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Books > Humanities > Religion & beliefs > Christianity > Protestantism & Protestant Churches
While television today is taken for granted, Americans in the 1950s
faced the challenge of negotiating the new medium's place in the
home and in American culture in general. Protestant leaders--both
mainstream and evangelical--began to think carefully about what
television meant for their communities and its potential impact on
their work. Using the American Protestant experience of the
introduction of television, Rosenthal illustrates the importance of
the interplay between a new medium and its users in an engaging
book suitable for general readers and students alike.
In Deadly Virtue, Heather Martel argues that the French Protestant
attempt to colonize Florida in the 1560s significantly shaped the
developing concept of race in sixteenth-century America. Telling
the story of the short-lived French settlement of Fort Caroline in
what is now Jacksonville, Florida, Martel reveals how race, gender,
sexuality, and Christian morality intersected to form the
foundations of modern understandings of whiteness. Equipped with
Calvinist theology and humoral science, an ancient theory that the
human body is subject to physical change based on one's emotions
and environment, French settlers believed their Christian love
could transform the cultural, spiritual, and political allegiances
of Native Americans. But their conversion efforts failed when the
colony was wiped out by the Spanish. Martel explains that the
French took this misfortune as a sign of God's displeasure with
their collaborative ideals, and from this historical moment she
traces the growth of separatist colonial strategies. Through the
logic of Calvinist predestination, Martel argues, colonists came to
believe that white, Christian bodies were beautiful, virtuous,
entitled to wealth, and chosen by God. The history of Fort Caroline
offers a key to understanding the resonances between religious
morality and white supremacy in America today.
Narrowing in from the broader context of the north Atlantic,
through northern Europe, to Britain, northeast Scotland, and
finally the fishing village of Gamrie, this anthropology of
Protestantism examines millennialist faith and economic crisis.
Through his ethnographic study of the fishermen and their religious
beliefs, Webster speaks to larger debates about religious
radicalism, materiality, economy, language, and the symbolic. These
debates (occurring within the ostensibly secular context of
contemporary Scotland) also call into question assumptions about
the decline of religion in modern industrial societies. By
chronicling how these individuals experience life as "enchanted,"
this book explores the global processes of religious conversion,
economic crisis, and political struggle.
This guide serves as a valuable introduction to the documentary
heritage and tradition of the third largest group of protestants in
the southern United States. A companion to Harold Prince's A
Presbyterian Bibliography (1983), it locates and describes the
unpublished papers of PCUS ministers. It also documents the larger
southern tradition by including selected materials from the
antebellum period and from other Presbyterian denominations. The
result is a listing of resources for the study of the PCUS as well
as southern Presbyterianism. It aims to promote and encourage
research in Presbyterian history; to make files, diaries, sermons,
minutes, letters more intelligible; and finally, to emphasize the
continuing relevance of these materials in contemporary church
life. Robert Benedetto's forty-eight-page introduction includes a
survey of nine subject areas: theology, education, church and
society, international missions, national missions, women, racial
ethnic ministries, ecumenical relations, and worship and music.
Each area highlights major research and provides a concise
orientation to the life and mission of the denomination. Each
survey is followed by a brief listing of manuscript materials. The
Guide itself includes manuscript collections from the Department of
History (Montreat) and other repositories. This thorough volume
concludes with a bibliography of PCUS reference works and a
complete name and subject index.
Tracing the religious history of Siler City, North Carolina, Chad
E. Seales argues that southern whites cultivated their own regional
brand of American secularism and employed it, alongside public
religious performances, to claim and regulate public spaces. Over
the course of the twentieth century, they wielded secularism to
segregate racialized bodies, to challenge local changes resulting
from civil rights legislation, and to respond to the arrival of
Latino migrants. Combining ethnographic and archival sources,
Seales studies the themes of industrialization, nationalism,
civility, privatization, and migration through the local history of
Siler City; its neighborhood patterns, Fourth of July parades,
Confederate soldiers, minstrel shows, mock weddings, banking
practices, police shootings, Good Friday processions, public
protests, and downtown mural displays. Offering a spatial approach
to the study of performative religion, The Secular Spectacle
presents a generative narrative of secularism from the perspective
of evangelical Protestants in the American South.
Specialist historians have long known the usefulness of this 1869
book, now more easily available for anyone interested in the
history of London, its buildings, and its religious and social
world, in an enhanced edition. William Beck was a Quaker architect,
and Frederick Ball grew up in the rambling old Devonshire House
building, centre of British Quakerism at the time. Their survey of
London Quaker history was part of a mid-19th century awakening of
Friends to the significance of their own past. This facsimile
reprint contains a new introduction, by Simon Dixon PhD, author of
the thesis "Quaker Communities in London 1667-c1714," and Quaker
writer and editor Peter Daniels. Where possible, illustrations have
been inserted of the buildings described in the book, and there is
a comprehensive new index.
Although this work takes proper notice of its origins in John
Wesley's 18th-century movement in England, it assumes that in
America the people called Methodists developed in distinctive
fashion. The volume examines this American version, its
organization, leadership, and form of training and incorporating
new members. The authors treat Methodism as defined by conferences
bound together by a commitment to episcopal leadership and animated
by various forms of lay piety. Offering a fresh perspective based
on sound, modern scholarship, this study will be of interest to
scholars, students, and anyone interested in church history.
American Methodists early organized into conferences that defined
Methodist space and time and served as the locus of power. At the
same time, they created a strong episcopal form of church
government, subject to the body of preachers in conference, but
free to lead and direct the organization as a whole. This mission
was clear, well understood, and suited to the ethos of a growing
America--"to spread scriptural holiness in the land and to create a
desire to flee from the wrath to come." By the middle of the 19th
century, Methodists in America had grown from an insignificant sect
to America's largest Protestant group. Essential to that growth
were structures and processes of lay involvement, particularly
class meetings and Sunday schools.
Joel Osteen, Paula White, T. D. Jakes, Rick Warren, and Brian
McLaren pastor some the largest churches in the nation, lead vast
spiritual networks, write best-selling books, and are among the
most influential preachers in American Protestantism today. Spurred
by the phenomenal appeal of these religious innovators, sociologist
Shayne Lee and historian Phillip Luke Sinitiere investigate how
they operate and how their style of religious expression fits into
America's cultural landscape. Drawing from the theory of religious
economy, the authors offer new perspectives on evangelical
leadership and key insights into why some religious movements
thrive while others decline.
Holy Mavericks provides a useful overview of contemporary
evangelicalism while emphasizing the importance of "supply-side
thinking" in understanding shifts in American religion. It reveals
how the Christian world hosts a culture of celebrity very similar
to the secular realm, particularly in terms of marketing, branding,
and publicity. Holy Mavericks reaffirms that religion is always in
conversation with the larger society in which it is embedded, and
that it is imperative to understand how those religious suppliers
who are able to change with the times will outlast those who are
not.
The first of three theological volumes, this volume is devoted
tofour of John Wesley's foundational treatises on soteriology.
These treatises include, first, Wesley s extract from the Homilies
of the Church of England, which he published to convince his fellow
Anglican clergy that the evangelical emphasis on believers
experiencing a conscious assurance of God s pardoning love was
consistent with this standard of Anglican doctrine. Next comes
Wesley s extract of Richard Baxter s Aphorisms of Justification,
aimed more at those who shared his evangelical emphasis, invoking
this honored moderate Puritan to challenge antinomian conceptions
of the doctrine of justification by faith. This is followed by
Wesley s abridgement of the Shorter Catechism issued by the
Westminster Assembly in his Christian Library, where he affirms
broad areas of agreement with this standard of Reformed doctrine
while quietly removing items with which he disagreed. The fourth
item is Wesley s extended response to the Dissenter John Taylor on
the doctrine of original sin, which highlights differences within
the broad Arminian camp, with Wesley resisting a drift toward
naively optimistic views of human nature that he discerned in
Taylor. "
This book reveals the huge sales and propagandist potential of
Anglican parish magazines, while demonstrating the Anglican
Church's misunderstanding of the real issues at its heart, and its
collective collapse of confidence as it contemplated social change.
The Anglican Communion is the third largest Christian denomination
and claims a membership of some 80 million members in about 164
countries. Given that there are only around two hundred countries
in the world, this makes the churches of the Anglican Communion the
most geographically widespread denomination after Roman
Catholicism. The 44 essays in this volume embrace a wide range of
academic disciplines: theological; historical; demography and
geography; and different aspects of culture and ethics. They are
united in their discussion of what is effectively a new
inter-disciplinary subject which we have termed 'Anglican Studies'.
At the core of this volume is the phenomenon of 'Anglicanism' as
this is expressed in different places and in a variety of ways
across the world. This Handbook covers a far broader set of topics
from a wider range of perspectives than has been hitherto attempted
in Anglican Studies. At the same time, it doesn't impose a
particular theological or historical agenda. The contributions are
drawn from across the spectrum of theological views and opinions.
It shows that the unsettled nature of the polity is part of its own
rich history; and many will see this as a somewhat lustrous
tradition. In its comprehensive coverage, this volume is a valuable
contribution to Anglican Studies and helps formulate a discipline
that might perhaps promote dialogue and discussion across the
Anglican world.
N. T. Wright's Jesus and the Victory of God is widely heralded as
one of the most significant and brilliantly argued works in the
current "third quest" of the historical Jesus. In this second
volume of his multivolume investigation entitled Christian Origins
and the Question of God, Wright uncovers a Jesus that most
historians and believers have never met. Rooted and engaged in the
soil of Israel's history, its first-century plight and its
prophetic hope, Wright's portrait of Jesus has set new terms of
discourse and debate. Through Wright's lens, familiar sayings and
actions of Jesus have fresh meaning. But in the midst of all that
is new, Wright also offers a profile of Jesus that bears striking
lines of continuity with the Jesus of Christian belief and worship.
This resemblance has captured the attention of confessing Christian
biblical scholars and theologians. Wright's work thus far is of
such consequence that it seemed timely and strategic to publish a
scholarly engagement with his reconstruction of the historical
Jesus. Like all works in progress, Wright's proposal is still under
construction. But its cornerstone has been laid, the foundation has
been formed, the pillars and walls are going up, and even if we
cannot yet see how the ceiling, roof and parapets will look, there
is quite enough to engage the minds of colleagues, critics and
other curious onlookers. For the purposes of this book (and in
keeping with IVP's own evangelical identity), editor Carey Newman
invited scholars who are committed to Christian belief as it has
been classically defined to engage Wright's Jesus and the Victory
of God. Newman sets the stage with an introduction, and Craig
Blomberg offers a critical and appreciative overview of Jesus and
the Victory of God. Various facets of Wright's proposal are then
investigated by contributors: Paul Eddy on Jesus as prophet,
Messiah and embodiment of Yahweh Klyne Snodgrass on the parables
Craig Evans on Israel under continuing exile Darrell Bock on the
trial and death of Jesus Dale Allison on apocalyptic language
Richard Hays on ethics Alister McGrath on the implications for
evangelical theology Stephen Evans on methodological naturalism in
historical biblical scholarship Luke Timothy Johnson on Wright's
historiography To these essayists Wright extends his "grateful
dialogue." He gives this spirited and illuminating reply to his
interlocuters: "The high compliment of having a whole book devoted
to the discussion of one's work is finely balanced by the probing,
intelligent questions and by the occasional thud of a blunt
instrument on the back of one's head. . . . Only once did I look up
my lawyer's telephone number." After Wright takes his turn, his
good friend and frequent partner in debate Marcus Borg offers his
"appreciative disagreement." Newman then concludes the dialogue
with his own reflections on moving from Wright's reconstruction of
the historical Jesus to the church's Christ. A book assessing a
scholar's work is usually an end-of-career event. But in this case
interested readers can look forward with eager anticipation to
Wright's next volume in Christian Origins and the Question of
God--this one on the resurrection of Jesus.
Analyzes the rise and decline of Lutheran orthodoxy.
In recent years, millions of people have joined churches such as
the Seventh-day Adventist which prosper enormously in different
parts of the world. The Road to Clarity is one of the first
ethnographic in-depth studies of this phenomenon. It is a vivid
account based on almost two years of participation in ordinary
church members' daily religious and non-religious lives. The book
offers a fascinating inquiry into the nature of long-term
commitment to Adventism among rural people in Madagascar. Eva
Keller argues that the key attraction of the church lies in the
excitement of study, argument, and intellectual exploration. This
is a novel approach which challenges utilitarian and cultural
particularist explanations of the success of this kind of
Christianity.
Traditionally Protestant theology, between Luther's early reforming
career and the dawn of the Enlightenment, has been seen in terms of
decline and fall into the wastelands of rationalism and scholastic
speculation. Editors Trueman and Clark challenge this perception in
this transatlantic collection of eighteen essays covering: Luther
and Calvin; Early Reformed Orthodoxy; the British Connection; From
High Orthodoxy to Enlightenment; and the Rise of Lutheran
Orthodoxy.
This book analyzes two large surveys of clergy and lay people in
the Church of England taken in 2001 and 2013. The period between
the two surveys was one of turbulence and change, and the surveys
offer a unique insight into how such change affected grassroots
opinion on topics such as marriage, women's ordination, sexual
orientation, and the leadership of the Church. Andrew Village
analyzes each topic to show how opinion varied by sex, age,
education, location, ordination, and church tradition. Shifts that
occurred in the period between the two surveys are then examined,
and the results paint a detailed picture of how beliefs and
attitudes vary across the Church and have evolved over time. This
work uncovers some unforeseen but important trends that will shape
the trajectory of the Church in the years ahead.
Despite being widely recognized as John Wesley's key moment of
Christian conversion, Aldersgate has continued to mystify regarding
its exact meaning and significance to Wesley personally. This book
brings clarity to the impact this event had on Wesley over the
course of his lifetime by closely examining all of Wesley's
writings pertaining to Aldersgate and framing them within the wider
context of contemporary conversion narratives. The central aim of
this study is to establish Wesley's interpretation of his
Aldersgate experience as it developed from its initial impressions
on the night of 24 May 1738 to its mature articulation in the
1770s. By paying close attention to the language of his diaries,
letters, journals, sermons, tracts and other writings, fresh
insights into Wesley's own perspective are revealed. When these
insights are brought into wider context of other conversion
narratives in the Christian milieu in which Wesley worked and
wrote, this book demonstrates that this single event contributed in
significant ways to the ethos of the Methodist movement, and many
other denominations, even up to the present day. This is a unique
study of the conversion of one of history's most influential
Christian figures, and the impact that such narratives still have
on us today. As such, it will be of great use to scholars of
Methodism, theology, religious history and religious studies more
generally.
In these studies, Alec Cheyne explores the history of the churches
of Scotland since the Reformation.Professor Cheyne looks especially
at the leaders: among them Robert Rollock, Robert Leighton, William
Carstares, Thomas Chalmers, John Tulloch, John Caird, Henry
Drummond, John Baillie and Donald Baillie. He illuminates just how
much change and diversity in thought, worship, government and
culture these four hundred years have witnessed in the churches -
far greater than has traditionally been supposed. He also describes
the importance of the constant interaction between ecclesiastical
and academic affairs, and the very wide influence of the churches
on Scottish life as a whole.A significant work of Scottish history
and reference.
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