For the past twenty years, evangelical prophecy novels have been a powerful presence on American bestseller lists. Emerging from a growing conservative culture industry, the genre dramatizes events that many believers expect to occur at the end of the age - the rapture of the saved, the rise of the Antichrist, and the fearful tribulation faced by those who are "left behind."
Seeking the forces that drove the unexpected success of the Left Behind novels, Crawford Gribben traces the gradual development of the prophecy fiction genre from its eclectic roots among early twentieth-century fundamentalists. The first rapture novels came onto the scene at the high water mark of Protestant America. From there, the genre would both witness the defeat of conservative Protestantism and participate in its eventual reconstruction and return, providing for the renaissance of the evangelical imagination that would culminate in the Left Behind novels.
Yet, as Gribben shows, the rapture genre, while vividly expressing some prototypically American themes, also serves to greatly complicate the idea of American modernity-assaulting some of its most cherished tenets. Gribben concludes with a look at "post-Left Behind" rapture fiction, noting some works that were written specifically to counter the claims of the best-selling series. Along the way, he gives attention not just to literary fictions, but to rapture films and apocalyptic themes in Christian music. Writing the Rapture is an indispensable guide to this flourishing yet little understood body of literature.

This is the first study of an important group in early Methodism. It was quite separate from Wesley's followers, with its own preachers, chapels, training college, and statement of belief. The book shows how the Connexion operated at the grass roots - including how congregations formed, how chapels came to be built, and how the Connexion related to other religious groups.

This last summer, when I was on my way back to Vienna from the Appetite-Cure in the mountains, I fell over a cliff in the twilight, and broke some arms and legs and one thing or another, and by good luck was found by some peasants who had lost an ass, and they carried me to the nearest habitation, which was one of those large, low, thatch-roofed farm-houses, with apartments in the garret for the family, and a cunning little porch under the deep gable decorated with boxes of bright colored flowers and cats; on the ground floor a large and light sitting-room, separated from the milch-cattle apartment by a partition; and in the front yard rose stately and fine the wealth and pride of the house, the manure-pile. That sentence is Germanic, and shows that I am acquiring that sort of mastery of the art and spirit of the language which enables a man to travel all day in one sentence without changing cars. There was a village a mile away, and a horse doctor lived there, but there was no surgeon. It seemed a bad outlook; mine was distinctly a surgery case. Then it was remembered that a lady from Boston was summering in that village, and she was a Christian Science doctor and could cure anything. So she was sent for. It was night by this time, and she could not conveniently come, but sent word that it was no matter, there was no hurry, she would give me "absent treatment" now, and come in the morning; meantime she begged me to make myself tranquil and comfor-table and remember that there was nothing the matter with me. I thought there must be some mistake.

A historical account of how leading evangelicals in the late nineteenth century fused a passion for evangelism with social service, cultural engagement and political activism.

This edited book offers an engaging portrait into a vital, religious movement inside this southern Africa country. It tells the story of a community of faith that is often overlooked in the region. The authors include leading scholars of religion, theology, and politics from Botswana and Zimbabwe. The insights they present will help readers understand the place of Pentecostal Christianity in this land of many religions. The chapters detail a history of the movement from its inception to the present. Chapters focus on specific Pentecostal churches, general doctrine of the movement, and the movement's contribution to the country. The writing is deeply informed and features deep historical, theological, and sociological analysis throughout. Readers will also learn about the socio-political and economic relevance of the faith in Zimbabwe as well as the theoretical and methodological implications raised by the Pentecostalisation of society. The volume will serve as a resource book both for teaching and for those doing research on various aspects of the Zimbabwean society past, present, and future. It will be a good resource for those in schools and university and college departments of religious studies, theology, history, politics, sociology, social anthropology, and related studies. Over and above academic and research readers, the book will also be very useful to government policy makers, non-governmental organizations, and civic societies who have the Church as an important stakeholder.

With its exalted emotionality, Pentecostalism is a widespread religious movement in Latin America and Africa. It is a blend of Methodism and African religious culture which arouses the passions of the poorest Brazilian masses. Pentecostal conversion is experienced as a sudden break which radically transforms the life of these sectors of the population. Pentecostalism is an Utopia of equality, love and emotion, which is staged during the worship service. However, it is also characterized by authoritarian features. Pentecostalism is slowly eroding the foundation of Western political categories.

Theodore Parker, a great orator of the mid-19th century, was a Unitarian clergyman who directed much of his oratory towards ecclesiastical and social reform. Parker challenged slavery and other social ills. As a volume in the Great American Orators series, the focus is on Parker's oratory and its effect on theology and the social structures of the mid-19th century. Biographical information pertains to those aspects of Parker's life that influenced and shaped his elocution and ideas. Parker's rhetoric and rhetorical techniques are examined. Three of Parker's important speeches are included, each with an introduction that places it in its proper context.

This study will appeal to students of rhetoric, theology, and mid-nineteenth-century American religious history. The book is divided into two sections. The first concentrates on Parker's life, his role as an abolitionist, social reformer, and public order. Part Two scrutinizes three of Parker's most famous discourses. The author establishes Parker's place among mid-19th-century preachers.

Revivals are outbursts of religious enthusiasm in which there are numerous conversions. In this book the phenomenon of revival is set in its broad historical and historiographical context. David Bebbington provides detailed case-studies of awakenings that took place between 1841 and 1880 in Britain, North America and Australia, showing that the distinctive features of particular revivals were the result less of national differences than of denominational variations. These revivals occurred in many places across the globe, but revealed the shared characteristics of evangelical Protestantism. Bebbington explores the preconditions of revival, giving attention to the cultural setting of each episode as well as the form of piety displayed by the participants. No single cause can be assigned to the awakenings, but one of the chief factors behind them was occupational structure and striking instances of death were often a precipitant. Ideas were far more involved in these events than historians have normally supposed, so that the case-studies demonstrate some of the main patterns in religious thought at a popular level during the Victorian period. Laymen and women played a disproportionate part in their promotion and converts were usually drawn in large numbers from the young. There was a trend over time away from traditional spontaneity towards more organised methods sometimes entailing interdenominational co-operation.