The Jesus People movement of the late 1960s and 1970s was an important force in the lives of millions of American Baby Boomers. This unique combination of the hippie counterculture and evangelical Christianity first appeared amid 1967's famed "Summer of Love" in San Francisco's Haight-Ashbury district and grew like wildfire in Southern California and in cities like Seattle, Atlanta, and Milwaukee. In 1971 the growing movement found its way into the national spotlight, attracting a great deal of contemporary media and scholarly attention. In the wake of publicity, the movement gained momentum and attracted a huge new following among evangelical church youth who enthusiastically adopted the Jesus People persona as their own. In the process, the movement spread across the country - particularly into the Great Lakes region - and coffeehouses, "Jesus Music" singers, and "One Way" bumper stickers soon blanketed the land. Within a few years, however, the movement faded and disappeared and was largely forgotten by everyone but those who had filled its ranks. God's Forever Family is the first major attempt to re-examine the Jesus People phenomenon in over thirty years. It reveals that it was one of the most important American religious movements of the second half of the 20th-century. Not only did the Jesus movement produce such burgeoning new evangelical groups as Calvary Chapel and the Vineyard movement, but the Jesus People paved the way for the huge Contemporary Christian Music industry and the rise of "Praise Music" in the nation's churches. More significantly, perhaps, it revolutionized evangelicals' relationship with youth and popular culture-important factors in the evangelical subculture's emerging engagement with the larger American culture from the late 1970s forward. God's Forever Family makes the case that the Jesus People movement not only helped create a resurgent evangelicalism but - alongside the hippie counterculture and the student movement - must be considered one of the major formative powers that shaped American youth in the late 1960s and 1970s.

The growth of Christianity in the global South is one of the most important religious stories of the last decade. In no branch of Christianity has that growth been more rapid than Pentecostalism. There are over 100 million Pentecostals in Africa, and Pentecostal practices infuse Catholic, Anglican, and Independent churches. In the traditional Catholic stronghold of Latin America, Pentecostalism now vies with Catholicism for the soul of the continent. And the largest Pentecostsal church in the world, with over 800,000 members, is in Seoul. In To the Ends of the Earth, Allan Anderson offers a historical and theological examination of the growth of global Pentecostalism. Examining such issues as revivalism, healing, gender, worship, and globalization, Anderson seeks to show how the growth of global Pentecostalism is changing the face of Christianity as a whole.

Charles Hodge (1797-1878) was one of nineteenth-century America's leading theologians, owing in part to a lengthy teaching career, voluminous writings, and a faculty post at one of the nation's most influential schools, Princeton Theological Seminary. Surprisingly, the only biography of this towering figure was written by his son, just two years after his death. Paul Gutjahr's book, therefore, is the first modern critical biography of a man some have called the Pope of Presbyterianism...Hodge's legacy is especially important to American Presbyterians. His brand of theological conservatism became vital in the 1920s, as Princeton Seminary saw itself, and its denomination, split. The conservative wing held unswervingly to the Old School tradition championed by Hodge, and ultimately founded the breakaway Orthodox Presbyterian Church. The views that Hodge developed, refined, and propagated helped shape many of the central traditions of twentieth- and twenty-first-century American evangelicalism. Hodge helped establish a profound reliance on the Bible among evangelicals, and he became one of the nation's most vocal proponents of biblical inerrancy. Gutjahr's study reveals the exceptional depth, breadth, and longevity of Hodge's theological influence and illuminates the varied and complex nature of conservative American Protestantism.

Divine healing is the essential marker of the global phenomenon of Pentecostal and charismatic Christianity. But although we know that healing is central in these movements, we know surprisingly little about how divine healing beliefs and practices reflect the interplay of local and global patterns of cultural development. The essays in this collection seek to discover what is the same and what is different about such beliefs and practices in diverse contexts, trace formal and informal lines of cultural influence across geographic and national boundaries, and ask how healing both reflects and contributes to larger processes of globalization. The collection will not only flesh out a picture of how and why spiritual healing is practiced in diverse cultural contexts and how healing practices reflect and shape the transnational spread of Christianity; it will also provide insight into the nature of globalization. The authors will attend to a wide range of issues, including the theological rationales for divine healing; the symbolic objects and ritual enactments employed; the cultural controversies surrounding these practices; the relationship between Christian healing and local or indigenous healing traditions; whether an emphasis on financial prosperity is always present; and the extent to which Pentecostal and charismatic churches are networked and the role of healing in such networks. All the essays are new to this volume.

Jonathan Edwards (1703-58) is widely recognized as America's greatest religious mind. A torrent of books, articles, and dissertations on Edwards have been released since 1949, the year that Perry Miller published the intellectual biography that launched the modern explosion of Edwards studies. This collection offers an introduction to Edwards's life and thought, pitched at the level of the educated general reader. Each chapter serves as a general introduction to one of Edwards's major topics, including revival, the Bible, beauty, literature, philosophy, typology, and even world religions. Each is written by a leading expert on Edwards's work. The book will serve as an ideal first encounter with the thought of "America's theologian."

The astonishing growth of Christianity in the global South over the course of the twentieth century has sparked an equally rapid growth in studies of ''World Christianity, '' which have dismantled the notion that Christianity is a Western religion. What, then, are we to make of the waves of Western missionaries who have, for centuries, been evangelizing in the global South? Were they merely, as many have argued, agents of imperialism out to impose Western values? In An Unpredictable Gospel, Jay Case examines the efforts of American evangelical missionaries in light of this new scholarship. He argues that if they were agents of imperialism, they were poor ones. Western missionaries had a dismal record of converting non-Westerners to Christianity. The ministries that were most successful were those that empowered the local population and adapted to local cultures. In fact, influence often flowed the other way, with missionaries serving as conduits for ideas that shaped American evangelicalism. Case traces these currents and sheds new light on the relationship between Western and non-Western Christianities.

Ranging from the medieval period to the present day, this is a brief history of church music as it has developed through the English tradition. Described as "a quick journey", it provides a broad historical survey rather than an in-depth study of the subject, and also predicts likely future trends.

In the English-speaking world Ernst Kasemann's name is associated primarily with the renewed quest for the historical Jesus which he helped to initiate in the mid-1950s. In addition he is well known for his passionate theological commitment, and for the highly polemical character and sheer difficulty of his writing. There is less appreciation of the breadth of Kasemann's interests, the system of his thought, and the key role of his understanding of Pauline theology within the whole. This study, the first of any length to be written in English, seeks to redress this imbalance. Dr Way traces Kasemann's views from his doctoral dissertation to his magnum opus, the Commentary on Romans. From its context in German Protestant theology, Kasemann's Pauline interpretation is systematically analysed and emphasis is given to the major theological themes which identify the continuing significance of his interpretation to biblical scholars and the Church. Certain unpublished lectures and letters are referred to in tracing Kasemann's views, and the influence of this most provocative of Rudolf Bultmann's students on contemporary New Testament scholarship is assessed.

In the years since 1945, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has grown rapidly in terms of both numbers and public prominence. Mormonism is no longer merely a home-grown American religion, confined to the Intermountain West; instead, it has captured the attention of political pundits, Broadway audiences, and prospective converts around the world. While most scholarship on Mormonism concerns its colorful but now well-known early history, the essays in this collection assess recent developments, such as the LDS Church's international growth and acculturation; its intersection with conservative politics in recent decades; its stances on same-sex marriage and the role of women; and its ongoing struggle to interpret its own tumultuous history. The scholars draw on a wide variety of Mormon voices as well as those of outsiders, from Latter-day Saints in Hyderabad, India, to "Mormon Mommy blogs," to evangelical "countercult" ministries. Out of Obscurity brings the story of Mormonism since the Second World War into sharp relief, explaining the ways in which a church very much rooted in its nineteenth-century prophetic and pioneering past achieved unprecedented influence in the realms of American politics and international business.

This is a biography of Hensley Henson, one of the most controversial religious figures in England during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. This book examines Henson's education at Oxford University and describes the highlights of his career as pastor of Ilford and Barking Church, as canon of Westminster Abbey, and as bishop of Hereford and Durham. It explores his involvement in political issues and his controversial views on such issues as divorce, the Italian invasion of Abyssinia, and the anti-Semitic policies of Nazi Germany.

Although La Monte Young is one of the most important composers of the late twentieth century, he is also one of the most elusive. Generally recognized as the patriarch of the minimalist movement-Brian Eno once called him "the daddy of us all"-he nonetheless remains an enigma within the music world. Early in his career Young eschewed almost completely the conventional musical institutions of publishers, record labels, and venues, in order to create compositions completely unfettered by commercial concerns. At the same time, however, he exercised profound influence on such varied figures as Terry Riley, Cornelius Cardew, Andy Warhol, Yoko Ono, David Lang, Velvet Underground, and entire branches of electronica and drone music. For half a century he and his partner and collaborator, Marian Zazeela, have worked in near-seclusion in their Tribeca loft, creating works that explore the furthest extremes of conceptual audacity, technical sophistication, acoustical complexity, and overt spirituality. Because Young gives interviews only rarely, and almost never grants access to his extensive archives, his importance as a composer has heretofore not been matched by a commensurate amount of scholarly scrutiny. Draw A Straight Line and Follow It: The Music and Mysticism of La Monte Young stands as the first monograph to examine Young's life and work in detail. The book is a culmination of a decade of research, during which the author gained rare access to the composer and his archives. Though loosely structured upon the chronology of the composer's career, the book takes a multi-disciplinary approach that combines biography, musicology, ethnomusicology, and music analysis, and illuminates such seemingly disparate aspects of Young's work as integral serialism and indeterminacy, Mormon esoterica and Vedic mysticism, and psychedelia and psychoacoustics. The book is a long-awaited, in-depth look at one of America's most fascinating musical figures.

Latter-day Saints have a paradoxical relationship to the past; even as they invest their own history with sacred meaning, celebrating the restoration of ancient truths and the fulfillment of biblical prophecies, they repudiate the eighteen centuries of Christianity preceding the founding of their church as apostate distortions of the truth. Since the early days of Mormonism, Latter-day Saints (LDS) have used the paradigm of apostasy and restoration in their narratives about the origin of their church. This has generated a powerful and enduring binary of categorization that has profoundly impacted Mormon self-perception and relations with others. Standing Apart explores how the idea of apostasy has functioned as a category to mark, define, and set apart "the other" in Mormon historical consciousness and in the construction of Mormon narrative identity. The volume's fifteen contributors trace the development of LDS narratives of apostasy within the context of both Mormon history and American Protestant historiography. They suggest ways in which these narratives might be reformulated to engage with the past, as well as offering new models for interfaith relations. This volume provides a novel approach for understanding and resolving some of the challenges the LDS church faces in the twenty-first century.

Is Heaven on Earth Really Possible?

When we struggle with defeat and discouragement, the Holy Spirit is the key to victory and peace. Best-selling author Dr. Myles Munroe shows how to bring order to the chaos in your life, receive God’s power to heal and deliver, fulfill your true purpose with joy, be a leader in your sphere of influence, and be part of God’s government on earth. We have access to the unseen world of the Spirit and can bring heavenly influence to earth. When you receive God’s Spirit into your life, you will find that His gifts are your birthright. Receive the fullness of God’s Spirit and start living in the spiritual power that God has promised you. “It is to your advantage that I go away; for if I do not go away, the Helper will not come to you; but if I depart, I will send Him to you” (John 16:7 NKJV).

With 16.3 million members and 44,000 churches, the Southern Baptist Convention is the largest Baptist group in the world, and the largest Protestant denomination in the United States. Unlike the so-called mainstream Protestant denominations, Southern Baptists have remained stubbornly conservative, refusing to adapt their beliefs and practices to modernity's individualist and populist values. Instead, they have held fast to traditional orthodoxy in such fundamental areas as biblical inspiration, creation, conversion, and miracles. Gregory Wills argues that Southern Baptist Theological Seminary has played a fundamental role in the persistence of conservatism, not entirely intentionally. Tracing the history of the seminary from the beginning to the present, Wills shows how its foundational commitment to preserving orthodoxy was implanted in denominational memory in ways that strengthened the denomination's conservatism and limited the seminary's ability to stray from it. In a set of circumstances in which the seminary played a central part, Southern Baptists' populist values bolstered traditional orthodoxy rather than diminishing it. In the end, says Wills, their populism privileged orthodoxy over individualism. The story of Southern Seminary is fundamental to understanding Southern Baptist controversy and identity. Wills's study sheds important new light on the denomination that has played - and continues to play - such a central role in our national history.

Pastor of Angelus Temple and the Dream Center, founder Matthew Barnett leads participants on a six-week learning experience to understand how simple it is to make a lasting impact on their world. It is not as daunting as we might think. World-changers start with a heart open to the leading of the Holy Spirit and a willingness to do as he asks. Ideal for small groups, Bible studies, and church classes, this kit includes a copy of the book One Small Step, a DVD with an in-depth video for each session, and a participant's guide to help members hear the Holy Spirit's voice and obey his nudges. Also included are small step activities to participate in, throughout the study and beyond. Boldly embrace the life-changing adventure of becoming the hands and feet of Jesus to the people right outside your front door. You will soon discover that "random acts of kindness" are not so random after all.