Soviet system did not. After 1991,
they faced continuing challenges to their right to practice their
faith in post-Soviet states, as these states struggled to reconcile
the proper limits on freedom of conscience with European norms and
domestic concerns. Dissent on the Margins provides a new and
important perspective on one of America's most understudied
religious movements.
Let the Spirit live inside you Are you hungry for an encounter with
Jesus? Do you want to make an impact on the world? In this
power-packed book, Bill Johnson discusses how "you "can be a person
who hosts the Presence of God. Though all believers obviously have
the Spirit of God within them, there is "more" that enables you to
be so full that you overflow His Spirit into your world. Take a
journey and meet many great prophets and kings from the Old
Testament who were known as people of the Presence--people who, in
Johnson's words, "God wanted to be with." In this succinct and
powerful book, Johnson encourages you toward a pursuit of the
Presence of God above all else. In this book, you will discover:
How to pay attention to the Holy Spirit and respond to Him. How the
Holy Spirit manifests Himself. Biblical figures who were hungry for
more of God's Spirit and learned to host Him. Stories of
Presence-filled revivalists and personal encounters with the
Presence Bill Johnson writes: "We are enabled to partner with the
Kingdom of Heaven and see it released here on earth The Presence of
God within us will bring reformation to the world around
us--encountering a loving God " Host more of Him today
Among the Old Order Mennonite and Amish communities of Lancaster
County, Pennsylvania, the coming of the telephone posed a serious
challenge to the longstanding traditions of work, worship, silence,
and visiting. In 1907, Mennonites crafted a compromise in order to
avoid a church split and grudgingly allowed telephones for lay
people while prohibiting telephone ownership among the clergy. By
1909, the Amish had banned the telephone completely from their
homes. Since then, the vigorous and sometimes painful debates about
the meaning of the telephone reveal intense concerns about the
maintenance of boundaries between the community and the outside
world and the processes Old Order communities use to confront and
mediate change.
In "Holding the Line," Diane Zimmerman Umble offers a historical
and ethnographic study of how the Old Order Mennonites and Amish
responded to and accommodated the telephone from the turn of the
twentieth century to the present. For Old Order communities, Umble
writes, appropriate use of the telephone marks the edges of
appropriate association--who can be connected to whom, in what
context, and under what circumstances. Umble's analysis of the
social meaning of the telephone explores the effect of technology
on community identity and the maintenance of cultural values
through the regulation of the means of communication.
Although often regarded as marginal or obscure, Mormonism is a
significant American religious minority, numerically and
politically. The successes and struggles of this U.S. born religion
reveal much about how religion operates in U.S. society. Mormonism:
The Basics introduces the teachings, practices, evolution, and
internal diversity of this movement, whose cultural icons range
from Mitt Romney to the Twilight saga, from young male missionaries
in white shirts and ties to polygamous women in pastel prairie
dresses. This is the first introductory text on Mormonism that
tracks not only the mainstream LDS but also two other streams
within the movement-the liberalized RLDS and the polygamous
Fundamentalists-thus showing how Mormons have pursued different
approaches to defining their identity and their place in society.
The book addresses these questions. Are Mormons Christian, and why
does it matter? How have Mormons worked out their relationship to
the state? How have Mormons diverged in their thinking about gender
and sexuality? How do rituals and regulations shape Mormon lives?
What types of sacred spaces have Mormons created? What strategies
have Mormons pursued to establish a global presence? Mormonism: The
Basics is an ideal introduction for anyone wanting to understand
this religion within its primarily American but increasingly
globalized contexts.
The New Canadian Pentecostals takes readers into the everyday
religious lives of the members of three Pentecostal congregations
located in the Region of Waterloo, Ontario, Canada. Using the rich
qualitative and quantitative data gathered through participant
observation, personal interviews, and surveys conducted within
these congregations, Adam Stewart provides the first book-length
study focusing on the specific characteristics of Canadian
Pentecostal identity, belief, and practice. Stewart asserts that
Pentecostalism remains an important tradition in the Canadian
religious landscape - contrary to the assumptions of many Canadian
sociologists and scholars of religion. Recent decreases in Canadian
Pentecostal affiliation recorded by Statistics Canada are not the
result of Pentecostals abandoning their congregations; rather, they
are indicative of a radical transformation from traditionally
Pentecostal to generically evangelical modes of religious identity,
belief, and practice that are changing the ways that Pentecostals
understand and explain their religious identities. The case study
presented in this book suggests that a new breed of Canadian
Pentecostals are emerging for whom traditional definitions and
expressions of Pentecostalism are much less important than
religious autonomy and individualism.
For the last several decades, at the far fringes of American
evangelical Christianity, has stood an intellectual movement known
as Christian Reconstructionism. The movement was founded by
theologian, philosopher, and historian Rousas John Rushdoony, whose
near-2000-page tome The Institutes of Biblical Law (1973) provides
its foundation. Reconstructionists believe that the Bible provides
a coherent, internally consistent, and all-encompassing worldview,
and they seek to remake the entirety of society-church, state,
family, economy-along biblical lines. They are strongly opposed to
democracy and believe that the Constitution should be replaced by
Old Testament law. And they carry their convictions to their
logical conclusion, arguing, for example, for the restoration of
slavery and for the imposition of the death penalty on homosexuals,
adulterers, and Sabbath-breakers. In this fascinating book, Julie
Ingersoll draws on years of research, Reconstructionist
publications, and interviews with Reconstructionists themselves to
paint the most complete portrait of the movement yet published. She
shows how the Reconstructionists' world makes sense to them, in
terms of their own framework. And she demonstrates the movement's
influence on everything from homeschooling to some of the more
mainstream elements of the Christian Right.
In this first volume of his magisterial study of the foundations of
Mormon thought and practice, Terryl L. Givens offers a sweeping
account of Mormon belief from its founding to the present day.
Situating the relatively new movement in the context of the
Christian tradition, he reveals that Mormonism continues to change
and grow.
Givens shows that despite Mormonism's origins in a biblical culture
strongly influenced by nineteenth-century Restorationist thought,
which advocated a return to the Christianity of the early Church,
the new movement diverges radically from the Christianity of the
creeds. Mormonism proposes its own cosmology and metaphysics, in
which human identity is rooted in a premortal world as eternal as
God. Mormons view mortal life as an enlightening ascent rather than
a catastrophic fall, and reject traditional Christian concepts of
human depravity and destiny. Popular fascination with Mormonism's
social innovations, such as polygamy and communalism, and its
supernatural and esoteric elements-angels, gold plates, seer
stones, a New World Garden of Eden, and sacred undergarments-have
long overshadowed the fact that it is the most enduring and even
thriving product of the nineteenth century's religious upheavals
and innovations.
Wrestling the Angel traces the essential contours of Mormon thought
from the time of Joseph Smith and Brigham Young to the contemporary
LDS church, illuminating both the seminal influence of the founding
generation of Mormon thinkers and the significant developments in
the church over almost 200 years. The most comprehensive account of
the development of Mormon thought ever written, Wrestling the Angel
will be essential reading for anyone seeking to understand the
Mormon faith.
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