A Daily Office Book for all members of the congregation - including adult confirmation candidates. Arranged a page-a-day for a year, it provides an opening prayer, Psalm verses, Old and New Testament readings, and new prayers based on the readings, together with a 31-day cycle of intercessions.

How do Filipino Baptists who sing in English, quote from James Dobson, and download sermon illustrations from Alabama understand themselves, and their faith, as "local?" Comparing four congregations of Southern Baptists in the Philippines, Howell argues that Christianity "becomes" a local context as aspects of daily life are brought together with the obviously borrowed elements of the faith. This book moves away from the split of "global" and "local" to find out how Southern Baptists are able to create a "transcendent locality." Told in rich ethnographic detail, "Christianity in the Local Context" argues that Filipino Baptists are actively constructing themselves in terms of a global faith that they have made their own.

English Christendom has never been a static entity. Evangelism, politics, conflict and cultural changes have constantly and consistently developed it into myriad forms across the world. However, in recent times that development has seemingly become a general decline. This book utilises the motif of Christendom to illuminate the pedigree of Anglican Christianity, allowing a vital and persistent dynamic in Christianity, namely the relationship between the sacred and the mundane, to be more fundamentally explored. Each chapter seeks to unpack a particular historical moment in which the relations of sacred and mundane are on display. Beginning with the work of Bede, before focusing on the Anglo Norman settlement of England, the Tudor period, and the establishment of the church in the American and Australian colonies, Anglicanism is shown to consistently be a religio-political tradition. This approach opens up a different set of categories for the study of contemporary Anglicanism and its debates about the notion of the church. It also opens up fresh ways of looking at religious conflict in the modern world and within Christianity. This is a fresh exploration of a major facet of Western religious culture. As such, it will be of significant interest to scholars working in Religious History and Anglican Studies, as well as theologians with an interest in Western Ecclesiology.

This is the first full biography of James Rendel Harris (1852-1941), Bible and patristic scholar, manuscript collector, Quaker theologian, devotional writer, traveller, folklorist, and relief worker. Drawing on published and unpublished sources gathered in the United States, Europe, and the Middle East, many of which were previously unknown, Alessandro Falcetta tells the story of Harris's life and works set against the background of the cultural and political life of contemporary Britain. Falcetta traces the development of Harris's career from Cambridge to Birmingham, the story of his seven journeys to the Middle East, and of his many campaigns, from religious freedom to conscientious objection. The book focuses upon Harris's innovative contributions in the field of textual and literary criticism, his acquisitions of hundreds of manuscripts from the Middle East, his discoveries of early Christian works - in particular the Odes of Solomon - his Quaker beliefs and his studies in the cult of twins. His enormous output and extensive correspondence reveal an indefatigable genius in close contact with the most famous scholars of his time, from Hort to Harnack, Nestle, the 'Sisters of Sinai', and Frazer.

This book is a lively and accessible study of English religious life during the century of the Reformation. It draws together a wide range of recent research and makes extensive use of colourful contemporary evidence. The author explores the involvement of ordinary people within, alongside and beyond the church, covering topics such as liturgical practice, church office, relations with the clergy, festivity, religious fellowships, cheap print, 'magical' religion and dissent. The result is a distinctive interpretation of the Reformation as it was experienced by English people, and the strength, resourcefulness and flexibility of their religion emerges as an important theme.

Will the British retain the monarchy and the English church establishment into the 21st century? The preservation of the monarchy and of the establishment of the church of England is a matter that cuts deep in fact and theory. The monarchy and the church are symbols of civil liberty, and as such they carry the freight of British national identity. Yet it is difficult to take those institutions seriously now because Britons give too little consideration to serious reforms of any kind for the monarchy or the church. This book suggests possible reforms.

Brian Beck has had a long and distinguished career in Methodist studies, having additionally served as President of the UK Methodist Conference and helped lead the international Oxford Institute of Methodist Theological Studies. This book is the first time that Beck's seminal work on Methodism has been gathered together. It includes eighteen essays from the last twenty-five years, covering many different aspects of Methodist thought and practice. This collection is divided into two main sections. Part I covers Methodism's heritage and its implications, while Part II discusses wider issues of Methodism's identity. The chapters themselves examine the work of key figures, such as John Wesley and J. E. Rattenbury, as well as past and present forms of Methodist thought and practice. As such, this book is important reading for any scholar of Methodism as well as students and academics of religious studies and theology more generally.

This book makes a significant contribution to the burgeoning field of childhood studies in nineteenth-century literature and culture by drawing on the intersecting fields of girlhood, evangelicalism, and reform to investigate texts written in North America about girls, for girls, and by girls. Responding both to the intellectual excitement generated by the rise of girlhood studies, as well as to the call by recent scholars to recognize the significance of religion as a meaningful category in the study of nineteenth-century literature and culture, this collection locates evangelicalism at the center of its inquiry into girlhood. Contributors draw on a wide range of texts, including canonical literature by Harriet Beecher Stowe, Susan Warner, and Elizabeth Stuart Phelps, and overlooked archives such as US Methodist Sunday School fiction, children's missionary periodicals, and the Christian Recorder, the flagship newspaper of the African Methodist Episcopal (AME) Church. These essays investigate representations of girlhood that engage, codify, and critique normative Protestant constructions of girlhood. Contributors examine girlhood in the context of reform, revealing the ways in which Protestantism at once constrained and enabled female agency. Drawing on a range of critical perspectives, including African American Studies, Disability Studies, Gender Studies, and Material Culture Studies, this volume enriches our understanding of nineteenth-century childhood by focusing on the particularities of girlhood, expanding it beyond that of the white able-bodied middle-class girl and attending to the intersectionality of identity and religion.

This book considers three defining movements driven from London and within the region that describe the experience of the Church of England in New England between 1686 and 1786. It explores the radical imperial political and religious change that occurred in Puritan New England following the late seventeenth-century introduction of a new charter for the Massachusetts Bay Colony, the Anglican Church in Boston and the public declaration of several Yale 'apostates' at the 1722 college commencement exercises. These events transformed the religious circumstances of New England and fuelled new attention and interest in London for the national church in early America. The political leadership, controversial ideas and forces in London and Boston during the run-up to and in the course of the War for Independence, was witnessed by and affected the Church of England in New England. The book appeals to students and researchers of English History, British Imperial History, Early American History and Religious History.

The Puritans of seventeenth century England have been blamed for everything from the English civil war to the rise of capitalism. But who were the Puritans of Stuart England? Were they apostles of liberty, who fled from persecution to the New World? Or were they intolerant fanatics, intent on bringing godliness to Stuart England? This study provides a clear narrative of the rise and fall of the Puritans across the troubled seventeenth century. Their story is placed in context by analytical chapters, which describe what the Puritans believed and how they organised their religious and social life. Quoting many contemporary sources, including diaries, plays and sermons, this is a vivid and comprehensible account, drawing on the most recent scholarship. Readers will find this book an indispensable guide, not only to the religious history of seventeenth century England, but also to its political and social history.

Hymnody is widely recognised as a central tenet of Methodism's theological, doctrinal, spiritual, and liturgical identity. Theologically and doctrinally, the content of the hymns has traditionally been a primary vehicle for expressing Methodism's emphasis on salvation for all, social holiness, and personal commitment, while particular hymns and the communal act of participating in hymn singing have been key elements in the spiritual lives of Methodists. An important contribution to the history of Methodism, British Methodist Hymnody argues that the significance of hymnody in British Methodism is best understood as a combination of its official status, spiritual expression, popular appeal, and practical application. Seeking to consider what, when, how, and why Methodists sing, British Methodist Hymnody examines the history, perception, and practice of hymnody from Methodism's small-scale eighteenth-century origins to its place as a worldwide denomination today.