The Huguenots are among the best known of early modern European religious minorities. Their suffering in 16th and 17th-century France is a familiar story. The flight of many Huguenots from the kingdom after 1685 conferred upon them a preeminent place in the accounts of forced religious migrations. Their history has become synonymous with repression and intolerance. At the same time, Huguenot accomplishments in France and the lands to which they fled have long been celebrated. They are distinguished by their theological formulations, political thought, and artistic achievements. This volume offers an encompassing portrait of the Huguenot past, investigates the principal lines of historical development, and suggests the interpretative frameworks that scholars have advanced for appreciating the Huguenot experience.

Concise text includes the latest historical and theological research, sections on contemporary Lutheranism, and discussion questions.

The reformation was not a western European event, but historians have neglected the study of Protestantism in central and eastern Europe. This book aims to rectify this situation. It examines one of Europe's largest Protestant communities in Hungary and Transylvania. It highlights the place of the Hungarian Reformed church in the international Calvinist world, and reveals the impact of Calvinism on Hungarian politics and society.

With eloquence, candor, and simplicity, a celebrated author tells the story of his father's alcohol abuse and suicide and traces the influence of this secret on his life as a son, father, husband, minister, and writer.

Lutherans often have questions about Lutheran theology and beliefs that are basic to the Christian faith itself. Featuring a unique question-and-answer format, Lutheran Questions, Lutheran Answers is an accessible and concise treatment that provides the most frequently asked questions on important topics and brief but complete answers from a distinguished Lutheran historian and theologian. Contents include questions and answers about: Lutheran History and Heritage Bible God Jesus Christ Humanity Holy Spirit Salvation Church Worship Sacraments Christian Life Reign of God Polity

This book explores the Society of Friend's Atlantic presence through its creation and use of networks, including intellectual and theological exchange, and through the movement of people. It focuses on the establishment of trans-Atlantic Quaker networks and the crucial role London played in the creation of a Quaker community in the North Atlantic.

"I had an obsession with the Amish. Plan and simple. Objectively it made no sense. I, who worked hard at being special, fell in love with a people who valued being ordinary."

So begins Sue Bender's story, the captivating and inspiring true story of a harried urban Californian moved by the beauty of a display of quilts to seek out and live with the Amish. Discovering lives shaped by unfamiliar yet comforting ideas about time, work, and community, Bender is gently coaxed to consider, "Is there another way to lead a good life?"

Her journey begins in a New York men's clothing store. There she is spellbound by the vibrant colors and stunning geometric simplicity of the Amish quilts "spoke directly to me," writes Bender. Somehow, "they went straight to my heart."

Heeding a persistent inner voice, Bender searches for Amish families willing to allow her to visit and share in there daily lives. Plain and Simple vividly recounts sojourns with two Amish families, visits during which Bender enters a world without television, telephone, electric light, or refrigerators; a world where clutter and hurry are replaced with inner quiet and calm ritual; a world where a sunny kitchen "glows" and "no distinction was made between the sacred and the everyday."

In nine interrelated chapters--as simple and elegant as a classic nine-patch Amish quilt--Bender shares the quiet power she found reflected in lives of joyful simplicity, humanity, and clarity. The fast-paced, opinionated, often frazzled Bender returns home and reworks her "crazy-quilt" life, integrating the soul-soothing qualities she has observed in the Amish, and celebrating the patterns in the Amish, and celebrating the patterns formed by the distinctive "patches" of her own life.

Charmingly illustrated and refreshingly spare, Plain and Simple speaks to the seeker in each of us.

This classic work by one of Europe's most respected twentieth-century legal minds tackles law through the eyes of Martin Luther. Johannes Heckel first reveals the basic features of Luther's doctrine of law in its totality, drawing from an overwhelming amount of material from all genres of Luther's writing. Heckel then considers how Luther viewed law as the framework for the existence of a Christian in this world. He develops a picture of Luther's position on law by grounding it in Luther's theology, arguing that his concept of natural law has to be understood in terms of the divine and the secular. Finally, Heckel shows the practicality of Luther's position by focusing on the places in which a Christian interacts with legality in this world -- church, marriage and family, and politics. / "When Johannes Heckel's Lex Charitatis appeared more than half a century ago it brought new clarity to the much disputed issue of Luther's understanding of the law and of God's governance of his created order. . . . Having Heckel's work in English will assist scholars and students alike in putting Luther's insights to use in the context of twenty-first-century problems." / -- Robert Kolb, Concordia Seminary

Stories of contemporary exorcisms are largely met with ridicule, or even hostility. Sean McCloud argues, however, that there are important themes to consider within these narratives of seemingly well-adjusted people-who attend school, go shopping, and watch movies-who also happen to fight demons. American Possessions examines Third Wave evangelical spiritual warfare, a late twentieth-, early twenty-first century movement of evangelicals focused on banishing demons from human bodies, material objects, land, regions, political parties, and nation states. While Third Wave beliefs may seem far removed from what many scholars view as mainstream religious practice in America, McCloud argues that the movement provides an ideal case study for identifying some of the most prescient tropes within the contemporary American religious landscape; namely "the consumerist," "the haunted," and "the therapeutic." Drawing on interviews, television shows, documentaries, websites, and dozens of spiritual warfare handbooks, McCloud examines Third Wave practices such deliverance rituals (a uniquely Protestant form of exorcism), spiritual housekeeping (the removal of demons from everyday objects), and spiritual mapping (searching for the demonic in the physical landscape). Demons, he shows, are the central fact of life in the Third Wave imagination. McCloud provides the first book-length study of this influential movement, highlighting the important ways that it reflects and diverts from the larger, neo-liberal culture from which it originates.

Over the centuries, Quakers have read non-Quakers regarded as mystics. This study explores the reception of mystical texts among the Religious Society of Friends, focusing in particular on Robert Barclay and John Cassian, Sarah Lynes Grubb and Jeanne Guyon, Caroline Stephen and Johannes Tauler, Rufus Jones and Jacob Boehme, and Teresina Havens and Buddhist texts selected by her. Points of connection include the nature of apophatic prayer, suffering and annihilation of self, mysticisms of knowing and of loving, liberal Protestant attitudes toward theosophical systems, and interfaith encounter.