A scholarly examination of the emergence of English Pentecostalism at the beginning of the twentieth century. This study aims to elucidate the origins of how the Pentecostal message came to England, highlighting reasons for its appeal to an initially small constituency, while tracing its emergence in specific religious localities which ranged from Anglican vestry, to mission hall platform, to domestic drawing room. Its chief purpose is to examine the origins and emergence of a distinctively English version of the Pentecostal phenomenon.

This book draws on the life of Presbyterian minister and diarist Archibald Simpson (1734-1795) to examine the history of evangelical Protestantism in South Carolina and the British Atlantic during the last half of the eighteenth century. Although he grew up in the evangelical heartland of Scotland in the wake of the great mid-century revivals, Simpson spurned revivalism and devoted himself instead to the grinding work of the parish ministry. At age nineteen he immigrated to South Carolina, where he spent the next eighteen years serving slaveholding Reformed congregations in the lowcountry plantation district. Here powerful planters held sway over slaves, families, churches, and communities, and Simpson was constantly embattled as he sought to impose an evangelical order on his parishes. In refusing to put the gospel in the pockets of planters who scorned it-and who were accustomed to controlling their parish churches-he earned their enmity. As a result, every relationship was freighted with deceit and danger, and every practice-sermons, funerals, baptisms, pastoral visits, death narratives, sickness, courtship, friendship, domestic concerns-was contested and politicized. In this context, the cause of the gospel made little headway in Simpson's corner of the world. Despite the great midcentury revivals, the steady stream of religious dissenters who poured into the province, and all the noise they made about slave conversions, Simpson's story suggests that there was no evangelical movement in colonial South Carolina, just a tired and frustrating evangelical slog.

From the end of the eighteenth century, throughout western Europe, the official clergy, champions of privilege and tradition, were challenged by religious dissenters and minorities.

This book clearly maps out these polarizations and analyses the impact on religion of socialism, capitalism and the growth of cities. It examines the contrasts between the religion of the middle and working classes and between men and women. It discusses the appeal of movements like Methodism, Secularism, and Ultramontane Catholicism, and considers the crisis faced by contemporary churches in many countries.

A new concluding chapter examines the role of religion up to 1990, and how it has been affected by modern changes in society and beliefs.

This book is a pneumatological reflection on the use and abuse of the Spirit in light of the abuse of religion within South African Pentecostalism. Both emerging and well-established scholars of South African Pentecostalism are brought together to reflect on pneumatology from various approaches, which includes among others: historical, biblical, migration, commercialisation of religion, discernment of spirits and human flourishing. From a broader understanding of the function of the Holy Spirit in different streams of Pentecostalism, the argument is that this function has changed with the emergence of the new Prophetic churches in South Africa. This is a fascinating insight into one of the major emerging worldwide religious movements. As such, it will be of great interest to academics in Pentecostal Studies, Christian Studies, Theology, and Religious Studies as well as African Studies and the Sociology of Religion.

Based on ethnographic research among African Pentecostal Christians living in the UK, this book addresses themes of migration and community formation, religious identity and practice, and social and political exclusion. With attention to strained kinship relationships, precarious labour conditions, and struggles for legal and social legitimacy, it explores the ways in which intimacy with a Pentecostal God - and with fellow Christians - has been shaped by the challenges of everyday life for Africans in the UK. A study of religious subjectivity and the success of the so-called 'prosperity' gospel, African Pentecostalism in Britain examines the manner in which the presence of God is realised for believers through their complex and often-fraught relationships of trust and intimacy with others. As such, it will appeal to sociologists and anthropologists with interests in migration and religion.

Bestselling authors Bill and Beni Johnson help parents discover the keys to successful parenting in God's kingdom through their powerful book Raising Giant-Killers. "Parents, we rule for the purpose of protection, but we also serve with the purpose of empowering," they write. "We want to release our children into their destiny--that's the privilege of parenting." In these pages, you will gain the wisdom, kingdom concepts, and practical tools you need to help raise your children to their God-given potential.

For the past sixty years, the Pentecostal and Charismatic movement has played a major role in Zambia. In this book, Naar Mfundisi-Holloway explains the history of this development and its impact on civic engagement. She opens a discussion on church-state relations and explains how the church presented a channel of hope in the wake of the HIV/AIDS pandemic, despite having a history that eschewed civic engagement. In fact, the pandemic propelled the church to work alongside the state in the fight against the disease. Using interviews and historical analysis, this book provides valuable insight into how Pentecostal and Charismatic churches have effectively engaged matters of civic concern in Zambia dating from colonial times.

In the last fifty years, religion in America has changed dramatically, and Mainline Protestantism is following suit. This book reveals a fundamental transformation taking place in the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America. The ELCA is looking to postdenominational Christianity for inspiration on how to attract people to the pews, but is at the same time intent on preserving its confessional, liturgical tradition as much as possible in late modernity. As American religion grows increasingly experiential and individualistic, the ELCA is caught between its church heritage and a highly innovative culture that demands participative structures and a personal relationship with the divine. In the midst of this tension, the ELCA is deflating its church hierarchy and encouraging people to become involved in congregations on their own terms, while it continues to celebrate its confessional, liturgical identity. But can this balance between individual and institution be upheld in the long run? Or will the democratization and pluralization of the faith ultimately undermine the church? This book explores how the ELCA attempts to resist the forces of Americanization in late modernity even as it slowly but surely comes to resemble mainstream American religion more and more.

This book aims to introduce a distinctively evangelical voice to the discipline of practical theology. Evangelicals have sometimes seen practical theology as primarily a 'liberal' project. This collection, however, actively engages with practical theology from an evangelical perspective, both through discussion of the substantive issues and by providing examples of practical theology done by evangelicals in the classroom, the church, and beyond. This volume brings together established and emerging voices to debate the growing role which practical theology is playing in evangelical and Pentecostal circles. Chapters begin by addressing methodological concerns, before moving into areas of practice. Additionally, there are four short papers from students who make use of practical theology to reflect upon their own practice. Issues of authority and normativity are tackled head on in a way that will inform the debate both within and beyond evangelicalism. This book will, therefore, be of keen interest to scholars of practical, evangelical, and Pentecostal theology.

F. D. Maurice (1805-72) was one of the most controversial thinkers of mid-nineteenth century Britain. Born a Unitarian, he left Cambridge without a degree rather than compromise his principles. As an Anglican theologian, he uneasily combined Unitarian ideas with the teaching of the Establishment. Sacked from King's College, London, for questioning popular teaching about everlasting punishment, he led a movement to improve working men's education. Yet although Maurice came from a Unitarian family and counted leading Unitarians as his friends, their influence on his work has never been seriously examined. The purpose of this new book is to look at his life and teaching in the light of Unitarianism. Maurice's faith had a distinctly Christological emphasis, but he continued to value his Unitarian heritage. His concern with the Fatherhood of God and the dignity of the human race owes much to his family background. Dr. Young's study opens with a compact history of Unitarianism during the lifetimes of F. D. Maurice and his father, a Unitarian minister. A series of biographical sketches draws on hitherto unpublished material to set Maurice's work in its historic context. Final chapters compare the central themes of his theology with the teaching of his Unitarian contemporaries.

What you believe is a result of what you think. When believers allow God's Word to renew their minds, they begin thinking the right scriptural way to walk in victory.

At its best, all Christian worship is led by the Holy Spirit. But is there a distinctive theology of Pentecostal worship? The Pentecostal church or the renewal movement is among the fastest-growing parts of the body of Christ around the world, which makes understanding its theology and practice critical for the future of the church. In this volume in IVP Academic's Dynamics of Christian Worship (DCW) series, theologian Steven Felix-Jager offers a theology of renewal worship, including its biblical foundations, how its global nature is expressed in particular localities, and how charismatic worship distinctively shapes the community of faith. With his guidance, the whole church might understand better what it means to pray, "Come, Holy Spirit!" The Dynamics of Christian Worship series draws from a wide range of worshiping contexts and denominational backgrounds to unpack the many dynamics of Christian worship-including prayer, reading the Bible, preaching, baptism, the Lord's Supper, music, visual art, architecture, and more-to deepen both the theology and practice of Christian worship for the life of the church.

"Can anything orthodox come from Pentecostalism?" This recasting of Nathaniel's familiar question from the Gospel is a fair summary of many modern Christians' assessment of the Pentecostal tradition. Yet in recent years, a growing number of Pentecostals have been turning afresh to the ancient, creedal Christian faith. Bishop Emilio Alvarez has himself been at the forefront of this movement. In Pentecostal Orthodoxy he introduces the phenomenon, and extends the project of paleo-orthodox ressourcement (associated with scholars such as Thomas Oden and Robert Webber) to include orthodox expressions within Pentecostalism, particularly his own Afro-Latino Pentecostal movement. This book is a manifesto of sorts, promising not only to open up the possibility of a genuinely orthodox Pentecostalism, but to reframe modern ecumenical dialogue as well.

Every year an estimated 600,000 U.S. Latinos convert from Catholicism to Protestantism. Today, 12.5 million Latinos self-identify as Protestant--a population larger than all U.S. Jews and Muslims combined. Spearheading this spiritual transformation is the Pentecostal movement and Assemblies of God, which is the destination for one out of four converts. In a deeply researched social and cultural history, Gaston Espinosa uncovers the roots of this remarkable turn and the Latino AG's growing leadership nationwide. Latino Pentecostals in America traces the Latino AG back to the Azusa Street Revivals in Los Angeles and Apostolic Faith Revivals in Houston from 1906 to 1909. Espinosa describes the uphill struggles for indigenous leadership, racial equality, women in the ministry, social and political activism, and immigration reform. His analysis of their independent political views and voting patterns from 1996 to 2012 challenges the stereotypes that they are all apolitical, right-wing, or politically marginal. Their outspoken commitment to an active faith has led a new generation of leaders to blend righteousness and justice, by which they mean the reconciling message of Billy Graham and the social transformation of Martin Luther King Jr. Latino AG leaders and their 2,400 churches across the nation represent a new and growing force in denominational, Evangelical, and presidential politics. This eye-opening study explains why this group of working-class Latinos once called "the Silent Pentecostals" is silent no more. By giving voice to their untold story, Espinosa enriches our understanding of the diversity of Latino religion, Evangelicalism, and American culture.

This book treads new ground by bringing the Evangelical and Dissenting movements within Christianity into close engagement with one another. While Evangelicalism and Dissent both have well established historiographies, there are few books that specifically explore the relationship between the two. Thus, this complex relationship is often overlooked and underemphasised. The volume is organised chronologically, covering the period from the late seventeenth century to the closing decades of the twentieth century. Some chapters deal with specific centuries but others chart developments across the whole period covered by the book. Chapters are balanced between those that concentrate on an individual, such as George Whitefield or John Stott, and those that focus on particular denominational groups like Wesleyan Methodism, Congregationalism or the 'Black Majority Churches'. The result is a new insight into the cross pollination of these movements that will help the reader to understand modern Christianity in England and Wales more fully. Offering a fresh look at the development of Evangelicalism and Dissent, this volume will be of keen interest to any scholar of Religious Studies, Church History, Theology or modern Britain.

Evangelicals and scholars of religious history have long recognized George Whitefield (1714-1770) as a founding father of American evangelicalism. But Jessica M. Parr argues he was much more than that. He was an enormously influential figure in Anglo-American religious culture, and his expansive missionary career can be understood in multiple ways. Whitefield began as an Anglican clergyman. Many in the Church of England perceived him as a radical. In the American South, Whitefield struggled to reconcile his disdain for the planter class with his belief that slavery was an economic necessity. Whitefield was drawn to an idealized Puritan past that was all but gone by the time of his first visit to New England in 1740. Parr draws from Whitefield's writing and sermons and from newspapers, pamphlets, and other sources to understand Whitefield's career and times. She offers new insights into revivalism, print culture, transatlantic cultural influences, and the relationship between religious thought and slavery. Whitefield became a religious icon shaped in the complexities of revivalism, the contest over religious toleration, and the conflicting role of Christianity for enslaved people. Proslavery Christians used Christianity as a form of social control for slaves, whereas evangelical Christianity's emphasis on ""freedom in the eyes of God"" suggested a path to political freedom. Parr reveals how Whitefield's death marked the start of a complex legacy that in many ways rendered him more powerful and influential after his death than during his long career.